Daddy daughter date

It isn't every day that you get to spend over three hours and $300 at a car dealership and it ends up being one of the most fun days you've ever had. But that's what happened to me today!

I get my oil changed at the dealer, because when we bought the car, we got some warranty thingy that basically gave us free oil changes for many moons (well, we paid for it...maybe we paid like $15,000 for oil changes and got a free van!). So I went there at 1:00 with Delaney in tow. Last time, we had a great time (and we got glow sticks and had a glow stick party that night), so I figured this would be a great time to get some great quality one on one time with my oldest. This paragraph is brought to you by the word 'great'. 'Great'- It's better than 'good', but worse than 'excellent'. Or 'amazing'. Or 'awesomefantabulouscious'.

First, I'll lay out why we were there for three hours. I had to get an oil change, and I figured I'd have them take care of my brakes also, since they were starting to squeak. I'd had someone do them a while ago when they started to squeak, but they didn't fix it, so I figured I might as well have someone professional do them. I also had them look at the alignment (last oil change, they suggested that). Of course, they told me that my calipers may or may not seize up soon, and that the steering column (I think?) might be in need of changing soon or else later. But that's neither here nor there.

I had SO much fun with Delaney that it didn't even bother me. First, we went and looked around in the show room. There is some special sale going on, and all the cars had helium balloons attached to them. Then we walked out of the show room into the adjoining strip mall. We went into Dunham's sports, because they had tons of bikes by the mall entrance. She loved it! Then close by they had these MSU and U-M foam hats, so we took some pics with those:


Then we walked around some more and stumbled upon their selection of kayaks and canoes. Oh my goodness, she just LOVED those! She kept saying 'oh my', and I honestly wish that I would have had a video recorder with me...because my words are much too pale to describe how I felt inside while watching her wander through this (pardon the pun) sea of kayaks and canoes, and watching her talk about them, and look at them! I never tire of seeing my children experience this world as a thing to be explored in newness at all times.

After this, we went to the nearby dollar store, where I got her a helium balloon (a Disney princess one- first one she grabbed, and she couldn't see which string she was grabbing- I thought that was kind of cool). Then I bought her a pair of red fairy wings (she is really into Tinkerbell right now) and a sparkly baton.

We came back to the strip mall, and found out that we had about another hour to go (argghh). What else to do? Well, Delaney laid down on the bench (she was a little tired), and I told her some stories- made 'em up all by myself, thank you very much. Then we started playing with these two cars that were sitting out in the hallway between the show room and the strip mall. Oh, we weren't vandalizing them, rolling down the windows, or spitting on the windshields...we pretended that the cars were alive (mommy truck and daddy truck), and I pretended to be their voices, and then Delaney pretended that she was the voice of the balloon! I love the imagination of a child, and we hung out in the hall for probably a good half hour or more.

Of course, when a child has a helium balloon, it is Murphy's law that the child will inevitably let go of that balloon exactly underneath the point in the room where the ceiling is the highest. Which is what she did. So we tracked down a Dunham's employee and got an extendo tool to get the balloon down. I could have just let it go (or just gone back and bought another balloon for $1), but I thought it was my fatherly duty to get her balloon back for her. Needless to say, I feel much more fatherly now.

After that, we went into their waiting room and watched some TV while they finished up...at this point, it was going on three hours and Delaney was starting to get a little tired (she did REMARKABLY well for the whole excursion, especially when you consider that we had forgot her juice cup at home and that it was three hours). We build a Lego castle...well, I built a Lego castle. Then it was done, and we left.

So here I am at home, $300 poorer, with around $800 of future auto labor possibly or possibly not lurking to strike (can you really trust people who take care of your automobiles? I've never really trusted that they'll be on the up-and-up), but feeling like the King of the world. I love my daughter, and I'm so thankful to God that anything we do with children can turn into the most amazing thing we've ever done.

I will make it happen again

Okay, this is part two. If you have not read part one, then read part one. Because this is part two. And I just really don't want you to screw this up.

