Only One More Today...I Promise!

Okay, our vacation took me away from my regularly scheduled blogging so I'm catching up a little today. 

So this is a pre-trip, Lara-style, crazy praise...

On Saturday, June 26th, we needed to pack up our eldest, Caleb, for a 12-day trip to China, pack the rest of our family up for a week-long, road trip to Chicago with a stop over in Michigan, and take Winston to the kennel.  Caleb needed to go over to his grandparents so they could drop him off at the airport Sunday morning because we were going to pull out of the driveway NO LATER than midnight.  Now toss into the adventures of the day that Josiah had double-header baseball make-up games scheduled on Saturday and Keziah had her Chinese dance class plus a swimming birthday party for one of her dancing friends right after.

Fine.  We could make it all work.  Divide and conquer the morning and early afternoon stuff and then we'd be free to pack and finish up all necessary laundry and housecleaning.  No Problem.

Have you already guessed that we had a problem?

I took Keziah to dance class and her party time.  She had a blast!  But as the party was wrapping up, I was trying to have us be one of the first families to leave.  Hurried her along.  Packed up her things.  Said our polite good-byes.  Scurried out to my SUV.  Hopped in and started to loop around their driveway to leave.

Hmmm...funny thing...I didn't remember their driveway being so bumpy?

Uhm...(second look)...it wasn't bumpy at all...nice smoothly paved...UH_OH!

I stopped  and hopped out.  Driver's side front tire...totally flat...on the rim.

Did I mention that it was HOT!?!

I gathered up Keziah again as we got back out of the car to beg for some hospitality from our gracious hostess right after I called Christopher.  The last baseball game was wrapping up so he came as soon as he could.

Oh, and to make things even funnier I have to mention that our hostess has three great big boys (19, 22, and 26) all at home this summer.  Two were gone, one was in the shower, and I had just waved good-bye to their dad as he drove away while I started my car.

On the top of the tire I found the offending object - some mysterious piece of metal.

Realize that every party guest drove down the same roads that I did.  BUT only my car found that shard of metal!

Christopher came, changed out to the spare tire, gave me his truck to take people home for packing, rushed off to have the tire repaired (or replaced if we needed), and totally stepped in to save the day.  My Hero!

But all of this takes time.  The flat tire totally threw off our plans by several hours.  We didn't end up leaving home until 2:00AM.  (that made driving even harder)

So where are all my praises?

1)  That small shard of metal flattened the tire in just a couple of hours...not a slow leak that stranded us somewhere between home and Chicago late at night.

2)  Christopher had just recently fixed the broken latch to the spare tire/emergency jack stuff that had gotten broken

3)  The tire shop was able to repair the tire.  We still will need new tires soon, like before winter sets in, but we didn't have to add a huge expense to our trip and wait for four new tires to be installed.

4)  My friend is an incredibly gracious, sweet spirited person who allowed us to intrude into her after-party life until my Superman could save us.  Keziah loved having extra playtime, and a cool glass of water was so refreshing.  Big THANK YOU!!!

What an awesome GOD!  He takes care of all the details in my life...even in my crazy crises.