An Eventful Weekend

This past weekend was quite an eventful one for our family. On Saturday, Matt, our kids, Jarod, Heidi, Will and I all piled into our mini van to drive 5 hours to MI for our cousin Phil's wedding. My mother and father-in-law took Aria with them so that the rest of us could fit in our van.

First eventful moment: We were about an hour and a half down the rode when Darci threw up. For those of you who know me well, you know how MUCH I hate everything that surrounds a person throwing up!! Thankfully, I kept my wits about me and was able to clean her up and not get sick myself. I was so afraid that she had the stomach flu...but realized that she was carsick. She was fine after that and slept soundly for a couple hours after that.

Second eventful moments: We had a fabulous time at Howard and Kristin P.'s home. There were several others spending the night besides us and we had a ball wipping the boys in a game of "Battle of the Sexes" and Josh was on cloud 9 when he found their marble machine. Also, Kristin makes THE BEST hot apple cider I've ever had! She is an all around fantastic cook. Thanks for the yummy food and great time!! ( I am bummed that I didn't have my camera in the house to take any pictures of the fun times)

Third eventful moment: We went to the wedding for Steph and Phil the next day. It was a lovely wedding and we had a nice time at the reception...there are just a couple pictures below.

The Beautiful Bride and Handsome Groom

The flower arrangements The nice reception room

My cousin, Tara and me

My sister, Tami and Tara. (these two girls drove 5 hours that morning to get to the wedding!)

The Fourth Eventful Moment: We decided to split the guys and girls up between our van and Tara's SUV on the way home. All the girls with Tara (minus Aria) and the boys and Matt and Jarod in our van. We needed to buy some formula for Aria so the girls led the way to try to find a place to buy some...this led to about an hour of driving around getting lost trying to find our interstate....blah....blah....blah.....Needless to say, we were so sick of the trip that would not START!

The Most Eventful and Memorable Moment: We were finally on the correct interstate driving home. It was snowing a little off and on and Jarod had just called Heidi on her cell phone to see if we would like one of them to drive for us. We said we were fine and that was when we hit the ice on the bridge. In an instant our vehicle was spinning in a circle and flying down into the deep median ditch. My immediate thought was, "I don't have my seatbelt on! (I was sitting in the middle of the backseat) I am going to die." It really is amazing all the thoughts that grow through your mind in those moments. I just kept thinking, "when is the jolt coming that is going to badly hurt us or kill us? Lord, don't let us die like this...I don't want to die like this...How bad is it going to hurt? Is Darci okay? when is it going to stop? What is that breaking glass in the back? I can't believe i'm not flying around this vehicle more without my seatbelt (come to find out, Heidi was holding on to my arm with all her might because she knew I wasn't wearing my belt) Oh no! we are flipping! I am going to break my neck! Please stop!" Heidi said that I was just yelling, "No! NO! No! NO! Please God!" through the whole thing. The vehicle completely flipped and then landed on its side. The driver's side was up in the air and Tara and Darci were both hanging from their seatbelts. Thankfully, no one was hurt. It is a miracle really. Darci began to whimper a little and i was able to find her seatbelt buckle and get her down. I immediately felt a little panic when I realized I didn't know how to get out of the vehicle.

Poor Jarod and Matt watched the whole thing,,,the whole time Jarod could hear us screaming on the cell phone and then the phone went dead. Heidi was able to call him immediately and tell them we were okay. Matt told me that it was an absolutely horrible moment to watch.

Once the vehicle came to a stop, we girls just sat in silence for a split second and then right away we asked if everyone was okay. When we knew everyone was fine we called 911 and reported our accident. We didn't know if we should stay in the car or try to get out. We didn't know if we would make it fall on it's roof again or what.

thankfully, a kind stranger ( a guy on his way back to school at Purdue) stopped and helped Jarod get us out the back of the SUV. There was broken glass in the back from a glass bowl that had shattered. Darci was handed out to Jarod first and then I got out. Then Jarod carried Darci and he and I went back to the van where Matt was waiting with the other kids. I'm not sure if it was hard to get Tara out of her predicament or not but they did get out safely.

When I got to Matt we got Darci in the van and then we just hugged and cried. I told him everyone was fine. We got in the van and Jarod ran back to the wreck while Matt and I decided to drive to the next exit and turn around and park on the other side of the interstate just in case other cars would lose control on the bridge and smash into us.

To make a long story short...(i know, you are thinking this is NOT short) Aaron and Bekah (Matt's sis and husband) were still coming by and picked up Tami, Tara, and Aria and then met Matt's parents a couple hours later and they drove them the rest of the way home. So, thankfully, we all got back to our homes safely.

Moments like that are scary and kind of surreal. I felt so sorry for Tara that her car is wrecked. But it makes me so thankful for life. It makes me want to hold my kids a little longer and to tell my family "I love you" more often...because you really never do know when it may be the last time you say it. I don't want to be overdramatic...obviously we didn't get hurt or killed. But it's kind of pathetic when you can't learn from something like that. So, anyway, that was how our weekend ended.

I will say one funny moment was when Heidi and I were in the car on the way home...we were sitting in the back seat talking about the accident and then I said, "man, I hope Tami's new dress didn't get ruined. I thought she looked so pretty in it." Heidi responded equally concerned, "Oh...I never even thought of that! I hope it's okay too.." Seriously, we are kind of pathetic.