Ah the memories

So today was the last day of classes before Thanksgiving break, woo hoo! Most of my teachers actually called it an optional day. I think a lot of teachers did because when Jason passed by the bus depot for outbound trips it was packed with little college brats headed home. After this week of freedom we have only 1.5 weeks left in the semester. Then it's home, Florida, home, back home. :) Well this week has just been full of surprises. I actually got caught up on my grading for the most part. I also got an A on two more tests this week and drove my Business 301 teacher crazy . . . again. He's hilarious. he yelled at me the other day for making it sounds so easy because a few of the students are really struggling and it doesn't help to hear "That was easy" or "it only took me 10 minutes." :) Today I was a little punchy so when he asked questions I just said "Si senor" in a Mexican jalapeño voice. After the second time you could see the smile and that he was trying to ignore me. :) I love college.

Jason also had some revelations this week. He was able to finish some Christmas presents and spend a lot of time with Alisabeth. He also did an amazing amount of stuff around the house in helping me get everything ready for my Pampered Chef party. The party was a blast. We had just enough chairs for everyone, and I made almost the perfect amount of food. Can't beat that! Jason wasn't there because we found out on Sunday that we had a Nursery training meeting at the same time. He went to it and had a great time. They talked about a few ideas for disciplining the little babies when they hit each other, or are just acting out without having to go find the parents. (In case you aren't following, Jason and I are in charge of 14 babies ages 18 months to 2.2 years. We provide a nursery for 2 hours during church while their parents are in classes). It was really neat, and he told me that most of the things they talked about were already being done by us and the other nursery.

The other exciting thing this week just happened tonight at about 6:15. We were driving to Idaho Falls for a Mary Kay party. It was a one time event because of a special guest from Utah who was coming up tonight. We were excited to go. As we drove down the road a poor young guy didn't see us and took over our lane. Jason honked and finally swerved to avoid him. I watched for a second more than just covered my head and closed my eyes. When we stopped moving I immediately looked at Jason who was now below me and called out to him hoping he was fine. I noticed a nice smash in the windshield and was hoping it wasn't from him. Luckily he was okay except for his shoulder. He had landed on it when the car came to a stop and it ended up that it was "separated" (dislocated). So he'll be in pain for a bit.

As I hung above him taking stock I noticed that my window, which was up was surrounded by branches, as was the windshield in front of me. I couldn't see anything else because the room had been crushed in a bit but I repositioned myself so that my feet were touching the dashboard next to the steering wheel and then let myself loose from the seatbelt.

Jason couldn't get free from his, so I began moving around trying to get a feel for how we were going to get out of the car. I tried kicking the windshield and would have eventually broken through (since it was already cracked) but it wouldn't have done much good because of all the branches from the tree we were resting against. My next goal was to help Jason get out of the seat so I moved to where I was underneath him to try to support his weight and hopefully take it off of the seatbelt until he could release it. Unfortunately because of his shoulder he couldn't get to it so that didn't help much. By this time some of the passer-bys had stopped and a few lights were shinning in at us. Jason kept honking the horn accidentally whenever he shifted his weight so they assured us that they knew we were there and we assured them that we weren't doing it on purpose.

The only other option for getting out was the back window so that's what I headed for next. I couldn't quite get there and it wouldn't have mattered if I did because it hadn't yet been broken so I wouldn't have been able to break it with almost no leverage to work with. By this time the police had arrived and we saw a few people from the fire department. The back window was broken and I was given a seatbelt cutter to get my husband out. Finally they cut through the tree and eventually through the windshield and helped us escape. I was sure to grab Jason's temple bag . . . the only thing I cared about, and he was sure to grab the baby's stroller . . . the only thing he cared about :) The guy who had run us off the road took full responsibility for the accident and strangely his boss showed up (I guess it was a company vehicle on a bank run).

The other driver felt so bad he was in tears. I just wanted to give him a hug and tell him "it's okay." He personally approached me to apologize. I told him not to worry. We were all okay and it was an accident. I tried to help him see that not only did I completely forgive him, but that there was no need for him to replay this incident over and over in his mind. I know for me I take things like this so personally that I replay them for years after the event which is so bad! We're praying for him to have peace and I hope there are no lasting problems with his job. His boss seemed pretty ticked when he got there but he only stayed a few minutes to make sure that everything was okay and then he was off again.

Needless to say we are down to one car again (thank heavens we weren't in my car at the time : p) Luckily we have a week off from school with no plans to leave the city anyway so we'll be fine (even if it is 50 degrees in the middle of the day and I'm going to freeze to death walking everywhere). Did I mention that our other car is in getting the paint re-done . . . again . . . from the last accident . . . last year?

Yeah anyway, we called a friend instead of paying the ambulance $500 to drive us to the hospital and they happened to be driving right behind us and had just passed us when we got into the accident (they didn't realize it was us though) so they flipped around and were there in a few minutes. They took us to the hospital, waited and then took us to fill our pain meds and then took us to Dairy Queen?!! However I feel bad because we weren't able to make it to the Mary Kay party.

Needless to say the rest of the holiday should be quite boring. . . Although we do have a giant thanksgiving dinner scheduled!! I am quite excited about that. See next week for lots of photos, and maybe some of the sideways car!! the cops kept snapping pictures and we're going to try to get some copies!! The ones you see in this blog were taken by Jason the next day when they went to salvage the brand new battery and to see if the alternator would work for a friends vehicle. Ain't it pretty?