Sequoia

We lost our transmission between Payson and Heber. But it turned out so much better than it could have. We had to stop where there was snow so the kids just got out and played in the snow for an hour and by the time they were done playing in the snow and we had changed everybody's clothes and got back in the car we only had to sit there for about 10 minutes before my dad was there. He had found a 2-wheel dolly in Taylor (a miracle in itself) and so they just put our van up on it and then towed it to my parents house. The cost for the dolly was $55 and the guy said we had it for 24 hours so Jamie got up super early Saturday morning and with my dads truck towed our van back to the valley and then put his Camry on the dolly and towed it back to Taylor. Wacey was up there for the Christmas party and he was going home Monday so we figured between the Camry and him we could get us all back down here. Well while we were up there Jamie said let's just go up to the Toyota dealer and see what they have. We had been looking at Sequoia's but were trying to save enough money so we could pay cash for it before we bought one. They only had 2 sequoias on the lot and we felt like one of them fit our needs pretty perfectly. So we test drove it and then went back to my parents Saturday night to think about it. We spent Saturday evening and part of Sunday searching the internet for a better deal and really couldn't find one so we went back up and bought it Monday morning. We both hated the thoughts of having to get back in debt so quickly after we had just gotten out of it, but such is life. We are hoping we can have it paid off in a year and I hope it will last much longer than that. It only has 31,000 miles on it, so hopefully it will last awhile. I am having a hard time getting used to it. It just seems HUGE -- like I am driving a bus, but hopefully with time it will get better.

But I just felt tremendously blessed with the whole experience. I make that trip so often by myself that I could have easily been by myself and I wouldn't have had any idea what was wrong with the car or what to do. So I feel like that was a tender mercy. I had a hard time selling the van. Monetarily it wasn't practical to keep it. A new transmission would have been at least $1000 and it was only worth $2500. But it was the car that we brought and Evie and Rook home in and I have so many memories in it. I will miss it.