Unexpected Blessings

Last Sunday, a friend of mine posted about church being canceled in MI because of weather and I won't lie...I was secretly hoping we'd have the same thing happen here.  It has been a crazy couple of weeks and I was longing for a nice, quiet family day.  Well sometimes the Lord extends his Tender Mercies in ways you don't expect.

Sean was at church at his early morning meetings and so I got the kids ready in the morning and while we were driving to church, the low tire pressure light came on in the car.  I made a mental note to stop at the gas station at the exit for the church and check the tire and put some air in it.  About 10 seconds later there was an incredibly loud noise and the tire blew.  I was about 1/4 mile from an exit so I slowly made my way to the off-ramp to find a place to pull over without cars rushing by us at 65 miles an hour.  The kids were SCREAMING the whole way because the noise the flat tire made was so LOUD.  Thankfully there was a nice empty park and ride parking lot immediately off the exit and we pulled in there.  I got out and assessed the damage...complete destruction.

I texted Sean and he came to the rescue.  Since we were in our Sunday best we all hopped into Sean's car and drove home to get changed into some more appropriate clothes for changing a tire.  Once that was accomplished we went back to the car to put the spare on the tire.  Matthew and Lily LOVED every minute of changing the tire and Sara happily read her book in Sean's car.

By the time the spare was on the car church was almost over and so we all went home and did in fact have a nice, quiet family day.  We played board games and cooked dinner and just generally had a nice day.  It was perfect.  :)

Side Note - I called the next day to get a new tire and the tire was under warranty so it didn't even cost anything to get a new one.

Lily taking her turn to help jack up the car

Matthew trying the put the safety stand under the bumper.  (Which provided the perfect opportunity to give a quick lesson in finding the frame of the car to put the safety stand under)

Lily and Matthew showing off the tattered tire.