Devine Coincidence

Devine Coincidence

<Warning: This is quite a long post. I've always been one of those people who give way to many details. I can usually make a funny story so long it's not funny anymore. I'm just not always concise. I did my best to delete what I could.>

This past weekend we made a long road trip to Colorado to say good bye to one of my husbands many automobiles. During the past 8 years of our marriage we've said goodbye to several cars, but this experience was quite different.

At the beginning of this year we began to plan a vacation to WI, my husband's home state. We had everything planned wonderfully, we rented a beautiful cabin on a lake, prepared our boat for towing, planned a BBQ with friends and family, and even invited a cousin of ours along for the ride to keep our son company. The weekend before we left on our way home from our local lake our truck began to make strange noises while towing the boat. We read up and decided that driving it any further could be devastating. Hmmm...

So, here we were a week away from leaving and we had no truck to get us and our boat there. We quickly went into panic mode. We thought about renting something to tow our boat there, but it would have been a few several thousand dollars. In my husbands spare time he endlessly searches eBay motors, it's a big hobby of his, I really have no clue as to how anyone could spend so much time looking at cars, but somehow he does. While playing on eBay one evening he decided it would be cheaper in the long run if we just bought something that could tow our boat. Now, we could have just taken our small car and left the boat behind, but what fun would that be and staying in a beautiful cabin on the lake all week watching other boaters would have been pure torture for us and especially the boys.

Before I knew it he was off to pick up the new vehicle. I had no idea what kind of truck was in store, where he was going to get it or what kind of shape it was in. I was a bit nervous, but I trust his car instincts. Before he returned I decided to go fill up my car with gas at the nearby gas station. As I was finishing I saw this green  conversion van drive by and thought, "oh, please no."  I'm not going to lie, I've never been a fan of van's, any kind of vans: conversion vans, mini vans, church vans. Just not a fan. Sorry. 

I drove home after filling up my car, and yep, a big green van was in our driveway. I could see it down the block. We were going to be spending the next few days in a 1996 Dodge conversion van. It had been well taken care of, was super clean, and had plenty of room. I couldn't really complain. The boys began their trip before me. I had to work an extra day so the plan was to pick me up in St. Louis at the airport the following day.

Here they are about to hit the road



I arrived in St. Louis safely only to discover that my ride was late, the boat trailer had a flat just outside St. Louis. Phew...good thing we replaced the spare and were prepared. After picking me up, even though slightly delayed, we continued. For dinner that evening we stopped at Cracker Barrel in IL, a road trip must. 15 minutes on our way out of town we had another flat tire. After pulling over we realized that it was really 2 flat tires. With no spare tires left, we had to leave the boat on the side of the highway!!! We hoped and prayed it would still be there when we returned.

It was close to 6pm as we headed to the nearest Wal-Mart for spare tires. I called to make sure they would be open but was informed they would be closing in 5 minutes and couldn't wait for us. Yikes. So I called the 2nd closest Wal-Mart. The manager was super nice and said if we got there by 6:10 he would wait for us. After having the tires fixed we began the search for our boat, which we hoped hadn't been stolen. We didn't realize how far we had driven to Wal-Mart and on the way back to the boat kept saying, "the boat will be just around this curve.... Okay, it's this curve. Well...maybe not. Maybe it's the next." Finally we spotted it. Relief.

Now we were really delayed and worried about finding our rental cabin in the dark. It was about midnight when we finally arrived at our cabin, not to hard finding it in the dark thank goodness. Tired, hungry and ready to settle in we pulled in the driveway only to notice that someone's car was parked there. We went to retrieve the key from the lock box and found the box empty.

While we were retrieving the key we noticed a window open. Upon closer inspection we noticed voices coming from inside. Hmmm... we decided to knock on the door. Lights inside turned on and off, and on again, but no one would answer the door. I don't blame them. Worried that maybe someone had broken in we tried calling the contact numbers we had been given. One individuals answering machine picked up and the other individual said they had no idea what we were talking about.

We weren't sure what to do, but decided on calling the police who eventually discovered that the cabin had been overbooked. Luckily, my husband's friend allowed us to crash at his house for the night and didn't live to far away. The owners of the cabin called the next morning, they were nice about the situation, and gave us a few free nights and a free dinner. Bonus! We were able to check in early the next day and get our vacation started, finally.

