Oops!

Have I mentioned the nightmare of our car fire last month?

It seems every year, the week of Christmas, we should brace ourselves for some logistical pain in the ass. Remember last year when we were out of our home for 5 days without power while our kitchen was under construction? (Although good things came from that... have we mentioned our daughter?)

This year, on December 23rd, Kevin was driving home from work, and began his two week holiday vacation. It had been a crazy week and I was more than ready to start the holiday hooplah and enjoy some family time with him around. He called a couple of times on his way home, as we were making plans to meet friends, scrambling for a possible sitter last minute later in the evening. The third time he called, (he does have a half hour commute) I hear sirens in the background and the first thing he said was, "those sirens you hear are for me." The roads were bad and I immediately feared the worst and frantically asked if he was ok. After he assured me that he was, he said his car (my old beloved Volkswagen Passat wagon) sputtered and died at a light. A passerby knocked on the window and said, "It's on fire!"

That passerby must have called the fire department because they arrived within a minute of Kevin pushing it out of the road. Long story short, there was a random electrical fire and as you can see below, had the fire department not put it out, things could have gotten really bad.

The silver lining of me having to put down my wine, cease making dinner and load up BOTH kids (including a barefoot CeCe) to drive downtown and find my husband and his burnt carcass of a vehicle, was that Preston got to see the giant fire truck and they gave him some Fort Wayne Jr. Firefighter badge stickers.

So, here we are car shopping. The Passat is um... totaled. (See below.) Our insurance has been great, we are getting KBB value and looking for an older, reliable car that we can just run into the ground. We haven't found one yet, but I assure you, it hasn't been for lack of looking. I fell in love with a Diesel 1979 inexpensive Mercedes sedan the other day. Wouldn't that be fun to drive?! (Until it needed work that cost more than the car itself, that is!) We used to be a 2 VW car family and absolutely love the brand, not to mention they are one of Kevin's largest clients at work. Another upside of that is that he's been in contact with the Director of Customer Relations there who's been great. So far, though, they haven't been able to convince us to get another VW.

Oh- by the way, later that evening, he still went out to meet friends. ...Life carries on, right? ;)


In the junk yard- the window exploded from the heat: