Six Flags

Well this picture about sums up the last week of our lives in Sparks. It was not quiet the fun filled week we had planned. On Monday our friends the Taylors, invited us to go to the Six Flags/Animal Kingdom in Vallejo California. They had some free guest passes and had to use them by the end of June. They were awesome enough to invite us to go with them to the park using their guest passes. We were super excited to go. Especially since the kid ride section is really fun, and they have whale and dolphin shows, a zoo area, and a shark aquarium.

WELL.... About a half hour until we were there, Gabe was complaining she was hungry. It was our lunch time, and we figured it'd be a whole lot cheaper if we stopped before the park, since they charge you a ton for food in the park. We figure we'd pull off and grab some drive thru and call it good. We decided to use the rest rooms too. When we were set to go and pulling into the street, halfway through the intersection our car just died. I'm glad we made it off the road okay. We couldn't ever get it to restart, or figure out what was wrong with it. So the boys told us to take the kids and go on ahead to the park. It sure beat having them hang out in a car shop. They would push the car to a shop, get things looked at and meet us in a few hours or so. So we piled in the truck, and headed out, even though we didn't love the idea of leaving the boys.

Just for the record, we didn't know they were going to push it until we were at the park, otherwise we wouldn't have left them to do it on their own.

I had to take a picture of the car with their dirty hand prints proving the hard work they put in pushing it to a shop. They pushed it for a mile. When they were almost there a shop owner offered to fix it at his shop and went to go get a tow rope. When he got back the rope wouldn't work, so they just decided to finish pushing it to the shop. I was amazed they did.

They ran a bunch of tests telling us the engine wasn't getting fuel and they thought it was this part that was malfunctioning. They said they could replace the part, and have a guy who was an hour away bring it to them. Not ideal, but we agreed.

MEANWHILE......The girls were juggling two toddlers and two babies in 95 degree weather with three strollers. That's all we had with us, they rest was left in the car. So it was a little tricky to juggle and make work in the beginning and we were really hot and frustrated. Especially since we were planning on the husbands to help with kids. Going solo turned out tricky. One of us stayed with the boys in the shade on some grass while the other took the girls around to rides. It was too hot to push the boys in the heat to watch the girls. Once we got the hang of things, and located a good water source, things went a little smoother. The girls had a ball, and really that was a nice thing, cause everything else was kinda miserable. So for such a random day, the good thing was Gabe and Brielle didn't know it was a crazy day.We then heard from the guys telling us they switched the part out, and it still wasn't working. So they had to wait for them to run MORE tests. So we hung out at the park longer. We got to see a dolphin show, a whale show, and hit a bunch of rides. Gabe loved the rides. We saw a lot of the marine animals. It is a pretty big park and we didn't even hit half of what we probably could have done if the guys were there to help. Once evening rolled around we left the park to meet up with the boys who still were trying to figure things out. The mechanics still didn't know what it was.

So we had a few options...

1-Stay the night in a hotel, wait for it to be finished the next day, and then drive home

2-All pile in their truck and head home and come get the car the next day and tow it home (3 hour drive)

3- Attempt to tow the car home behind their truck, with us all piled inside.

I was so done by the end of the day, I didn't car anymore what happened, I just didn't want to decide. So Danielle said to me, "I think you just need to go home." She was so right, I did, and so did my worn out kids. I didn't love the idea of piling in their truck going over Donner's pass. Matt was sandwiched in the back, Adam sat on the floor in front of an air bag, and Gabe was up front in front of an air bag. Going over a crazy windy mountain road did not sound appealing at all. The idea scared me, not having people in seats. I think everyone thought I was silly, but I felt strongly about it. So luckily we had an awesome friend who found out what was going on and offered to meet us and drive us home. Thanks Carl! We would have rented a car, but rental places were closed. So we piled in the car and drove to the bottom of Donners and met Carl who drove us home.

The next day Matt got a work truck and borrowed a trailer and came to get the car. Since the mechanic told us he thought out car's computer was broken, and he couldn't fix it, and it needed to be taken to a Subaru dealership. On the way home he and Adam got two blown out tires at two separate times over Donners Pass. They were lucky they didn't get in an accident. They did have to stop to fix them, which just added to everything else. They ended up safely getting it home after a very long day. We took it to a dealership and confirmed it was a computer problem costing A LOT of money to fix. Boo! He said it would take a few days to fix.

Once it was fixed, we realized the real problem was a fuel pump, and that the mechanic who first worked on it broke our computer by not running his tests right. If he had done them right, he would have seen it was the fuel pump. So we then got to pay to have them fix our fuel pump. That costing more money we didn't have, since all our saved money was going to a move. The Subaru guy made sure he had it done before we'd have to move. He told us Tuesday we'd get it back, and Wednesday we were moving. Our awesome friends lent us their car to use while it got fixed. We ended up getting a call Monday telling us our car was done. We attribute that nice surprise to the faithful prayers of our awesome daughter. :) She is really timid still when it comes to saying prayers by herself. BUT every once in a while she says some very insightful things. She prayed that our car would work and we could drive it to our new home. We were thrown off cause we hadn't prayed about the car in front of her. She just knew it was broken so she prayed for it. We decided when we really need something from now on, we'll have Gabe pray for it. ;0)

Anyway that is the quick shortened version of our very crappy expensive last week in Sparks. We did have some fun things as well, which I'll blog about next. Here is a collage of some of the pics we took at six flags.

It really was a blessing in disguise that it didn't happen when we were moving and stuck in the middle of nowhere on I-80 by ourselves. Our friends were AMAZING and did so much to help us. Thanks everyone for all your help. It kinda is beginning to be amusing. :)