Monday, July 2, 2012

Utah Trip

On the night of May 23rd we received a tragic phone call from my dad letting us know that my Uncle Rick had unexpectantly passed away. It was very startling news and a situation that we knew we had to get to Utah to be with our family as soon as possible. We had planned to maybe take a trip to Utah after school got out at the end of June, but within hours moved our trip up and made arrangements to make it there early so that we could be there for the funeral and to support our family. We love you Uncle Rick and will miss you so much!

We have been in the process of looking for a new van, since in a couple months we will have 6 people in our family and only 5 seats in our car! We have not been able to find one yet, so my dad was nice enough to help us rent a van to make the trip down to Utah more comfortable. We were so excited when we picked the van up- the girls were in heaven with all the space and it was a brand new 2012 Dodge Caravan with just 83 miles on it! Amazing! Well, the trip started out great until we passed through Burns, Oregon and started our way through the Stein Mountains. We were driving along when all of the sudden out of NOWHERE a deer slammed into the front drivers side of the car. Neither Dan nor I saw it coming which I guess is good because we didn't even have time to have a reaction to swerve. The first we saw of it was when it was hitting our car! It just hit the front side of us so I really didn't think there would be that much damage. We were both in a bit of shock so we kept driving for a few minutes before pulling over to look at the car. Well . . . apparently a deer can do a lot more damage than I thought! We knew we needed to get this car back but we were like 3 hours from Bend and about 3 hours from Boise with no cell service! We decided to just keep driving even though the bumper was all bent in around the tire. We called the car rental place when we got to cell service and they said they could send someone out, but it would be 2-3 before they made it to us and then another 2 hours to Boise. We decided to just drive very slow to Boise on our own. Luckily we made it- but boy did we get some strange looks as we dropped it off at the Boise airport! Dan went in to get a new car and let the guy know that we were having a bad day. We were on our way to a funeral AND we hit a deer! The guy was nice enough to not only give us a comprable 2012 Dodge Caravan, but even gave us one with a DVD player in it! The girls were in heaven the rest of the way to Utah! Glad to have my first deer hitting experience behind me!
Although the circumstances for visiting Utah were not good, we did have a great time spending time with all our family we miss so much. Dan flew back to Oregon to work after the funeral and the girls and I got to stay for a couple weeks and hang out. We had lots of fun spending time with everyone, shopping, sewing baby blankets and burp cloths, and enjoying the sprinklers on one of the blazing hot days we were there! The girls were so happy to be back with Nana and Papa and Nicole and Janessa. Kaylee even got to have multiple playdates and parties with all of her old friends! It was great to be home:-)
P.S. On the way home luckily no deer were hit:-)

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh man, hitting a deer is no fun! I was on a road trip with my roommates once, from Seattle to San Francisco. We got hit near Napa (by a truck..). It was very upsetting and I know what look you mean when you turn a wrecked car in at the airport. I'm glad you were all okay and they treated you well!