Saturday, August 13, 2011

Our little adventure...


This is a long post, but I wanted to record it so I remember it.

Yesterday, I had the idea to drive Rob to work. Not such a bad idea except that his work is 45 minutes away. The reason that I had this idea was because we needed to look at a house about 5 minutes away from his office to see if we wanted to make an offer on it. The morning drive went well, the kids were great and I made it back safe even though I was really stressed because of all of the construction on the freeway and the fact that I didn't have my phone with me. But it went well.

On the way to pick him up after work, everything was fine...there was a lot of traffic, but I made it all the way there and the kids were awesome again. Sadie fell asleep actually so that was good. We picked Rob up and proceeded to drive over to look at the house. On the way there we saw the UP house. We didn't drive very close to it, but it was cool because there were a ton of balloons sticking out of the chimney. We were going to drive right by it on the way home, but we forgot.

Anyway, we got back on the freeway and headed home with Rob at the wheel. We made it to Thanksgiving Point (almost-about 1 mile away) when Rob noticed the car completely lost power. Great. We were in the carpool lane in the middle of rush hour traffic. So I told him to get over quick before we lost momentum. He was a pro and got over to the shoulder and we slowed to a stop. It wasn't a very big shoulder but it would have to do. We proceeded to call my mom and have her look up tow truck companies in the area so we could get towed because our car would not even start. We sat in the car for about 25 minutes and the kids were just being so great sitting in their car seats when finally someone said they would be there in 20 minutes. I didn't think the kids would last that long, so we got out and proceeded to walk down a dirt embankment (in my flip flops...now I know why my dad always told me to wear shoes!) and across a construction zone to a gas station across a street. Now, getting across the construction zone is a story all on it's own (I was carrying Zac, holding Sadie's hand and trying to figure out how to get across this huge trench while about 20 construction workers just watched. Finally a guy in a tractor hopped out and escorted us across!), but we made it to the gas station. From there, my brother picked us up and drove us home after we waited there for about an hour and a half.

Anyway, that night when we got home I was just pretty frustrated about the whole thing and why it had to happen. Especially when we remembered that we had left the kids blankets that they sleep with every night in the car at the shop. So annoying! Then I woke up in the middle of the night and wasn't able to sleep because I could not stop thinking about how blessed we were to have it happen how it did:

-We could have broken down that morning when I was alone with the kids without my phone. That would have been terrible.

-We could have broken down in a construction zone where there was no shoulder to pull over on or even where the lanes on the freeway split.(you know what I'm talking about if you have driven on the I-15 recently) In that case we would have caused a whole backup of the freeway.

-We could have broken down where the kids and I weren't able to get out of the car.

- Evan was able to come pick us up...even though him and his wife had plans to go out to eat that night. He came anyway and probably drove an hour total to get us home. Thanks! (Sorry Shanna!)

-Rob was able to get us all the way across four lanes of traffic during rush hour within seconds. It was amazing. I am so glad he was driving!

-My mom was home and able to help us look up numbers of tow trucks.

Now when I think about it, it is a little annoying not having a car right now, but it couldn't have happened any better. Kinda weird. Anyway, thanks to everyone who helped us get home last night. We won't find out how much it costs to fix our car until Monday. :)



And here is a picture of my little troopers. Sadie was a HUGE help at the gas station because Zac was being really wiggly and a nuisance. I love my kiddos!



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just getting caught up on the blogging world. Wow! Can't believe that happened! What a blessing you are all safe! Also, I am proud of you were making it through the ultrasound! I want to have a "surprise" baby eventually. :) You are awesome and you have super cute kiddos! We need to hang out soon!

Shanna Selin said...

I'm glad everything worked out and I'm glad Evan could go get you. Calvin loved playing at the mall while he was gone. Hope your car isn't too expensive to fix!

Carrie Selin said...

Little blessings - nice that you could ponder and count them. And why not consider putting an offer in for the Up House?

Shirl and Bill said...

I hate car trouble.!! I had roadside help added to my insurance. Had to use them 3 times. But boy am I glad I had it. Hope all is well with the car. You were really blessed to make it through it all...