Everything Happens For A Reason

The alarm went of at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning.   As you all know, I am not a morning person, so on these mornings Erik is extra sweet and accommodating to me in order to get me to play along with this insane regimen of his.  It's a great idea to get up early, get the perfect parking spot so we can enjoy a day of skiing with four small kids.  I get it.  But, early in the morning, when I am half-asleep, the idea is far less appealing than the night before when we agreed to it.  I try my usual suggestions. 

"We could sleep in and then go later in the day, by then all the early risers will be leaving and we could get lucky with one of their spots?" 

or

"If we sleep in and stay home today, then next weekend we can go both Saturday and Sunday.  I will wake up happy both days, promise!"  

They weren't working. They never do, but I try!  I was actually looking forward to the beautiful warm day on the mountain, it was forecasted to be perfect! So I rolled myself out of bed and tried to be as happy as possible about getting ready in the middle of the night.

We loaded up the kids, gave them their blankets and pillows and told them to go back to sleep.  Mommy wanted to go back to sleep also.  It never happened.  Chatter-box Ella didn't feel like dreaming anymore, she had her fill for the night.  Oh well, it was going to be a great day despite the circles under my eyes. 

We made our usual stop in Breckenridge at Starbucks.  Mommy was going to be one happy camper in a few short minutes.  Everyone agrees, mommy needs her caffeine!  I instantly turned into my smiley, talkative self once a few sips were enjoyed.  We were on our way, the sun was coming up and everyone was happy and excited.

A few minutes outside of Breckenridge on the deserted highway, (not many get up this early for the prime parking spots) we watched the sunrise as we were driving the last thirty minutes to the mountain. We come upon an intersection, with a guy slowly rolling through the stop sign.  We notice him right away because he is driving none other than an El Camino.  How could we not notice him?  Erik says, "hey look, an El camino!"

I respond, "oh yeah, cool!"

Erik then says, "oh look an El camino, stop El camino, what the heck are you doing? Oh no!"

We both let out a loud scream as we crash into El Camino.  But of course we remained completely calm, the screaming was just for show!

My first thoughts after impact:

* My chai, my lovely sweet chai.  I only took a few sips and now it's covering the dashboard.

* Is everyone okay? Good, everyone is okay.

* My Chai is all gone!

* Why is he backing up, were does he think he is going?

Mr. El Camino puts it into reverse and starts to pull away.

"Erik what is he doing? I think he is trying to get away, hurry get out and chase him."

Erik hops out of the car, just in time to see Mr. Camino back himself up and over a snowbank.  Not sure what he was doing, but he was stuck now.

The kids were all crying but thankfully all okay.  Abby shouts out immediately after the accident, "why are the airbags not working, shouldn't they be working?"  Always thinking that girl.

They all finally calmed down and we thanked God for protecting all of us.  Matthew has a seatbelt bruise and everyone is a little sore, but other than that we are all okay.

Matthew showing me his owie.

The Suburban, wasn't as lucky.

It is such an incredibly scary thing to be in an accident, to be involved in something that is completely out of your control.  It really puts life into perspective.

We were both thinking right after it happened, "well we can probably still make it to the mountain after we get this all taken care of.  We might even get there in time for a good parking spot."

We didn't make it to the mountain.  The damage was a little worse than we thought. Obviously.  It would of been pretty funny to see peoples reactions to us driving this into the parking lot. We would of looked so hard-core. But, it started leaking fluid.  I guess that's not good. 

I really was under the impression that if you were involved in an accident you were completely taken care of.  Not so.  After the firemen check things out, after the ambulance crew makes sure everyone is okay, and after the police get their report, everyone leaves.  You are there, not really sure on what to do.  The officer asked us if we had AAA and then that was it.  It was up to us to figure out how to get all of us home and to figure out what to do with our banged-up car.  I guess really it's not their job, but still it was odd to me.  The El Camino guy walked right back into his apartment a few feet away and there we were in the middle of the highway, clueless.  

So, how did we get home?  In our non-drivable vehicle.  That's right, we rode on top of the flatbed tow truck, inside of our Suburban.  We could not find a rental car big enough to transport our gang, so we had no other option.  I had no idea that was even legal. We got lots of staring and pointing from onlookers, with the expression of, "hey look there are people in that car up there." We just smiled and waved! Apparently, most people don't know it's legal! I so wish I had a picture of us. The kids thought it was hilarious.  We thought it was pretty neat too, until about forty-five minutes into the ride when the constant bouncing, from the double shocks, started to take effect. We were on a very long, poorly constructed, non-stopping carnival ride.  Yippee!


We sat inside while he dumped us off at the top of our driveway, like a dump truck unloading a pile of gravel and then he took off back to Breckenridge.  "Thanks for the ride!" 


Thank you God for protecting us!