It’s been a while. For a few reasons. We were on vacation in Idaho and Washington for a couple weeks. Then on our drive home from the airport we ran into a problem. By problem I mean truck. We ran into a truck, literally.

Oye…..

 All of our thoughts and plans once we got back home came to a screeching halt. Pun intended. Tales of our trip got put on the back burner and our days have been filled with phone calls. Lots of phone calls. Countless trips to the auto body shop, insurance office and the chiropractor. While everyone is doing great and no major injuries, SO THANKFUL FOR THAT!, it’s just put a lot more on our plate than what you want right when you get home from vacation.

Lots of you have asked what happened and while I enjoy speaking with all of you, jotting it all down will make things so much simpler.

Our flight got in at 7 pm in Anchorage and we got the luggage and the kids loaded up in the Jeep and headed home. Having been gone for a while we had no basic essentials in the fridge so Andy dropped me off at the grocery store by our house to grab those and he went to get the mail. While we weren’t racing home, it was late ( 9 pm by that time), it was raining and we still needed to get our dog back from the neighbor. Everyone knows that feeling. Your tired, your ready to just be home and in your sweats sooo you cut corners. In our case it was passing someone. Two cars in front of us, a car was making a right hand turn. The woman in front of us slowed down, seeming as if she was also turning right as well. Andy made the decision to go around on the left and pass her. While in the other lane proceeding to pass her, she didn’t turn right, but instead pulled forward and started making a left hand turn. That left hand turn resulted in us hitting her, at 55 mph, and putting us in the ditch like you see above.

It’s one of those moments you relive constantly thinking about the what if’s. While she didn’t signal at all, it was our fault we chose to go around her rather than wait. It was a combination of unfortunate decisions and we were very lucky that no was seriously injured. It was a young woman driving and while she is fine, she was pretty shook up since this was her third wreck in a month. Yikes!

The kids did great. As great as you can hope for after an accident. Hayden didn’t understand what had happened and Reid probably just assumed Andy was taking the trail home again because he wasn’t phased a bit.  They’ve been checked out and are fine and while we have soreness and bruises, the Jeep took the heavy hits.

We were able to get our tires back, which we had just purchased, but that was all that we would get out it. There was to much damage to repair.

While getting a check cut to you and heading out to buy a new car seems fun, it’s really really not. To completely unload on you, we had JUST paid the Jeep off. Last month. Which is frustrating. But what has been the biggest bummer for me is saying goodbye to my Jeep. My first one. My dream one. I’m not usually sentimental about things. For that reason alone. They are just things. I would give up anything in the world for the safety and good health of my loved ones, especially my children and husband. As silly as it seems though, the Jeep was a part of our family. It was Andy and I’s first big purchase together. It was a first for the both of us to buy a brand new vehicle and get to see it through to pay it off. Hayden was a baby when we bought it and she grew up knowing summers meant we had the top off and on a good day we got to take the trail to the store instead of the pavement. It was packed full of our belongings when we moved into our first house. Reid was brought home from the hospital in it and loved to sit passenger side while Andy cruised the backyard. We picked up Sharky with it and he would never stay in the back, he constantly would climb over the small backseat and stick his big head up by us. We took countless road trips and the four years we had it have been filled with so many wonderful memories. It seems so ridiculous to be so sentimental over a vehicle but I think with anything in life, when your not ready to let go of something, it’s hard.

I have incredible in laws who were kind enough to loan us their car while they are out of town. So now we can relax and let the cards fall into place and find the next car that our family will make memories with. Thank you to all our family and friends who reached out to us and who helped in so many ways those first few hectic days. Something like this, whether big or small, can be overwhelming and stressful. To have such amazing people in our corner is a blessing. For us, it’s been a big reality check.Sometimes you need to slow life down a little bit. Take a deep breath and exhale, and let life take its course. Our frenzy and desire to speed things up could have resulted in a far worse fate. The last couple weeks have just been sleepy mornings, afternoons in the sunshine and BBQ’s and binge watching Netflix on the couch until we’re all cuddled up and asleep. It’s been heaven. I’ll get to the posts about all the exciting stuff we did on vacation, but for now I invite you to join me, and slow life down a little bit.

🙂