Friday, April 4, 2008

I thought it was Spring "Break"

So Noah's Spring Break began today at 3:15. I picked him up from school and we were all in a pretty good mood. The weather was beautiful and we have fun plans made for all next week, including a night at a hotel with a pool that I already paid for online next Thursday. (This fact will be important in a few minutes)

Our van was making some funny noises yesterday and even more today. We have only had it for a year and bought it under unpleasant circumstances at that. It has 102+ K miles on it and we owe for three more years still.

Do you see what's coming?

Oh yeah. After a lengthy discussion after Steve got home about how best to plan out our weekend (we can usually afford one fast meal out a weekend) we decided to use our coupon to Noodles & Company (if you don't know this restaurant, you should, it's wonderful) and as we were driving I started pointing out the noise problems to Steve. About halfway there on the highway, a scary hazard light started blinking and the car was having trouble accelerating. As I was panicking and looking for an exit to get off and turn around, Steve was frantically searching the manual for what the light meant.

When he found it, the description said, "Service immediately" so Steve wanted to take back roads toward home and stop at a diagnostic place on the way back home. It was now 5:45 and the boys REALLY needed to eat so I suggested "Let's at least get the boys home", which we did. Steve left immediately to take the car somewhere and I cooked up some Mac and Cheese for the boys. As the boys settled to eat and I with my bowl of cereal (we're out of food at the moment) Steve calls on the phone, yelling at the top of his lungs "I'M STUCK AT INTERSECTION...THE VAN WON'T MOVE...PEOPLE ARE HONKING AT ME...COME NOW!" It also contained a few profanities but this is a family friendly blog so I won't repeat them.

So I scooped up the boys, and headed out to the car. Noah started SCREAMING "I WANT TO EAT" and he had real tears coming down his face. So I grabbed his bowl of mac and cheese, piled them into Steve's truck (a $1 purchase from my brother about 2 years ago) and headed off to save my husband.

After about 45 minutes later, the boys had had it with being stuck in the car watching Daddy and two police officers in the middle of an intersection waiting for the tow truck, we got the van towed to the transmission place that Steve had just left, cleaned out all the stuff, and left.

We have a lot of decisions to make. We are struggling to make our monthly bills each month so we have no options for purchasing a new vehicle. This is our second minivan that has blown a transmission. We are facing a week of Spring Break and possibly no vehicle. I have paid for a hotel room that I can not get a refund for (travelocity) and we may not be able to use.

I have to let this go for the weekend since they can't look at it until Monday anyway.

Here's the fun part of the story...we are on our way home when we realize that Noah is the only one who has eaten dinner. Aaron had eaten some of his green beans and a few bites of mac n cheese and Steve and I hadn't eaten anything yet. I grabbed the boys so quickly while Steve was yelling at me that I never even put shoes on them. None of us felt like figuring out anything else for dinner.

So,

We drive to the ice cream place less than a mile away and had ICE CREAM for dinner. We did explain to the workers why our children did not have shoes ion and they were allowed to remain.

I was feeling so full after ice cream (since I haven't had a lot of sweets in quite a while) that I asked Steve if it was okay for me to walk home. I felt much better when I got home and Steve was impressed with the good time I made.

We still did "movie night" partially with the boys. We watched "Enchanted". I liked this movie when we saw it in the theater but I am not sure how the boys will like the rest of it tomorrow when it gets scary. We'll see.

So I can only hope that Spring Break has an upward swing soon. Otherwise, it is going to be a rough week.

At least the boys think tonight was an adventure.

9 comments:

Kristi said...

testing...

Laski said...

OK. So I feel like giving you a hug and a new car. What an adventure!

I hope things start improving and soon! You all deserve to enjoy the break.

Keep me updated on how things go . . .

Take care--L

Stacey,momof 2 said...

Oh, I am so sorry!
It's nice when the dear husband sees that the car noises aren't just you--
At least at my household!
My old van broke down on Easter one year... while I was out trying to quickly get Easter baskets together!
I wish I could help... so I guess I will do some praying on your behalf!

Anonymous said...

Oh what an ordeal!!! We drive old cars that break down way too often. We take my husband to work if we need the car and the other one is in the shop, hopefully you can work out something like that. Ice cream for dinner sounds FUN! That's a great way to end such a rotten experience.

Debbie @ Three Weddings said...

You win! Our spring break was the week before Easter and started with illness and we had to cancel our trip to Colorado. At least we were able to get our money back for the trip and the car was fine. I feel so sorry for you all. Someday you will look back and laugh about this, right? I hope. Until then, sending you cyber hugs. I am so sorry.

Anonymous said...

Maybe you should go back and get your teaching certificate updated so you can get a job and won't have all of these financial pressures - just a thought!

bethn said...

Oh Kristi, I'm so sorry that happened. I hope your weekend goes better and that your car gets fixed soon. We'll keep you in our prayers. Remind me sometime to tell you about Mark's car dilemma 2 days after we brought Dylan home from the hospital. Lots of hugs, prayers, and love.

Deb said...

It's one of those situations where you don't know whether to laugh at the irony of it or cry... I'm crying with you though - I know how hard it is and remember what we went through when Ron's van broke down. I hope that you can find a way to get it fixed cheaply.

I'm always here when you need to vent! :)

daisy said...

Dear anonymous commenter above,

Do you really think they haven't considered that? Don't you think they have valid reasons for the life decisions they have made?

Maybe you should say who you really are when you make snippy judgments about other people's choices instead of hiding behind an "anonymous" moniker.

just a thought

Okay, sorry, Kristi--don't want to start a rumble, but really. People irritate me. Please don't kick me off your blog. I promise I'll be nice from now on. :)