"Your Plans Will Now Be Interrupted..."

Yes, all you Dads out there think of Father's Day something like this -------------------------------->

Which, I have to say, is not so much how it happened for us.

In the first place, when the family gets together we not only have FOUR Dads to honor, we also have SIX birthdays to celebrate, mine included! (It can seem a bit like Christmas, when you see the pile of presents.)

So we loaded up "Pahoehoe" (our red minivan), with boys, toys, food and gifts, and headed south. About 20 minutes into a two-hour drive somebody passed us, waving frantically, as we heard a LOUD rumbling sound. Oddly, we didn't feel anything, but by the time we got to the shoulder and got stopped we could smell something hot.

The right front tire had blown out. And I don't mean it had a puncture... it was a total loss.

So - how good is God - it was a warm, dry, sunny day, we were on a long straight (good visibility) stretch of freeway with an wide-enough shoulder, and the spare tire (which I'd never before laid eyes on) was inflated adequately! AND even though we were in the far right lane when the left front tire blew and probably going about 70mph, it DID NOT pull us over to the left, into traffic. And get this... even as quickly as Kerry was able to pull over, the tire had completely failed and we were sitting on the rim, and it was not bent or damaged at all.

But - how dumb are we - neither of us had our cel phones with us, or cameras.

Kerry got to be a real studly Dad-hero and had the tire changed in.... well, about 20 minutes, to tell the truth.

But in the eyes of the boys...
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So, Gunnar forgive me, I hope you have a lot of good memories of this day, because we got NO pictures of your 7th birthday 'family party'.

Maybe I can get some pics later of him with his new 'stuff'...

MY birthday present (the best one!) is that this whole event may have been a drama we didn't plan on, but it was a drama with no trauma. Yes, we were two hours late to our party, and yes, we had to put out unplanned $ for two new tires, but... no damage to 'my' van, and (even better) no damage to my family.

How good is God.