Crunch!

Today was half great and half awful. This morning I took John and Christian to the Children's Museum to spend the morning with a friend and her two little boys. Not only did we enjoy our time there with them, but we also discovered that in a little over a week a new exhibit will open.

My boys were over-the-moon excited to see that a few pieces of the exhibit were already in place:

They even sat enraptured (see evidence above) for the entirety of a little skit that two museum employees were acting out, which somehow combined a current exhibit (geckos) with a future one (superheroes). After all, geckos have amazing super powers - sticky fingers to climb walls, a tail that can detach and regrow (if an enemy grabs hold of it), super speed, chameleon-like camouflage, etc. Pretty neat little creatures!

Anyway, we came home from the Museum, took a walk down our street to stomp in the slushy snow, and then I put Christian down for a nap and took John to go pick up Gabriel (Ryan works at home, so I can do that!)

Last week we started "carpooling" with another family whose daughter goes to Gabriel's school. Actually, I can't call it carpooling since the other mom is the one doing us a big favor. We drive Gabriel to their house in the morning and they take him to school along with their daughter. In the afternoon I pick Gabriel up from their house. They live 13-15 minutes away from us, so this cuts my drive in half, and they are only 22 minutes from the school, so Gabriel's time in the car isn't too much longer than it used to be. Very nice of them to do this for us!

Anyway, I picked up Gabriel from their house and headed home. About five minutes into our drive, at a four-way intersection with a light, this happened:

How did it happen? I'm so glad you asked! It gives me a chance to display my artistic skills. I drew you a picture, which will no doubt enlighten you immediately:

Here's the four way intersection, with me driving south towards the light, which was green. A van coming the other way decided to make a somewhat last minute left turn, causing me to slightly slow down. Unfortunately, the girl in the car behind him decided to speedily follow his example, without waiting for the van to get out of her line of vision. If she had, she would have seen me driving through the intersection. I braked as hard as I could, but there was no way to avoid a collision. My airbag deployed as we came to a VERY hard stop with a VERY loud crunch.

After a moment I put the car in park and hopped out to go around to John's door to assure him that everything was alright. The boys were shaken and scared, but not hurt. About thirty seconds later a police car appeared, thankfully, and he had both myself and this young girl (she was probably seventeen or so) move our cars to the side of the road. Luckily witnesses and the girl herself confirmed that she had been at fault, so that part was easy.

Now comes the part where a real-life superhero appeared. About five minutes after the crash, the lady that we "carpool" with appeared at my side. She had been driving by on an errand, saw our car all smashed up, and stopped to see if she could help. She took Gabriel and John back to her house to play, then returned to get me after the tow truck picked up the poor van, and then she lent us her mini-van so we'd have something to drive until we were able to pick up a rental. We only have one car right now, so Ryan had no way to come get me, and no way to go get a rental. It was truly providential that this wonderful woman came along and was so generous and helpful to us.

The airbag left me with a some bruising, and my neck hurts a bit, but I am so grateful that the boys and I were not injured, and that the other driver is fine as well (though her car is definitely not). It could have been so much worse.