OOPS!

One morning, at the end of April, the truck wouldn't start so Jacob decided to take the car to work and get a battery charger for it. A few minutes later I get a phone call from Jacob.

Me: "Hello?"

Jacob: "It's me. I just wrecked the car."

Me: "Are you ok? Are you hurt anywhere?"

SILENCE that lasts almost forever, I think.

Jacob: (finally, starts muttering to himself in disgust) "I can't believe this happened. Just what we need. Probably totalled the car."

Me: "ARE YOU OK?"

Jacob: "Yeah. Just disgusted with myself."

Word of advice. If you're ever in an accident and are calling to inform your wife, the first words out of your mouth should be, "I'm ok," or "I'm ok but I broke my arm", etc. Half a second of silence in a situation like this seems like an hour.

Thankfully, Jacob was mostly ok. Hours later after the shock and adrenaline wore off he realized he hurt his neck and his back a little bit. He has been to the Chiropractor many times since then and is almost back to normal. Our car, on the other hand, did not fare so well...

Since there would have been so much work that needed to be done on the car, the insurance company totalled it. We were sad, as it had been such a great, reliable car that we all loved. However, with the type of damage that was done, even if they had fixed it, I doubt it would have ever been the same. While waiting for the insurance company to assess the damage, we were preparing for the worst. We were sure they would total it and then offer us just a few thousand dollars for it. Imagine our shock when they called to tell us the total they would give us-which was even more than the highest value for blue book. Then Jacob reminded them about the new tires we put on the week before that, so they gave us another $150. We were really blessed and couldn't believe it. Imagine our shock when we went to pick up the check and it was for 1/2 what they said. Thankfully it was just a mistake, they had sent the wrong check to us.

Shopping for cars was a little depressing. The cars we wanted were out of our price range because we didn't want to make car payments. After not having a car payment for nearly 5 years, we didn't want to start making them again now. It seemed our choices were either smaller cars than what we had before, minivans, or Jeep Cherokees. We knew a smaller car would be the last option. We test drove a few Jeeps, but they were soooo uncomfortable. Yeah. That left minivans. You've probably all heard us say how much we hate minivans. Not that we've ever had one, we just didn't like the look of them. Needless to say, we now own a minivan.

The girls are thrilled, as they've wanted a minivan for years. Though I still don't care for the look of them, I have to say, they are really convenient. I love that there is so much room in it. Our van also has a lot of super nice features. My favorite is the power doors for the back. As a mom of three little girls, I love just pushing a button and having the doors open by themselves. Talk about convenient!