Off Roadin'

Have you ever been to the mechanic with your MINIVAN where the mechanic says, "You know, this is NOT a 4 wheel drive vehicle? It's probably better if you don't off road with it." I'd venture a bet that there aren't that many people that can say they've had that experience! But thanks to my adventurous husband, I can add that to MY repertoire of adventures! And you would think that nice suggestions from the world's best mechanic would be enough to make one stop and think, but I don't think Sambo acknowledges nice suggestions - he acknowledges more like flat tires in the middle of the dessert of Arizona on the darkest of nights. Must be a first born thing. Anyway, it's cold here. And rainy. And we went for our normal Sunday drive. He used to ask me which direction we should go for our drive - North, South, or West. That was BEFORE the pond and the massive load of rocks we found. Now, we find ourselves heading south and coming back with a load of hand picked rocks. When I show you pictures of the pond, I want you to realize that EVERY SINGLE rock was hand picked, with love, by the love of my life! So picture this with me... it's been raining pretty regular for two days straight making roads pretty muddy and the thermometer is barely touching 40 degrees - now Sam usually gives me a hard time and says that I always exaggerate everything, but this is NOT one of those times! (On a side note, isn't life much more exciting when you exaggerate a bit? That's beside the point.) Anyway, we turn off on Sam's beloved "short cut" (yes, it's another one) and we are traveling along when all of a sudden, we are in 4-6 inches of mud and swerving all over the place! He's Woo-hooing and all over the place like a kid in a candy store, meanwhile I was white knuckled and "Dear Lord Jesus, help us get out of here without having to replace our engine!" I seriously thought we'd be high centered for about 1 second and then sink in the miry depths to the Earth's core! (Ok, maybe a little exaggeration!) But it was bad. I knew it was bad when he stopped woo-hooing and started praying too - Oh goodness, I knew it was bad. But what did the Love of my life do? He just sped up till the light at the end of the tunnel - PAVEMENT! Whew, we made it. But not without palpitations and most likely permanent damage, not sure where that's going to show up, but it most certainly will! I asked him if he was trying to kill me or just give me another good story for my blog, because I really don't mind being boring - especially when I see this price tag at the car repair shop just keep ticking away!

Well, we got to our beloved rock pile, by this time, the rain was REALLY coming down. For fear of giving away our location to much - let's just say we were along the river somewhere and there were people out fishing...IN THE RAIN! Talk about dedication (or maybe craziness)! Ok, fishermen in the rain, Sam collecting rocks in the rain and there I am, huddled up in the disasteratized MANVAN pondering really deep thoughts, when Sam says - "Look, isn't it crazy what people will do for their passion?" Wherein I pipe up - "Yeah, like move to North Dakota?!" For some reason he thought that was so funny! So the next thing is - Have you ever heard of a Red neck car wash? Yeah, me neither. But Sam thought he was just the most clever thing in all the world by driving our MANVAN almost INTO the river and proceed to splash River water all over it to get earlier said mud off! So that's my life in the Tundra - sitting in a $300 half broke down van down by the river while my incredibly handsome, although somewhat loopy husband splashes the mud off it, oh yeah, in the POURING rain! Aren't y'all jealous? ;)

Whew, enough adventure for one day. VBS started last night. I have 3 kids going into the 2nd grade and 2 going into the 1st grade. One of them is a firecracker! My voice had just started coming back before VBS last night. The one firecracker took it right back out of me! 4 more nights, I can do this! :) Anyway, I'm pretty sure his parents fed him about a case of Mt. Dew before he came last night. He did mention that Mt. Dew was his favorite. But the funniest thing that happened was that he was trying to tell us a joke a snack time - "Why did the cavemen move into the Cave?" No one had a clue - and then he says, "Because it was raining!" Ha hahahahahaha. Whatever. I didn't get it, but I laughed along because I was anxious for him to stop talking. But then I had this one girl look at him and said, "I don't get it." He said you don't get it? She said yeah, I just don't get it. And then he said, weeeeeeell, I said it like I believed it - like it's a fact. So I intervened and said - it was more like trivia - not so much a joke. So she said, Oh. And then about a minute later she looked at him and said - "Are you saying that the cavemen moved into the cave because it was raining?" And the Firecracker said YES! And she said - Oh, that's not funny. She had the most serious face on and I about died! Luckily it was time to move on to the next station! But oh, more to come. We have VBS every night this week till Thursday from 6-8:30pm!

Pray for us! I'm the Crew Leader for my small troop and Sam is in charge of the Bible Stories, which he does such a great job with! Last night he was the voice of God speaking to Moses from the Burning Bush. When he said, Do you know who I am - the kids started yelling out these answers - God! Sam! Santa! HA! It was funny!

Anyway, hoping it warms up in the Tundra - ps. Just so you know, our V-ball got canceled last night due to rain, so that's why we have no updates, but this coming week, we play our other Charity Team - so I'm going to stoop pretty low and ask for some prayers that we can beat them! :) hehehe - take that Erik!!!!

Love, Sarah