A Sad Good Bye with a Happy Ending

This week is our summer family vacation...really a reunion with James' family. Luckily for the rest of us, one of James' brothers married a girl with parents who have a fantastic cabin on a lake in Montana. And even better, those parents are super generous and let us hold our reunions there from time to time.

This year, though, became a little bit tricky. We were about 10 minutes North of the border when our van just slipped out of gear. James pulled over and tried again to get it into gear. No love. So then we called for a tow and then we called for a rescue. And now here we are at the cabin, with no van, but lots of sunshine and fun.

Here's how I know Heavenly Father was looking out for us yesterday:

1. We broke down right at a place to pull off the 2 lane highway. There was room for our van, our stuff, the tow truck and the rescuers from the cabin.

2. We broke down at one of the few spots of cell phone coverage in the whole last half of the drive.

3. James had packed the van while I was still at church, so there wasn't as much to drink in the car as I would usually bring. This meant that during the whole drive and the 2 hour stranding, while I might have been parched, I didn't have to resort to peeing in the bushes!! And do you know why this was an even greater blessing than you might first think?? Since I was coming right from church I was wearing the usual church clothes including my body shaper and 3 inch heels. This would NOT have been an easy trip to the woods.

We got the news today from the dealer...it's the transmission like we thought and not just some connecting hose or something easy like we'd hoped.

But we have had that van for 9 years and 250000kms, so it's not a big surprise. And even though it's dirty, and lately it's been smelling a bit like rotten bananas, and a headlight casing is broken, and the windshield is cracked, and it's rusted out and looks kind of polka-dotted, it's still like saying good bye to an old friend. A friend that's gone with you to Disneyland, and brought home a baby from the hospital, and gone shopping and to the movies and out to eat. But still, at the heart of it, a friend that has BO, greasy hair and zits.

So good bye rusted out workhorse of a van, and hello shiny new Toyota!!

Now, if I was super smart, I'd be able to upload the pictures of our roadside adventure from my phone to here.