we made it!

Just a little update with our car in case anyone is wondering....we got it last Friday! Hurray! It ended up needing a new transmission and a new clutch. The mechanic walked us through his shop to the back parking lot so we could smell it. He said it stunk up his garage like no other broken part had ever done before. I didn't know if I should feel embarrassed or proud. We were planning to get it on Saturday but the weather was predicted to be very bad. Joseph called me from work Friday morning and said he thought we had better get on the road as soon as we could. So I called our babysitters to see if they could come sooner. We were supposed to be Mary and Joseph in our ward's Christmas Activity that evening, so I called people to make other arrangements. I also had noticed a leak in Ansel's room, so I was getting estimates on a roof repair. (Turns out we need a new roof.......which they are putting on right now.) I also finished getting our secondary beneficiary paper work finished for our new life insurance policy (If we were going to die on the trip, we wanted the guardian of our children to benefit from the policy.)

There was a little snow and poor visibility in Northern Utah and part of Idaho, but the roads were not real bad. We made it to Pocatello 30 mins before the shop closed and then headed to Rexburg to return Bekah's car (they generously lent it to us for 2 weeks!) After dropping off the car we stopped in Idaho Falls to surprise Kate working at the hotel, but she had the night off. It was then that we realized we did not return Bekah's car key to her. (And they do not have a spare.) We were concerned about the weather and she said she could come pick it up at the hotel. So we got on our way back home. There were only 45 mins of the drive home that we were extremely stressed and concerned we might die. There was a lot of snow/slush on the road that would push the car around a little and the main concern was drivers who were driving too fast or not staying inside their lanes. I'm glad Joseph was driving and not me! Anyway, after our 10 hour trip we were almost home and we got pulled over. Joseph has never been pulled over in his whole life and is a careful and mathematical driver (it's not real logical to speed), but we thought it figured. A brake light was out and he noticed it when we picked up the car, but we were going to fix it when we got home.

Anyway, we feel very blessed to be back home nice and safe! That was our crazy adventure. On a positive note, it was kinda like a super date. We got to spend so much time chatting, hanging out and not being interrupted by the kids with anything.