After Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday morning, we hit the road for our drive to Broomfield. On the way to Layton from the family reunion the day before, I'd noticed that the car had begun shaking rather badly when I drove over 60 mph. It shook the whole 7 hours from Layton and Broomfield too. I wasn't sure what was causing it, but said a lot of prayers and we arrived safely in Broomfield that evening.
And a couple of stops along the way! We got gas at Little America again and huge ice cream cones as well!
And then we stopped quickly at the Fort Collins Temple because we still hadn't seen it yet!
After arriving safely that evening, we determined that instead of continuing on to Amarillo on Monday morning, as planned, I should stay in Broomfield and take the car in to get checked. And thus began the longest week of my life. Ok, not really, but it was nuts.
We dropped the car at a mechanic recommended by Grandpa that was (bonus!) close enough to their house that I could walk home with Seth after leaving the car. I didn't have an appointment, but they agreed to take a look that afternoon and let me know what they found. The girls stayed at Grandpa and Grandma's house and it only took Seth and I about 20 minutes to walk back. Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Evan and left Aunt Kelly's to go to Yellowstone with the Klosowskys so they weren't even home. We were supposed to be home that evening so I could take Abigail to chemo the next morning, but that obviously wasn't going to happen.
So that left Abigail at home with Daddy, living it up for a few extra days!
He got to take her to Meet the Teacher night at school in preparation for her starting kindergarten! Eve and Halle were sad they had to miss it.
She can't wait to go to school at Sleepy Hollow!
Meanwhile in Broomfield, we were stuck so long that Grandpa and Grandma got home from Yellowstone! Which meant we got to have a little more fun with them :)
Eve got to go with Grandma to a wedding reception for someone in the ward!
After a couple of days of work on the car (and several hundred dollars later), I was told the car was good to go and the broken engine mounts that were causing our shaking resolved. Naively, I believed and on Friday, August 9th, we began our drive home.
We didn't make it much past Colorado Springs before the shaking was back, bad as ever. Maybe even worse. I pulled over before Pueblo and called Andrew and my dad, trying to decide what to do. After much deliberation, we decided it'd be safest to head back to Broomfield, rather than continue on or stay in Pueblo. So the girls and I waited in the car for several hours until Grandpa Larsen could get off work, pick up a trailer, and drive the 2 hours to get us. We got to sit through an awesome, rain/hail storm on the exit ramp I'd pulled over one and then after a couple of hours, I drove very slowly a couple of miles further down the freeway to a rest area, where we sat for the rest of the day. At least we had bathrooms and vending machines!
And the kids made a fort to pass the time!
I don't remember the exact time we were hanging out in the car - maybe six hours or so? Overall, the kids were pretty well behaved.
Vending machine sodas!
Grandpa got there shortly before 8:30pm and by that time, everyone was in meltdown. We loaded the car onto the trailer and crammed the 4 kids in his car for the ride back to Broomfield. It was a long couple of hours. We were so grateful to Grandpa for rescuing us!
The next day, Saturday, August 10th (my birthday!), we dropped the car off AGAIN to be looked at and rented a minivan to drive home. We were sick of waiting around and eager to be home with Andrew and Abigail. What was supposed to be a one week vacation had become two and we needed to relieve Andrew so he could get back to work!
We emptied out the car, just in case. We'd been reading up online and were started to get worried that the problem wasn't fixable and we'd shortly be car shopping.
Our drive home in the rented car was uneventful and we arrived home that evening safe and sound - finally! I guess I shouldn’t have been so vocal about not liking Mother’s Day and my birthday, cause Heavenly Father took extra care this year to show me what really matters. We were so glad to be back home and with Andrew and Abigail again! And just in time to start school a few days later!
(And with the car - it ended up being the tires. The tires! They'd somehow missed it the first several days they had the car - one of the tires had a huge split down it. So we spent another few hundred dollars, got new tires put on, then the next weekend, Andrew flew up to Denver and drove the car home. A huge thanks to my parents for facilitating all of this and for everything they did for us!)
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