The Drama

Planning a trip to Hawaii on two weeks notice should be hard - especially when you have four kids.  For us, it all fell together in a matter of 24 hours - babysitting and flights included.

Packing up six people while your husband is out of town should be stressful and frustrating.  Strangely, it has been a breeze.

Everything about planning this trip has just been TOO easy.

Then today hit.  As I moseyed along packing a bit here and there - doing dishes, putting things away I couldn't help but think that this was the least stressed I've ever been before a trip.

Thanks, universe, for correcting that obvious oversight.

Part of our trip involves driving to Phoenix to leave our kids with Rob's brother and his family - then we fly from Phoenix to Hawaii.  So we made sure last week that the car had a tune up, etc - and was running smoothly since Phoenix is roughly a ten hour drive from our house.  (It will probably seem closer to 30 hours with my kids who have never been in the car for longer than 3).

After returning from a small errand, we pulled the car in the garage, and I let it idle as the kids danced to the end of, "Tonight's gonna be a good night."

Then things started to smell funny, then the garage was filled with white smoke coming from the engine.
Just Grand.

It's now 3pm on a SATURDAY, all mechanics are closed, and my car looks and smells like it is on fire, my husband is out of town, and we are supposed to be leaving at 8am the next morning.

My father in law found the only open mechanic who verified that this car was absolutely not drivable for a road trip.  It would require some major work, which couldn't be done over the weekend since all the parts shops were closed.

We looked into borrowing a van, but that didn't work out. So we looked into renting one...and that was going to cost over $800, and leave Rob's brother without a car to drive our kids around in.

My brother, Dan - seeing my facebook post - called to see if there was anything he could help with, and I just lost it.  Talk about a sweetheart, he called from Chicago to see if he could use his sky miles to rent us a van.  He said, "This trip has come together perfectly for you...we're not going to let some car problems get in the way."  As Dan was looking for car options, my father in law walked through the front door, tossed a key at me, yelled, "You have a great time, okay?"  and ran out the door.  He and my mother in law were late for my nieces play (another thing I missed because of today's drama).  Rob later explained that his Dad pulled his car-dealer strings to make some kind of a deal with another car dealer, to let us use a van that someone else was selling.  I can't believe he went to so much trouble for us.  Thank you, Ross.  My kids literally jumped up and down with excitement over the new vacation van.

So yes, today I am overly thankful for others who are so willing to help. I am also thankful that this van has a built in DVD player.  Hawaii by way of Vegas then Phoenix, here we come!!


BDEM:  Fairly obvious.

Water:  40 oz