Exciting Afternoon

The kids and I left the house at 4:40 - stopped for gas and then out to pick Alif up from dropping off his truck at the auto repair shop.  On the way there I took my eyes off the road for a few seconds, looking in the mirror, and when I looked up I was FEET from a big blue car.  I slammed on my brakes and stopped in time.  Ugh! 

We picked Alif up and were heading to take Malachi to his soccer practice.  We stopped at a stoplight.  The light turned green and I waited a couple seconds, started to go, looked both ways and saw a gray car blatantly running the red light - I mean, this was 3-4 seconds after it had turned red for her.  I slammed the brakes (AGAIN) but the car to my right did not.  The gray car slammed into the other car, taking off the whole bumper (which flew like 25 feet), then she kept right on going down the sidewalk, taking down a speed limit sign and coming to a stop on the sidewalk about 40 feet down.  Thank God no one was walking there.  Both people were fine, but gosh, what a mess.  We pulled into a parking lot so we could go give them our number.  The kids and I sat in the car while Alif walked over, and within a minute or two there was a fire truck, ambulance and 3 police cars.  It took a while but Alif gave our numbers to the police officer and both drivers.

While we waited, there was a AAA van a few parking spots down changing a lady's battery.  Alif got back in the car, I turned the ignition, and - yyyeah.  Dead battery.  We looked at each other and started cracking up, as did the AAA driver and the lady whose battery was dead.  Darn if that AAA driver didn't come on down and give us a jump!  LOL!  Talk about nice!! 

From there we dropped Malachi off at practice, 30 minutes late, went over to an auto parts store to get a battery - of course I couldn't turn the car off at all, and as time ticked by it was 6:25 and I could not wait one more minute to go get Malachi so I had to leave Alif there and go get Malachi.  I didn't have my cell phone so I sent Graham and Caris in to tell him I was leaving.  Picked up Malachi, went back to get Alif, stopped for McDonald's, and FINALLY got home at like 7:20.  Canaan had been in his seat SOLID for almost 3 hours and hadn't complained once - oh man I was proud of him!

SO ridiculous.  What an evening!!  It totally made my night though when I put the kids to bed, went for my computer and there was a sticky note from Malachi that said, "Thank you for making today a fun day and thank you for helping me with my schoolwork.  Oh yea, Good night!"  :*)