Triple Blow-out

Blow-Out #1:

After attending a workshop for the first half of the day yesterday, I rushed home to grab the kids who were home with a babysitter (thanks Maddy). Dad was on an airplane coming home from San Francisco. I was in a huge hurry to get up to Mountain Green so I could prepare and decorate for my big brother's BIG surprise 40th birthday party. My mom had back surgery so she couldn't do it, my sister was out-of-town so she couldn't do it, so it was left up to me. I was happy to do it, but because my brother knows the whole world we invited lots of people and I knew they would be arriving at 5:00. We had everything else planned and taken care of weeks before so I wasn't too worried about what I had to do. Anyway at 1:45 I picked-up the kids and started driving quickly down the hill. We were on our way and I was feeling good about things. Just seconds after getting onto the freeway I heard a loud thump followed by a quiet hiss. My heart sank...I knew that sound. I pulled over and examined, hoping to find nothing. But there it was:
At this point I'm a bit stressed but not too worried because I knew Sam had recently opened an account with AAA (Triple A). I called and soon discovered I was not going to get any help from them because only Sam's name was on the account, not mine. So next I started calling repair shops. 30 minutes later a yellow repair truck pulled-up behind me and a nice man named "Whitey" started lowering the spare (I admit I had no idea how to do that) and getting to work. The kids were intrigued and thought it was fun being stranded on the side of a busy freeway.Soon he informed me that my wheels had security lugnuts on them and that he needs a special key to get them off. Apparently, people with nice rims put these on so they won't get stollen. Thanks but no thanks. He told me to look in the jockey box...I did, and there was a key, but it was the wrong one. The guy we bought the car from had accidentally put the wrong key in. SO, he called another guy and 30 more minutes later he showed up with his variety of lugnut keys. Luckily, one of them fit. Pretty soon the spare tire was on. At this point I am super stressed because it is now 3:45. I'm making phone calls to my dad and my friend (thanks Connie) asking them to get the stuff because I know I'm not going to have time.

Blow-Out #2:

So it's fixed and just as I'm settling up with Whitey, I hear the kids start yelling, "it stinks!" and "gross!" and "there's poo on my seat!" I look at Quincy and she has shi* all over her legs, hands, and everywhere in the car she had been crawling and sitting on in the last few minutes! Gotta love blow-out up the back.
Tears start welling up in my eyes and I let out a VERY quiet but desperate "Oh my hell." Then Millie starts crying and gives me a look that could kill and says "I can't believe you just swore!
I was not in the mood for her scolding so I ignored her and quickly started wiping up the poop with the 5 wipes that I had left. I am very flustered at this point. Very stressed. It's 4:00, the surprise is in an hour and I'm an hour away. The kids are hungry, tired, and trashed. Joy.

Blow-Out #3:

Needless to say, we made it just in time and things worked out just fine (like they always seem to do). We had an awesome turn-out and the surprise party was a success. My brother, Uncle Shad, is a pilot and he thought he was helping his pilot friend with a candy drop. Little did he know that when he flew over his newly built airplane hangar that he was dropping candy down to all of us, his family and friends, hanging out ready to celebrate his birthday. We held a big sign that said "Happy Birthday Shad" so he could see it from the air. They landed and came over and we were all there waiting for him. Even Grandma Cindy who is recovering was able to come over for a bit. Sam arrived just in time as well. The only thing missing was a birthday cake because we had Cold Stone serve us ice cream treats. So pretend that he "blew-out" 40 birthday candles!











What a day.