There is a very cool story that I will not relay in it's entirety. Suffice it to say it is very cool. It is a story about a man who lives in a town that is flooding. As the waters rise, he has a car, a boat, and eventually a helicopter all offer him rides out of the town. Each time he declines, saying 'God will rescue me'. Well, the man drowns in the flood, and in heaven he asks God what the hell happened? He probably doesn't use that exact phrasology, but I did, because it strikes me as funny. God says, 'I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. What else do you want me to do?'.

The reason I love this story is because it is the summation of many people and their view on miracles. We expect God to show up in this Thunder cloud and do some sort of Houdini magic trick. Really though, God operates on a much more practical level than that. It doesn't mean that the crazy David Blaine stuff doesn't happen- but God is often pretty low-key with His miracles.

So let me really get to the heart of this whole post- and it all ties in, I swear! Back to the house situation (cue flashback effects, music), an opportunity came along to relieve the burden of our car payment and we took it. Even if the house thing falls through, it'll still be like $200 less per month that we have to pay on the car.

The only thing is that in order to get this going, I had to go all-in, so to speak, and put us in a couple week stretch of extreme financial tightness...as in, don't buy toilet paper, we'll just use all those carbon check thingys and credit card apps financial tightness. Of course, if you've ever had money, you know that this is a terrible place to be in ever, let alone to put yourself in on purpose. It's definitely a calculated risk,though- this should make it easier for us to qualify for the loan, and it will definitely be easier to make our month stretch to the end of the money.

The problem is that I had figured it out pretty much to where we would be okay as long as no other purchases or expenses came up. I had my calender, my calculator- right down to the day, we were good to go. HA. Yeah. Right.

Long story less long, I had bought something on Ebay a couple days before this decision had been made. Now, I knew this in my calculations, so that is not why it is an issue. It is an issue because stupid Paypal decided to push the payment through two days before I was figuring it was going to go through. Awesome! $19 overdraft fee! Plan! Gone!

So I had my employer (who is also my mother-in-law) pay me a day ahead of time, and I sold back a couple books that I was originally going to sell online (I ended up making $5 less than I would have selling them online, but the money was right away). This was on Tuesday- Tuesday right around 5 to be exact. We ran to the bank, made the deposit, and we were in the clear. Crisis averted.

Now earlier in the day (again, cue flashback effects, music) we had found out that there was going to be a barbecue at the church that night. Normally we don't go to the Tuesday night 'Connections' as it is called- but hey, free food, hanging with the friends, beautiful day, why not?

Well, about twenty minutes later when we got pulled over for not having a current license tab and an expired registration, we had a couple hundred reasons why not. I was furious. We hadn't gotten the re-up in the mail, so it had completely slipped our minds. In addition to having to get a new license tab/registration, Sara got a ticket. We had just averted a minor financial crisis, and now this? I was steamed at God, and I let Him know it. I let Sara know it. I was determined to let everybody know it.

But I'm a different person now than I have been. And when I got a few minutes to process it, I did. I talked to Sara about how I was feeling, and why I was feeling that way. I talked to God about the whole situation.

And what is the miracle here is that God has used this situation to teach me about trust, and about believing in Him. I will make it happen. Now, God has not divinely put the extra money in our account. There has been no Western Union angel delivering a check for the amount needed. Don't think, though, that God has not been in this.

There has been a couple little things- 'real-life' miracles. Sara got $20 back for turning in her music practice room key. A friend referred me to the bank where he works- I got $50 for free for setting up a checking account. The cool thing about this is that he just texted me out of the blue. Hmmm...

You know what the real miracle is though? I have peace in my heart about this situation. On paper it probably doesn't rate as a very powerful statement- if you know me and how I am with money though, then you have to realize that either I have snapped and gone off the deep end, or else there is something going on here that is powerful. I looked at the calender, and thought, 'Wow. We can do this'. And it's not a thing of 'wow, I way overreacted, because I obviously got this in the bag'. I know God is going to come through, and I'm really excited to see where I am at after this whole thing is all said and done.

I will make it happen.