Nice saying, huh? It’s our latest sticker on the back of the pirate van…gotta love it.

So picture this…the boys and Alice finished soccer and I got them all changed out of uniforms and into regular clothes. We stopped and picked up Carolyn and Baby J and were headed to Tacoma to go shopping at Old Navy. Yes, there’s an Old Navy closer to us, but they weren’t having the 50% off the CLEARANCE price sale that the Tacoma store was having and I always get tons of stuff for the boys for the next year at this sale.

So we are driving along with the kids watching Backyardigans and eating their lunch. All are happy but when we get about 30 miles from home, just past Silverdale the van starts to act weird. I pulled over, it threatens to die and I panic. I have 5 kids in the car and we are miles from home! Who is going to come get us? I call Dee and she says, “what am I supposed to do?” and she’s right about that. I call my mechanic and explain what’s going on and he says to try to bring it in. We pull back onto the highway and get off at the next exit. At this point all the kids are wondering what in the world we’re doing and I have to tell them to try to be quiet because I need to listen to the car. The van isn’t liking to stop and every time almost dies and we manage to hit EVERY red light possible. Luckily Suzanne has an 11 passenger van and she met us at the mechanic’s and gave us a ride home. What an ordeal. I have NO idea why car stuff gets me so worked up, but it does. It doesn’t make sense, I have no emotional attachment to cars (except my little MR2 which was my first car) but when they break down I’m a mess. I am so thankful that we made it to the mechanic’s without having to be towed….with 5 kids. As bad as it was, it could have been much worse. Still no word on what’s wrong with it but we’re hopeful it won’t send us to the poor house!

Minivan repair fund donations will be gladly accepted!