First we headed to the mountains with some friends. We went on one of the most amazing hikes I've ever been on. I wrote about that one here.
The next leg of our vacation took us to the city. So we headed to the zoo. The kids had such an amazing time seeing the penguins. It was a super awesome exhibit. You can see all the penguins up close. These were some of my favorite penguins. (You'll have to click on it to see it better.)
We had heard a lot about this exhibit and how awesome it was but also how long people have to wait in line to see the penguins. Luckily, we were there on a rainy day so it wasn't crowded at all. We went through the exhibit twice and spent a really long time the second time. It was super cool. The penguins were marching and jumping and swimming and squawking and man, they were LOUD!
The rest of the zoo was just ok. The kids had a blast though and it got them really nice and tired out.
Overall it was a rough day though. You know those days that are just "off"? Well we had tried to re-start our day a few times but it seemed like we kept having somebody cranky (even a Mom and Dad) and then some arguing or fighting would occur and we'd have to apologize and regroup and then try and restart again.
After some failed attempts at stopping at nice rest areas and the like, we finally decided we'd make one last stop and then just push ourselves to get home. We stopped off at a famous for delicious donuts place, called "The Donut Mill". If you're a fan of heavy cream (which I super am), then these donuts are a must. They are delicious and not overly sweet. They are filled with flavored whipped cream. Our favorite is the orange creamsicle donut. Tastes just like it. We barreled through 1/2 dozen donuts and finally with all those endorphines in our system, felt positive that we were all now in good moods and ready to get back to life in our town. Then our car decided to die. Like completely. We could get it to go into Reverse but just enough to be able to back out enough of our parking spot to be a menace. Then we had to have Chloe steer while me and Greg pushed us back into the parking spot. Luckily the donut place had free internet so Greg called the transmission place back in Edmonton to see what they could do for us b/c we were sure that we hadn't gone over the miles or kilometers that it was covered for. They gave us somebody to call in Red Deer who quickly came to the rescue with a tow truck. In case you don't know, a tow truck def. doesn't fit 5 people let alone children's car seats so we were going to try and see if maybe a hotel had a shuttle service but then this really nice guy came up and asked if there was anything he could do to help. Todd. Turned out he was a member of the church just moving here from AZ where he just finished dental school. He was on his way home to Calgary after having spent the day in Edmonton taking a dental test to be qualified to practice here. He was heading home for a family wedding. He dropped us off at the hotel. He was seriously a miracle for us and a light of sunshine on a VERY cloudy day. He'll never know what a difference he made to us. Upon entering the hotel and unloading all the kids onto the couches in the foyer, we noticed that neither one of us had gotten our wallets out of our car (Are you kidding me?!). So Greg literally ran the 5 blocks over to the transmission place and grabbed them. We only grabbed the absolute essentials but of course that means that I grabbed stuff for everybody else and didn't get any fresh undies for myself. By now it was dark and the car place was locked up, so I had to use the blow dryer on them. And this all happened after a crappy morning with lots of not listening and arguing. So this might very well be our worst day ever. But then again there was Todd so we have to be grateful for something. But we're the idiots that didn't even find out his last name so we could send him a card or something later. Thanks Todd wherever you are. I hope your wife wasn't mad that you got home late since you were supposed to babysit your kids tonight but you ended up helping us for like an hour when we couldn't find, the lady at the convenience store couldn't find, and your GPS couldn't find the hotel we were supposed to stay at. Hope you receive some Super blessings because the Super 8 we were at wasn't really that super.
The next day we had two more miracle people help us. The sister of a friend of ours lived in that town. Our friends had called her on our behalf and asked if we could stay at her house while our car finished being fixed so we wouldn't have to pay for another day in the hotel. She got a babysitter for her kids so she'd have enough room in her car to pick us up, took us to her house, fed us lunch, and she and her kids played with our kids. She was such an amazing girl. She made us feel welcomed and like we were old friends. She also was able to add a little bit of humor to what was not a very humorous situation for us. She was amazing.
Then a different friend from home drove her van down 2 hrs. to this friend's sister's house to pick us up and directly drove the 2 hrs. back to drop us off at home. She was just doing her grocery shopping when we called her. She dropped her groceries at home and directly came to get us.
We were so humbled by the willingness of people to help us out. It dulled the pain and struggle of having such a horrible travel experience. It was a testimony to me of how much people are placed in our paths to help us out and how much Heavenly Father is aware of our lives and our struggles.
It wasn't the vacation that we had hoped for or wanted, and it definitely wasn't all rosey, but it was a very memorable trip and a great learning experience for us.
2 comments:
Those are the vacations you remember because first, the suckiness of it all is funny later on, and second, because you can see how much the Lord was involved in helping you through it. Thank heavens for Todd!
YOu guys had way to much fun this summer.
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