miracles

Ok, so I feel like I need to wrap up my writing about the first half of our trip before we start the long journey back on Sunday. I am not going to write about everything we did and saw, since that would take so much time and anyway I should wait until I am home so I can make the official trip recap with pictures.

But I made a comment in my first posting away from home about how God had provided at least four miracles on the way out. So I thought I would briefly share those moments with you:

miracle #1
stopping for gas at a truck stop midway up to D's parents' home in Chico, we search and search and cannot locate B's second shoe. Her only shoe, mind you, we brought for this long trip (excluding her new sandals for the wedding). Her expensive shoe (durable, comfortable, water-proof, machine washable, Keen sandals handed down from G) that it would be sooooo painful to replace on short notice. Where the heck could it have gone?!?!! So after pumping gas and moving the car to a spot of shade farther away in the parkinglot, and after taking the girls for their potty stop (B wearing the wedding sandals we unearthed in frustration), we sat and ate lunch, I nursed E, we walked Macey our dog (who would be staying in Chico while we were on the roadtrip), we did all the necessary things. D is usually a little annoyed at how long we take on stops (since the necessary things do not lend themselves well to a good division of parental labor, D not having breasts and the girls being too old to go into the men's bathroom) but this time the long stop was a blessing. Well, and a curse, but I'll get to that in a minute. The blessing happened when an old Mexican man in a cart full of bags of recycling drove up to our car and, without speaking, held up the missing shoe. Don't ask me how it fell out of the car without us noticing, since B is the child sitting farthest from a door in the car, but we were just thrilled to have it back. Thank you Lord, for watching over us down to the smallest detail!

miracle #2
this one comes right on the back of finding the shoe and the warm glow and thankfulness we were feeling as we sat there idylically, picnicing in the shade. D has holding E as I was preparing the car for the resumed journey to Chico. When suddenly the peace was shattered by the snarls of dogs and the shrieks of people. Macey, who had been calmly lounging next to us, tied by a long leash to a tree, had seen a woman walking a little dog that must have looked particularly exciting and palatable, because she had lunged for it, her leash broke, and when we turned we saw her wrestling this little dog. I ran and got there first and luckily Macey was not really interested in going for the little dog because at the loud panic of the people around her she backed off and D grabbed her and put her in the van while I went into emergency calm mode and got the little dog's owner to bring the dog into the shade of another tree so we could calmly assess her status (the lady was shell shocked--she was almost not even capable of speaking coherently, and seemed emotionally as frail as her little toothpick-legged, practically hairless yippie dog was physically. pardon me if I seem a little distainful, but little helpless dogs are so unnatural. why couldn't it have been a Rottweiler who would have dispatched Macey with a yawn? Although we realized when we were back in the car that the little dog did give Macey a couple of good bloody bites on her face--good for it). The little dog's hairless thighs were abraded from the hot rough road where they had tussled, and she was understandably freaked out, but we could not find any signs of a bite anywhere. The husband owner came over and we exchanged information, saying we would of course be responsible for our dog and they should call us after they had seen the vet.

We were of course so bummed at this point. Here we were feeling so euphoric after the shoe incident, and then this horrible thing happens. I would like to take a moment to explain that Macey loves people (well, except the meter man, but he really scared her one time and she clearly feels threatened by him) and has always been very gentle with our children when they would climb on her as toddlers. Well, she might accidentally knock them down with her tail, but all in the spirit of love. But other dogs are another matter, and while she used to have lots of dog friends in CO, they were for the most part medium to big sized dogs and when she wrestled them, they happily wrestled back. But she has always had a fascination with little dogs, and treats them like chew toys. However, she seems to have gotten crankier in her old age, and she seems to pick fights with any size dog now, except for her boyfriend Jasper, D's parents' old yellow lab. But if you are an in-town friend, please do not be afraid of our dog because of this story! She is one tough old dog, that is for sure, but she only dislikes other dogs. She loves people.

So, to finish the story, we exchanged painful phone calls and voicemail messages with the dog's owner all through Nevada and Utah--they thought she was fine, but then she was not improved after a couple of days and bit her owners several times, and got them worried and afraid she had a puncture and might abscess, etc. etc. The husband owner was really nice and was just trying to keep us informed, but it was stressful and such a bummer way to start our trip! But we finally got closure when they received the vet bill and sent it on to us: $146.oo. Any of you who know what it costs to own a dog understand how shocked we were--it cost more than that 6 months ago just to take Macey for a checkup! And this time the vet did x-rays and a month's worth of pain pills on top of the exam--I seriously thought it would be more than $500. From talking with the owner, it seems he got the vet to give us a deal--he was respecting our being responsible dog owners and tried to make it easier on us. But how often does that happen? It could have more easily been the kind of owner who would sue for emotional damaged. So that is miracle #2--that we prayed, driving away from the truck stop, that God would provide and would take care of us as He had been so far, and we trusted all would be well. And it was. AMEN!

God is so good!

more miracles later.