The boys had their three performances of Willy Wonka on Saturday, so as I expected we didn't see them all day and they got home very late. I fell asleep before they got home, as a matter of fact. We didn't end up painting furniture for Tanner's Eagle project because the weather didn't cooperate. Although Saturday was fairly pleasant, it rained the night before and things didn't dry out enough to do outdoor painting. I know we kept busy all day, but I can't remember what we did now, other than we went to a friend's house to watch the BYU football game, which we enjoyed of course since BYU won. They had really good food for us to eat too.
Sunday I was super busy and wasn't home much of the day. I had Ward Council before church and after church I had a visit and then choir practice. By the time I got home from all of that, Frank had dinner on the table and then we had family night. My visit was to a young adult woman who was just baptized a few weeks ago. It was fun to get to know her better and she is quite a wise young woman in many ways.
Did that say November 22nd up there? Well, now it's the 24th. I meant to get back to this sooner, but the craziness has continued. Where do I even start? I had to stop writing on Friday because it was time for me to leave to go pick up a sister in our ward who needed a ride from work to pick up her daughter (from her dad's house) and then back to her home. (More about her later.) Since that was going to be a fairly long drive, I asked Tanner if he wanted to come with me and do the driving, so he could get in some driving hours. He agreed, and we set out...and on the way to the sister's work, we hit a deer! We were going up the main freeway that runs through Frederick and we were almost to our exit when I saw a deer on the shoulder. It was dark, so Tanner hadn't seen it yet. All I had time to say was "that's a deer!" before the deer had stepped out right in front of us. Tanner hit the brakes and swerved, but there was not enough time to stop, and I think the deer walked into his swerve (it all happened so fast that I'm not sure exactly what happened) so we hit it. A pretty decent thump, but the airbags didn't deploy or anything. We and the deer ended up in the left shoulder (thank goodness no one was in the left lane at the time). Tanner and I were not hurt at all, but the sad thing was that the deer was hurt, but didn't die. We were sitting there waiting for Frank and for the police to come, and the whole time we were watching this poor animal suffer. It did a couple of spectacular flips, and then laid down on one side with its eyes closed, sides heaving. Tanner felt so remorseful, even though it wasn't his fault, and I felt terrible too. We were really surprised, though, when after a while the deer opened its eyes, and then lifted up its head. It stayed that way for several minutes and then to our even greater surprise, it got up and ran back across the highway (thankfully no cars were coming this time) and jumped over the guardrail. Its back left leg was dragging...I'm sure it was broken...but it did just fine on three legs. For the deer's sake, I hope it had some internal injuries and has died by now...otherwise, it must be suffering from that broken leg.
Anyway, meanwhile Frank arrived and then the police. The front of the Prius is pretty smashed up. The bumper is fine, other than one dent, but the hood is bent up a lot. The car still runs...the engine seems fine and no fluids are leaking or anything like that...so maybe it won't be a total loss? We will have to wait for the appraisal to find out. We have to take it in tomorrow to have that done. Here's some pictures:
(Yes, that is deer hair.)
So what do you think? Maybe we'll get to keep the car? I've had more than one person say that after an accident like that the car is never the same so it's sometimes better if it's a total loss, but I'm not so sure. No time for car shopping, and I really don't want to start over on a car loan yet again...but I guess if we have to, we'll deal with it. We're fortunate it wasn't worse. The deer we hit wasn't very large so we were lucky there. Tanner seems to be doing ok. He didn't want to drive home after that, but today he asked to drive again. We've assured him that things like this happen and there really wasn't anything he could have done to prevent it.
As for the rest of the week, Frank was busy doing maintenance and taking care of emergencies for clients, along with his regular job too, of course. I had a long list of RS related tasks that I was trying to work through. I also had visits, both RS and visiting teaching, as well as food orders I was trying to get done. A few appointments fell through and I've had to try to reschedule. I had a presidency meeting Wednesday, PEC this morning before church, and missionary correlation meeting after church. Every day on my planner is crammed with writing, trying to fit in all the many things that needed to be done. I went to bed late and woke up early every day...and sometimes didn't sleep very well in between. It's been exhausting! Besides all the RS stuff, I had book chat on Tuesday, took Tanner to an appointment Wednesday, Jared to the orthodontist on Thursday, and of course tried to keep up with all the regular things like laundry. (By the way, no one at book chat liked the book we read either!) We had my car in to the shop to be fixed on Monday and Tuesday...we're poorer now but it sounds a lot better.
On Friday I spent a lot of the morning with a sister in our ward who needed some help with transportation because her car had overheated. I picked her up from her house, took her to her car to meet the tow truck (we had to wait nearly an hour for that), followed the truck to the mechanic, and then took her to work. Then I went back later to pick her up from work (that's when we hit the deer). I've mentioned this sister before...she is less active and up until this week I had not met her but had exchanged several text messages with her. It was great to finally meet her! We had some long conversations while we waited and drove around, and I'm hoping that someday soon she will be ready to come back to church. She is really a great person and has dealt with a lot of tough things with a lot of courage. Unfortunately, the problems with her car are serious...so expensive to fix that getting another car would be a better option. After I finally made it to her work (after hitting the deer) and we were on our way to pick up her daughter, we passed another accident where a car was actually lodged in the branches of a tree next to the road! I said "Wow, someone else is having a worse day than we are!" and we both laughed.
Frank and I decided last week that we wanted to go out on a date on Friday, and in spite of all the craziness, that's what we did. The kids were out of school 2 hours early on Friday so after everyone got home we went to an afternoon movie and then to dinner. We saw Ender's Game, which I enjoyed (I never have read the book, so I didn't have a book to compare it to). It was a nice break that we both needed!
Tanner and Jared have been trying to get caught up in school after being consumed by the play. Tanner worked on Calculus all day yesterday and wasn't too happy about that. He was sick on Thursday so I had him work on some of it that day too. He is still struggling with Seminary attendance but we're hoping after he has some more recuperation time he will do better. There was an event at the school on Tuesday that he did light and sound for, and he had a rehearsal for that on Monday.
Yesterday was really busy too--more RS stuff (lots more), we watched the BYU game (sad!) and we had the Elders over for dinner. When they were leaving, one of our neighbors (across the street; we've never met him) stopped them and asked them what they do. When they explained, he said he was looking for a church and wanted to know when ours met. How often does that happen?! He was going to come to church with us today but he wasn't feeling well. We'll see if he comes another week.
The weather was super nice on Monday...we even had our windows open! Most of the week was somewhat mild, even yesterday wasn't all that cold but today that changed dramatically. We had a high in the 30's and it was really windy too. We even saw a few snowflakes drifting down. Brrrrr!!!
Today the boys had a song practice and then BYC after church, Jared and I went to choir practice, and Tanner went to a missionary prep class. Now it is late evening and we need to have family night. The next few days are going to be super busy too but then hopefully we will get a few days of relative rest as we go to NC for Thanksgiving. We do have a lot to be thankful for!
1 comment:
I almost hit a deer once- it's scary! Glad you were all okay! And that's so sad to see the poor animal suffer... maybe it will be okay and not need it's forth leg...?
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