Friday, January 7, 2011

How to spend $1,000

Ahh! So it appears to be time for Jenn's "every two month" blog posting.  Oh yeah, we are THAT on top of it, people. Geesh! 

So, what have we been up to, you ask? Let me tell you! We've been contributing to our mechanic's bank account quite steadily over the past month. He's grinning ear to ear (honestly, he's a sweet, sweet guy that we highly recommend) but us...not so much. 

The weekend of December 19th was not a fun one for Marcus. He worked two 14+ hour long days in a row getting ready for our church Christmas program. The night before the program he was up until 2AM working on slides for said program, had to get up at 5:45AM to get to the church and was there until almost 11:00PM. It was a tough day. And nothing caps off a tough day than walking out to your car and finding it dead as dead can be.  Praise God a friend of ours was still at the church and gave him a ride home. 

That was Sunday, December 19th. We were supposed to head to Iowa the next day for Christmas, but that didn't happen until Tuesday.  Monday was spent getting the Jeep towed to our mechanic and waiting to see what the deal was.  Turns out the Jeep is dying a slow death.  I won't go into details (basically because I don't speak 'car' and have no clue what it all means) but in a nutshell we will have to get a new car sooner rather than later.  Thankfully they were able to put a band-aid on the problem and it was safe to drive for the time being. 

We head to Iowa that Tuesday and enjoy 11 glorious days with my family and have a fantastic Christmas.  We head back to Nashville on Saturday, which happens to be New Years Day.  Thankfully the roads were dead and traffic wasn't an issue. 

We were tootleing along in our Mazda 5 (great car, btw) and got through Peoria, IL when all of a sudden BBBAAAAAAMMMM!!!  It felt like we ran into something.  If you've ever driven on Illinois roads you know they are total crap. And boy did we find the crap load here.  We hit a MASSIVE pothole and our car instantly started vibrating.  Not a good sign. 

I don't know if any of you have experienced major car issues on a long trip, but it is amplified by 100 when you have your two year old kid with you...who's not happy to be strapped down to begin with, and you're running out of ways to keep him entertained, and...gulp...his safety is compromised. 

Thankfully we were next to an exit so we pulled off to see what was wrong.  BTW, it is FREAKING COLD out and the wind is between 20-30 mph.  These conditions create ample pissed off Brazilian grounds.

Said Brazilian (that would be Marcus) looks under the car and can't see anything hanging down or leaking out of the wheel or wheel area, but the wheel is vibrating and we know something is wrong.  It was New Years Day, a Saturday, and nothing was open.  He called around to see if we could find someone to take a look at the car, but alas, nothing was found.  I'm sitting there praying my little heart out, trying to look calm, but geesh...

After 10 or 15 minutes trying to figure something out, we just decided to go for it and try to make it home.  And we did, praise God. 

Turns out the wheel was bent from the impact and now the tire itself is all jacked up. We got the wheel fixed but still need to get a new tire. It seriously could have been a lot worse and we are so thankful that we made it home safely. But dang, if you're driving in Illinois, watch out for some massive craters in the road.