Glad to Say Goodbye to July

Ever heard it says that bad things come in threes.  Well, I am a firm believer.  The month of July was great: 4th of July, family reunions, twins birthday, bbq's, and etc.  But it was also fraught with terribleness.  Over the 4th, we camped at the family cabin in Island Park and as I mentioned in a previous post, we took a day trip and watched as our less than one year old (not really, it is really 7 years old, but we have only owned it for a year) suburban blew a fuel pump.  I don't know if I mentioned, but those things aren't cheap, especially when one is paying off hospital bills from having a baby and trying desperately to replace mud with grass and trees.  But of course, we were watched over and blessed through the whole dilemma.  Neighbors from our ward here just so happened to land at the gas station where our suburban went kaput and were able to take the kids and I back to the cabin so that we weren't stranded for hours in the heat with a small baby.  Zac's cousin also "happened" to chance upon us and was able to line up a vehicle for us to borrow until we could get a fix on our suburban.  Bad situation, but made so much more bearable by our surrounding angels.

Nextly, came Ashlyn's run-in with the cat and a trip to the ER for stitches... also NOT cheap.  However, we were blessed to have a neighbor who we found has a degree in nursing help Ashlyn until I could get her some attention.  We are also blessed because the insurance deductible is more than met with having had the baby, so bill should be bearable?  Still waiting to hear what the insurance says.

Thirdly, we took another trip to Island Park a couple weekends ago to attend a family reunion.  Zac and I drove separately since he had to travel with business to North Dakota.  As I was heading home with a suburban full of six tired kids and full to the gills with our camp stuff.  There is some pretty heavy road construction going on through Island Park right now which leads to some treacherous stretches down the hill on narrow lanes with very abrupt edges.  And wouldn't you know that is right when my tire decided to blow... when I was alone... with six kids... in construction... on a soft shoulder... at twilight.  Having never had a flat on the suburban before I didn't know a) where the jack was, b) how to get to the spare even if I found the jack, and c) where the attachment for the "custom" lug nuts for our fancy tires was.  and d) where to even begin!  Zac was unreachable by cell phone and my daddy was at work and couldn't walk me through anything.  I unloaded all of our belongings and prayed my heart out for help.  Not five minutes later a car pulled over and a dad and two high-school aged boys got out.  They stayed with me and changed that tire even though it was a difficult fix.  Half way through another two road construction boys pulled over and put the flashing lights on their truck to warn traffic to slow down and helped finish with the fixing of the tire.  Pure angels!!!

New tires for the custom rims on this suburban= $$$ (grr).

THEN- before the month ended and I thought I could get away with three bad things, I took my new Samsung Galaxy Tablet that Zac gave me for my birthday and tossed it on the floor (total accident!!!) and of course it landed screen down and shattered into a million pieces.  Boo!  FORTUNATELY, we purchased it back from Costco and they had a 90 return policy and took it back in this condition and replaced it.  Not only did they replace it, but gave us the new sales price of $40 off.  So though this situation started aggravatingly bad, it actually ended up working out better in the long run, so maybe it won't count towards the curse.

All in all, a very expensive and gut wrenching month.  However, every time I want to complain or think "poor me", I hear about a friend, family member, community member, or new story about someone who is having a much worse time, experiencing far more dramatic and horrible life events than these.  So I won't complain, in fact I will instead thank the Lord for all the things that are going right and for all of the angels he puts in my path to ease my burdens.