Strengthening My Testimony
We had a really neat experience on Christmas Eve. Some people may call it unfortunate, but I thought it was something wonderful to learn from and saw Heavenly Father's hand in our lives.
We were working really hard to see all sides of the family for Christmas. Christmas always ends up being quite stressful and rather long and exhausting! We worked it out this year to do our own little family Christmas Eve morning, then make our way up to Ogden, stopping at Nick and Lindsay's to see dad and Kath. Then we would continue to Ogden, spend the night, do Christmas morning there, and stop to see mom on our way home Christmas evening. These were the plans, but things change.
We had a wonderful Christmas morning here at home. Things went really well, I think Baylee had a lot of fun! We put a bunch of balloons in the living room, had the family presents under the tree and Santa presents on the couch, with her kitchen set next to the tree, the first thing seen when walking into the living room. She opened all of her presents, all of Tate's presents and most of mom and dad's presents.
We finally got packed up and started our trek up north sometime in the late afternoon, early evening. We got up north of Salt Lake City and I started noticing quite a few cars off on the shoulder, changing flat tires. I probably saw 4 or 5 cars, all within a mile of each other. We found it quite strange but continued on, not giving it much more thought. We were about two miles away from our exit when Dustin changed lanes and we hit a pothole, which then caused the car to ride almost like it had a flat tire. I just started laughing! I couldn't help it, it was too much! We just saw a bunch of cars pulled off on the side, and now we are pulling off too? No, it's too ironic! I told Dustin that we must all just think we have flat tires because of that pothole and that section of the slow lane. There's just no way that we all had flat tires on this cold, wet, Christmas Eve night. We had a flat tire.
Blessing #1) Both kids were asleep. Hallelujah! We tried to get to the spare but our trunk was full of suitcases for spending the night and Christmas presents for the entire family since we hadn't seen anyone yet. We start unloading the trunk into the car and manage to get the spare out just fine. (Let me go ahead and mention here that I usually get stressed and frustrated with situations like these and just end up crying the whole time. That being said, let's carry on.)
Right about this point another car pulls off the road just a couple of yards in front of us. I was starting to fume a bit about this dumb pothole we hit and how we just couldn't even afford to fix a tire right now. We had recently lost our second car in an accident, so this car was our last car, and it had just been damaged. I wanted the city to pay for our new tire. I wanted to call and complain. I also told Dustin that I almost wanted to go up to the car in front of us and ask him if he hit this pothole and got a flat from it.
Then Dustin tried to loosen the lug nuts so we could get the old tire off. He told me he didn't have enough leverage with what he was using and couldn't find our tire iron. Great. Stall #17. He decided that he was going to run up to the car in front of us and ask if he had a tire iron we could borrow. Kind of scary to approach a total stranger on the side of the freeway in the dark, but we didn't have many options and felt it was the best thing we could do. Dustin came back with a tire iron in hand. Yay. The guy we borrowed it from had one but it didn't fit his tire, he had some sort of new special tires that needed a key or something to loosen the lug nuts. I don't really know how or what, all I know is he had a tire iron that fit our needs but not his. Crazy.
Dustin got the old tire off and the spare on and found our tire iron. His reactions when everything worked out were the best, too! He would get all excited and happy and say, "Yes!" While looking up to the sky with a big grin on his face and one fist in the air. Love him. His great attitude really helped me not loose it during the whole thing. Anyway, as we lowered the car off the jack we realized that the spare was really flat. We had to return the tire iron though so we thought the few yards would be a good test to see if it was too flat to drive on or not. We were so close to our exit and destination! As we started driving on it, Dustin knew that it was too flat and there's no way we could drive it anymore.
We returned the tire iron to the nice man and Dustin got to talking to him, I guess, let him know our spare was flat. He was like, "Oh, I've got a pump, hang on." What? Who just has an electric pump with them all the time? Awesome! They get it all set up and start pumping. I was so happy. I knew that was why we couldn't find our tire iron to start. We never would have met this man if we'd had our tire iron, and he wouldn't have been able to help us pump up our spare. Then, once again, I was sent back to a low when Dustin told me that the tire wasn't catching. Something was wrong, it wasn't filling with air. At all. The tire was pulled into itself so much that it was only half the size of the rim, if that makes sense. The guy started slapping and hitting at the tire trying to get it to catch air. The whole car was shaking, he was hitting it pretty hard. We were just about to turn off the pump and give up when all the sudden it caught! The tire was filling up. He looked at Dustin and said, "Man, you guys must be living right." Haha! I couldn't believe it. Once again, on a high!
Shortly after the tire started filling, a police officer came to our aid. We found out from him that it was, in fact, not a pothole. It was a 150 pound piece of iron in the middle of the freeway that took 3 officers to move. I was once again humbled, quickly, too. I was so grateful that we had only a flat tire and nothing more serious. We made it safely to Clearfield and then to Riverdale, where we spent the night, and the next. Day after Christmas, places opened back up and Dustin was able to go out and buy a new tire. We even made it to mom's house before Camber left for the airport. So we had a 3 day Christmas!
I'm so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord. I gripe and complain a lot and I need to learn to quit it. I know that Heavenly Father is a loving Father who is aware of all of our situations. I'm grateful he loves and cares about me and my family, and that I've been able to see His hand in our lives so much lately. I'm also grateful for this experience to help me learn and hopefully grow.
