The bad news came after I left my friend's house. (And it wasn't until I was pulling out that it hit me that I said goodbye to her, since she is moving. I haven't had to say bye to a friend in a couple of years, and it was a strange feeling. In some ways, I'm still used to it, as I lived the military life for almost 5 years, but in other ways, it was difficult.) Anyway, I was taking the girls grocery shopping (my first trip with both of them!) As we turned left across the road to get to the parking lot, the van started shaking and sputtering. We limped into the parking lot and parked. I briefly debated if I should shop yet or not, but I decided that I was already there, I needed groceries, and if I couldn't drive home, I couldn't get back to the store later. So we did our shopping, which took twice as long as normal. Annabelle's car seat is too big to fit in the cart and still shop, so I wore her in the sling. (I should have used my wrap instead, but I didn't feel like putting it on, so I did the sling, and it just is not as comfortable!) Grace did mostly ok, but she was just full of energy and wanted to run. We finished our shopping finally, got loaded into the car, and I started the engine. It started to shake so bad I felt like the engine was going to fall out! I turned it off quickly and called John to update him. (I had called him while shopping to tell him what happened.) Then I called Roadside Assistance through our cell phones (so glad we have that plan!) and after an initial run-around of them not having record of us paying for the service, we finally got everything worked out for them to tow us. John got a coworker to come pick us up. Did I mention that it was almost 100 degrees outside AND I had lots of groceries that needed to stay cool? I had to unload the cold stuff back into the cart and wait inside the store.
John rode with the tow truck to the shop. Our car was at the shop, waiting for the a/c to get fixed. The part hasn't come in yet, so John took it back so we have something to drive. My in-laws fly in today, but thankfully, my mom is going to pick them up from the airport and bring them to us so they don't have to drive 1.5 hours in an un-air-conditioned car in such hot weather.
It was such a long day! I'm glad we have a bright future ahead of us, because if we didn't have that job lined up, I would be so stressed about having to pay for both car repairs! God is so good to provide what we need when we need it!
