Day 2: A comedy of Errors

The day started out great—we were up and out of Papa’s house just like I’d planned and within 5 minutes of my estimated time.  At the end of the day, I still haven’t had that dreaded realization that we forgot something at his house so our first night was a success!  Add that to the afterglow of a great visit with Papa—something that doesn’t happen often and is treasure—and we were sitting pretty!  We’d stayed up really late playing guitar and singing and just enjoying being together.  We never realize how much we miss Papa and Joyce until we visit with them again!

After all the potty stops, we finally pulled out of St. George around 6:00.  We weren’t going to make our  7:00 appointment at the Vegas Temple so I reached for the phone to call and let them know we’d be late.  Clicking the phone on, the time flashed 5:00 and I realized I’d made a critical error in my planning!  A critical error, in my favor!  I’d forgotten about time zones!  We pulled in to Andi’s house to drop off the little ones at 6:45!  We would be ten minutes late for our appointment, and in my book, that’s right on time!

Sadly, that’s where all planning broke down.  The GPS lead us to the LDS Temple-street chapel – which is across town from the LDS Temple.  We went 20 minutes in the wrong direction and arrived at the temple an hour late.  Luckily, it’s the temple.  They were fine with our late arrival and we had a marvelous time.

(Aside:  Temple Tour buddies—you’d LOVE the Vegas baptistery!!  It’s all wide open and the workers were so easy going!  π2 and I said, at the exact same time,

“This temple would’ve been awesome on the temple tour!” 

We love and miss you all!!!)

They have a weird system with family names at the Vegas Temple.  They must only have one scanner because they took the cards upstairs to the family file desk to be scanned.  When I went to retrieve them, they’d somehow lost the ten male names we’d just done.  An hour and a half of searching and the conclusion was reached that someone else must have picked our cards up with theirs.  No one had any ideas on what we could do so we eventually just left our contact information with them and if they find them they’ll send them back to the submitter.  We were sick about it until one worker let us know that the submitter can just re-print those cards.  A little more at ease, we left the temple—3 hours after leaving the kids to be babysat for an hour!—to go pick them up.

Luckily the kids had been on their best behavior and won Andi’s heart—and L bonded with her dog, Scooby—so the time wasn’t too bad.  Excited for our next stop at Aunt Mary’s house to play with our cousins, we headed straight to the freeway.  Waiting at the light, there was an earth shaking POP and I knew immediately that we’d just been in a car accident!

A couple of the kids started crying as backpacks flew from the back and wacked them in the head but otherwise everyone seemed unscathed.  Relieved that my most precious treasures were safe, I got out to assess the damage.  It’s funny how much you think in the time it takes to walk the length of the van!  By the time I arrived at the subject of my thoughts, I’d already formulated a plan for how we would proceed in three different scenarios that I’d played out in mind only.

Our luck held as I observed the only injury to us in the incident—a dented bumper.  Sadly, the young man’s Jeep hadn’t faired too well in the fight it’d picked.  It lost an eye, a few teeth and was going to need stitches across its brow.  Picking up the headlight, I walked to the driver’s side and had a flash of inspiration.  I needed to be very sweet to these very hard looking young men.  I love when that familiar, still small voice speaks!  (I love it even more when I listen!) 

“Are you boys okay?” was the first thing I asked.  The driver nodded that he was fine, but the passenger looked badly shaken.  Glazed eyes looked at me as I told him to lay back and put his feet on the dashboard.  As he moved his hand to lay the seat back, we both saw the blood at the same time.  It wasn’t bad, just some peeled off skin, but it was bad enough to need some attention.  Telling them to stay in the Jeep, I ran to the van to grab the first aide kid. 

I washed his wounds and had them all bandaged up before I realized he was almost in tears.  “You’re being awfully nice to the idiots who just jacked up your van, lady.”  He said to me.  “Aah, it’s just a little dent, I’m more worried about these,” I said holding his shaking hands in mine.  “You really need to sit back down and put your feet up.  You’re in shock and your body needs a minute to catch up with your emotions.”

I walked them back to the Jeep and got them both sitting down.  We exchanged information, took pictures and made sure they were really okay before we both drove off. 

Now I needed to deal with the emotional super storm that was brewing in my own vehicle.  We pulled over into a Target parking lot and took stock of the situation.  Two kids got bruised heads, a few of us had headaches and neck aches from the jolt, but all in all, we were all okay.  This was all of the children’s first car accident! 

Realizing that unless we controlled the explosion of emotion, we might end up getting blown away by it, we decided to go walk around Target for a little while.  The kids were a bit wild—which we expected—but all in all, it was the perfect distraction.  We spent a good hour browsing the aisles—trying on hats and watches and purses, looking at art supplies and trying to find the ugliest things in the store.  We had great fun, bought a bag of (nasty!) Popsicles and we were ready to get on the road. 

It took another 45 minutes of kids going potty and getting gas before we were actually on the road.  By then it was 1-1:30, the time I’d planned on arriving in Corona to visit Mary!  As we drove we realized we wouldn't make our 6:00 appointment at the Redlands temple if we went to Mary’s house first, so we made the call to stop at the temple first and realized that one of us would have to stay outside with the little kids while the others went in.  Cody volunteered this time and so we split up.

Inside the Redlands temple looks just like the Monticello temple!  Great memories of freezing cold water and picnic dinners at a complete stranger’s house flooded to mind and Ri and I got to reminisce about our incredible youth conference experience.

Meanwhile, Cody was outside having an adventure of his own.  X had needed to evacuate his bowels all day, but every time we stopped for a potty break, he just couldn’t make it happen.  Well, as they entered the church house located in the same parking lot as the temple to utilize their facilities, unbeknownst to Cody, X had an accident.  Embarrassed, he didn’t want to tell so he just kept following Cody around the perimeter of the church house.   The other littles followed, not paying attention to where they stepped.  By the time they found the bathrooms, the damage had been done.  Cody spent the next hour scrubbing stomped in poo out of the chapel rugs.  When I found him, he was on his knees, spray bottle in one hand, rag in the other.  I can’t remember the last time I saw him sweating as badly as he was in that moment!  Through clenched teeth he said,

“I have just earned a combo meal of my choice!”

I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

We arrived at Mary’s at 8:00—seven hours later than planned but all whole and ready for a good night’s sleep.  See you again tomorrow!

(Oh, and I still haven't found a moment to upload pics from my real camera!  Look for updates to these posts probably later this week!)