This last week has been a crazy one. We left the end of last week to go to Utah and see family.. I left you with the happy knowledge that we were having fun and about to visit family.. but I left you all too soon!
Ever have that week where everything's just amazing.. and then tragedy strikes? Well listen closely as I tell you of how my amazing ending led to what followed next.
So I finished writing you and we all prepared to leave the next morning to visit my sister, her husband and her 8 children. we packed our bags and were very excited to be on our way. We were also sad to be leaving my other brother's house so in honor of our last night we all stayed up till 4am playing games and having a grand ol' time but knowing we had to be heading out early the next morning we decided to get some shut eye for the night and so ended our night of lollygagging with hugs to the kids and goodnight wishes. I fell asleep quite easily and never drempt of what I was to find in the morning.
That next morning I woke up to my mother who had sat down next to where I was sleeping and when I asked what was wrong I heard the story from her.
Apparently she woke up before us to do some quick shopping to take things to my sister and her boys. When she was driving down the road she felt like she should stop and see if we wanted to go with her.. after all she was going to Costco.. and who DOESN'T want to go to Costco? So she pulled over and was about to call us when she decided she'd go do some other errands first and then come back for us but as she started pulling out onto the street the car started to clench up and then died on her. Smoke started to come from the front right wheel well and so she got out of the car and popped the hood to see what was going on. She assumed it was the breaks because the car just seized up and then died. A few gentlemanly public electrical workers stopped and tried to help her but the engine would not start up so she abandoned the car there and walked all the way back to my brother's house to find help (don't worry she wasn't terribly far from his house).
This is where I come into the story. She came down stairs and woke me up where we walked back to the abandoned car (me in my beautiful pink slippers) and waited for a tow truck that was to take us to an auto-mechanic that my brother knew and trusted.. all the time we thought it was the breaks but when I got there we put it in neutral and it ran smoothly.. so it couldn't be that the breaks clenched up. When we got to the mechanic's shop he tried to start it and found it was the timing belt. Now the timing belt is the belt that makes sure the engine is moving at the correct time with everything else so as to not have pistons or any other do-hickies clash, bend, break or in any way ruin themselves unnecessarily. He told us that because it was broken there was a chance that we could have blown out the engine. We had two options at this point. 1) Replace the timing belt for $700 and hope the engine wasn't blown (Which would have costed us around $6000 to replace) or 2) Sell our car for scrap metal at around $400. There was no way of knowing if there was internal damage to the motor without getting a new timing belt and if the motor WAS damaged buying the timing belt would have been a wasted $700. We were in quite the pickle. The mechanic said there was a chance that the engine was okay ONLY due to the fact that it happened when the car was almost completely stopped, he said that if it had happened going 30+ Mph it would have for sure blown the engine.. so we were left to decide.. and we only had a few hours to do so.
Well we got back to my brother's house and my mom was already talking about getting a new car. I didn't want her to get rid of our car because honestly it's grown on me! I'd always hoped that I'd buy it from them someday but in her eyes it was a lost cause. Our car had around 230,000 miles on it and typically they last only until about 250,000 miles. I still didn't want her to get rid of it and tried my best to convince her it would be a good idea to replace the belt and give it a shot. I felt that it couldn't have been a mere coincidence that she "felt like she should stop and call us" RIGHT before the car died or that it all happened so close to our brother's house and not 5-10 miles away. I just FELT like it was going to be okay.. luckily my father felt the same.. and even though it was a risk paying $800 for an old car with 230,000 miles on her they did it.. and two days later our old car was back up and running!!! (I'm so happy about this! I might still be able to get it!)
Well the two days that we waited for the car to get fixed we rented another car and headed down to my sister's house and helped her out with a few projects she had going on. Way fun! I got to meet a few of my old foe from El Estor (the mice) but luckily they were a lot smaller, not quite as scary after living with rat's in ones bed (See my post from March 02, 2015 on my mission blog).
While there we got snowed in! I LOVED being able to see the snow! usually you don't see snow in April but I know the Lord loves me and always seems to move the weather around every once in a while JUST to make my day (and it's not the first time He's done it for me)! It was while we were there that we heard that our car was fine and that we could go and pick it up the next day (which we did).
After picking up our car we headed up to Idaho but first stopping off in Logan, UT to see another brother and his two daughters. Him and his wife showed us a GREAT time taking us to many cool factories where we tried weird cheeses, flavored milks, free goldfish and ate "Fat Boy" ice cream sandwiches! (on the way home we even found ways to "Teleport" the ice cream sandwiches from one car to another while traveling down the highway! My brother taught me a little about a scholarship program for CyberSecurity.. and I think I might go into it instead of Software engineering.. We'll see what the Lord brings.
That same night I was able to see some of my greatest friends (one to whom I will be best man at his wedding this summer). I'm so glad I could see them after a long absence of over 3 years!
Well.. Now I'm here at Brigham Young University Idaho. I've officially moved in and I'm more or less adapted (I say that cause classes haven't actually started till tomorrow). I've already got myself a schedule and added time for my personal scripture study, a temple night (weekly) and I'm hoping to get some other good things fitted into it after working out the bumps and seeing how life really will play out here at the 'Burg.
Other Photos:
Café Rio with the family.
The Names of my brother and I.
Because "Sundaes" just don't fit into the rest of my week.
