We Tried To Leave Town

There was a mix-up with the championship meet sign-ups.  Neither Andrew or Carter were signed up and by the time we realized, it was too late.  There were some pretty sad boys around our house for a while.  To remedy the "I can't go swimming" blues, we decided to take the kids to Boise to visit the aquarium, visit cousins, and to do a little school shopping.  Steve also had an appointment to look at computers for the new office.  We were all loaded up in the car by 8am Saturday morning ready to roll.

Here the kids are watching a movie on the portable player.

Don't they look enthused?

At Mountain Home we stopped for our usual Dixon family pit stop. (meaning...I drank too much caffeine on the way and needed to stop)  On our way out of the gas station, our car would not go into gear- not reverse, not forward...nothing.  Our transmission went out.

So, we did what any family would do...we called a tow truck and then took the kids back into the gas station to loaded up on cheddar ruffles and sour patch kids.  Because such things help in times of crisis.

After a lovely short ride with some scary looking but very kind tow-truck drivers, we found ourselves at the GMC dealership in Mountain Home.  They confirmed that our transmission was indeed broken and that they could not even order the part we needed until Monday, the part wouldn't be in until at least Wednesday, and our car wouldn't be ready until Friday.

Nice.

The icing on the cake?

There were no, as in zip, as in zero rental cars available in town that would fit our freakishly gigantic family of six.  We had to call my poor parents to come and get us.

We made the best of the two hour wait by eating junk food and watching the Olympic games on the dealership's cable.  It was a perk.

None-the-less, some of us were pretty disappointed about missing out on fish and cousins.

Not necessarily in that order.

Some of us were down right upset.

But we made the best of it and begged a ride from the dealership to the local Wingers restaurant.

Soda and popcorn make everything a little better.

 (YES, this is after the kids already ate a huge bag of ruffles and a few other items from the dealerships vending machines.  Were raising our kids to be stress eaters.  Lovely.)

 I even found out Wingers has a gluten free menu.  BONUS!

Steve was the happiest of all.

 His culinary dreams came true when he found out this Wingers offered...

Fried Chicken and Waffles!

This is a dish Steve has wanted to try for a very long time.  His gluteny (not to be confused with gluttony) feast did not disappoint.

However...a simple gluten free salad was a little pathetic compared to chicken and waffles.

My dad made it to the restaurant just as we were finishing up and right as the wings we ordered for him came out of the fryer.  He ate his lunch and then we piled into his car and headed for home.

Our car is very similar to my parents' car and as all three boys crammed themselves into the back, Andrew exclaimed that we weren't allowed to have any more kids because we all wouldn't fit into our car.  

I'll take that into advisement Andrew. (Insert eye roll here)

After we got home, Steve and I talked about the day's events and how thoroughly blessed our family had been.  Things could have been so different, but we lucked out in every way.  For instance:

-Our car stopped working at a gas station and not on the freeway in the middle of nowhere. (gas stations have food and bathrooms!)

-The tow truck was there in 15 minutes.

-There was a dealer who could fix our car 5 miles away from where we broke down.

-My parents were in town and able to come get us.

-I was not by myself when this happened.  The Acadia is my primary vehicle.

-The entire repair is covered by warranty.  (SCORE!)

Our family is truly watched over and we are very grateful.

To reiterate this gratitude, we had a family home evening lesson taught by Carter last night on gratitude.

After Carter read about gratitude in the new FSOY pamphlet, each of us took our turn telling what we were grateful for.  Each of the boys said lovely things like family, the gospel, our home and Dad's job. 

Steve said, "A beautiful wife, four wonderful children...and bacon.

I'm so happy the kids and I came before bacon.