It was the 2nd day of boating when our nephew wanted to take the boat out for some knee boarding. The guys weren't on the water long before flashing lights chased behind them. The officer began to ask my husband several questions, "Do you live here?" "Did you know during and after sunset you can't make a wake?" "Is this boat registered under your name?" "Do you have your license on you?" All of which he answered "No." Oppps. We didn't live there, we had no idea what the water rules were, we hadn't finished registering our boat since we had just gotten it, and he had left his license at the cabin. I don't remember how many citations they gave us, but it wasn't a good end to the day.

Our top deck view, so glad we didn't miss this all together



We hoped to get a fresh start the next morning with some tubing. After 15 minutes on the water the boat broke. A sensor was beeping loudly indicating something was wrong. Luckily we found a nearby boat shop who towed the boat off for repair. Some vacation! We did what we could and tried to have a good time. We did get the boat back on the very last day and were able to get a few rides in. Thankfully, the trip back home was a little smoother.  

During all our vacation travels it's crazy that something went wrong with everything except for the van. The trailers tires all blew, the cabin was overbooked and the boat broke. But the van kept us going.

A week after our return we found out that our truck that had been in the auto shop wasn't really broke, but the turbo must have been temporarily stuck. There was nothing they could really do since they couldn't get it to happen again. Very interesting.

Over the summer the van was quite useful. We received lots of compliments and even named him George when a cousin came to visit for a few weeks. My husband had made a promise to sale George after summer since we didn't have any more room for another car. So off to Ebay George went. During the auction we had several questions and over 400 people were watching, but bids meeting our reserve weren't coming in. We know in part this had to do with Ebay messing up our Ad and putting an incorrect Autocheck, a competitor of Carfax but not as good. (Coincidence? I think not!) My husband was disappointed, but since we had started our application for adoption we decided that if George didn't find a new home we would keep him as a to-and-from school vehicle as my 2 door Ford Mustang won't quite work with kids.

We went to bed without waiting for the auction to end, which wasn't till 2:30am. We woke the next morning to find that it had been sold. Even though I didn't particularly like Gorge's body style and didn't mind seeing him go, I felt sorry for my husband. I think he knew this was the last time we would own a conversion van and was sad about it. Within a few hours the buyer emailed us including a link to their blog. My husband called me later in the day feeling so much better about the transaction and encouraging me to read the buyers blog.

I'm pretty sure that after reading the first paragraph I bawled through the rest of the blog. In fact I read it several times and continued to cry. I loved their story and found it incredibly touching but that wasn't what caused my tears. I was crying because everything was so clear, God's plan had become more visible than ever. Our family WAS on the right path.

The beautiful new family who is going to be making good use of George was one "built by God" and consisted of a mother and father and five children (wow can't imagine!!), all of which were adopted. I couldn't get enough. I read through their family's blog throughout the night, learning all I could about their family, what adoption had done for them, and the trials and joy adoption had brought them.

We were to deliver George to them over the weekend in Colorado. The trip was long and grueling for one weekend, but so worth it. After meeting them and handing over the van, we had dinner at a nearby restaurant. We sat with them that evening and asked several questions, probably too many. But we were so curious and they were so honest about their experience it was hard to hold back.

I couldn't help but ask about loving your new adopted children. See, like any expecting mother, I long for a relationship with my children, one only a mother can have, one similar to the one I had with my mother. But I'm not naive. I know it will not happen instantly, over a week or even over a year. She confirmed that it takes time and that's okay and is quite normal. That with every child it will be different. They listened and provided comfort while discussing the hard stuff:"picking" the right children, feeling guilty for not picking other children and how you just know who your child is.

Adoption is a topic that to fully understand you have to have gone through yourself or with someone, just like pregnancy. For now, I won't be able to join in on the conversations of child birth, how many hours I was in labor, food cravings and sicknesses, kicks in the belly and the like. But we'll have our own story, one of trials and tribulations and hopefully eventually complete and utter joy. Just like any expecting mother I'm excited, scared and nervous about the process.

In the mean time I find comfort in knowing that we are right where God intended us to be. On the way home from Colorado we talked about all the signs we had been given over this past year that we didn't notice at the time but that are so obvious now, starting with our truck that never really broke that forced us to buy George and our failed IUI attempts.

"And he said to them, "Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you." Mark: 4:24

Road trip Scenery



Thanks for reading,
Kelli