We were working really hard to see all sides of the family for Christmas. Christmas always ends up being quite stressful and rather long and exhausting! We worked it out this year to do our own little family Christmas Eve morning, then make our way up to Ogden, stopping at Nick and Lindsay's to see dad and Kath. Then we would continue to Ogden, spend the night, do Christmas morning there, and stop to see mom on our way home Christmas evening. These were the plans, but things change.
We had a wonderful Christmas morning here at home. Things went really well, I think Baylee had a lot of fun! We put a bunch of balloons in the living room, had the family presents under the tree and Santa presents on the couch, with her kitchen set next to the tree, the first thing seen when walking into the living room. She opened all of her presents, all of Tate's presents and most of mom and dad's presents.
We finally got packed up and started our trek up north sometime in the late afternoon, early evening. We got up north of Salt Lake City and I started noticing quite a few cars off on the shoulder, changing flat tires. I probably saw 4 or 5 cars, all within a mile of each other. We found it quite strange but continued on, not giving it much more thought. We were about two miles away from our exit when Dustin changed lanes and we hit a pothole, which then caused the car to ride almost like it had a flat tire. I just started laughing! I couldn't help it, it was too much! We just saw a bunch of cars pulled off on the side, and now we are pulling off too? No, it's too ironic! I told Dustin that we must all just think we have flat tires because of that pothole and that section of the slow lane. There's just no way that we all had flat tires on this cold, wet, Christmas Eve night. We had a flat tire.
Blessing #1) Both kids were asleep. Hallelujah! We tried to get to the spare but our trunk was full of suitcases for spending the night and Christmas presents for the entire family since we hadn't seen anyone yet. We start unloading the trunk into the car and manage to get the spare out just fine. (Let me go ahead and mention here that I usually get stressed and frustrated with situations like these and just end up crying the whole time. That being said, let's carry on.)
Right about this point another car pulls off the road just a couple of yards in front of us. I was starting to fume a bit about this dumb pothole we hit and how we just couldn't even afford to fix a tire right now. We had recently lost our second car in an accident, so this car was our last car, and it had just been damaged. I wanted the city to pay for our new tire. I wanted to call and complain. I also told Dustin that I almost wanted to go up to the car in front of us and ask him if he hit this pothole and got a flat from it.
Then Dustin tried to loosen the lug nuts so we could get the old tire off. He told me he didn't have enough leverage with what he was using and couldn't find our tire iron. Great. Stall #17. He decided that he was going to run up to the car in front of us and ask if he had a tire iron we could borrow. Kind of scary to approach a total stranger on the side of the freeway in the dark, but we didn't have many options and felt it was the best thing we could do. Dustin came back with a tire iron in hand. Yay. The guy we borrowed it from had one but it didn't fit his tire, he had some sort of new special tires that needed a key or something to loosen the lug nuts. I don't really know how or what, all I know is he had a tire iron that fit our needs but not his. Crazy.
Dustin got the old tire off and the spare on and found our tire iron. His reactions when everything worked out were the best, too! He would get all excited and happy and say, "Yes!" While looking up to the sky with a big grin on his face and one fist in the air. Love him. His great attitude really helped me not loose it during the whole thing. Anyway, as we lowered the car off the jack we realized that the spare was really flat. We had to return the tire iron though so we thought the few yards would be a good test to see if it was too flat to drive on or not. We were so close to our exit and destination! As we started driving on it, Dustin knew that it was too flat and there's no way we could drive it anymore.
We returned the tire iron to the nice man and Dustin got to talking to him, I guess, let him know our spare was flat. He was like, "Oh, I've got a pump, hang on." What? Who just has an electric pump with them all the time? Awesome! They get it all set up and start pumping. I was so happy. I knew that was why we couldn't find our tire iron to start. We never would have met this man if we'd had our tire iron, and he wouldn't have been able to help us pump up our spare. Then, once again, I was sent back to a low when Dustin told me that the tire wasn't catching. Something was wrong, it wasn't filling with air. At all. The tire was pulled into itself so much that it was only half the size of the rim, if that makes sense. The guy started slapping and hitting at the tire trying to get it to catch air. The whole car was shaking, he was hitting it pretty hard. We were just about to turn off the pump and give up when all the sudden it caught! The tire was filling up. He looked at Dustin and said, "Man, you guys must be living right." Haha! I couldn't believe it. Once again, on a high!
Shortly after the tire started filling, a police officer came to our aid. We found out from him that it was, in fact, not a pothole. It was a 150 pound piece of iron in the middle of the freeway that took 3 officers to move. I was once again humbled, quickly, too. I was so grateful that we had only a flat tire and nothing more serious. We made it safely to Clearfield and then to Riverdale, where we spent the night, and the next. Day after Christmas, places opened back up and Dustin was able to go out and buy a new tire. We even made it to mom's house before Camber left for the airport. So we had a 3 day Christmas!
I'm so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord. I gripe and complain a lot and I need to learn to quit it. I know that Heavenly Father is a loving Father who is aware of all of our situations. I'm grateful he loves and cares about me and my family, and that I've been able to see His hand in our lives so much lately. I'm also grateful for this experience to help me learn and hopefully grow.
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