Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Annabelle decides to drive.

Well Annabelle's first driving lesson didn't go well.  We had had a lovely trip to Rasar State Park, and had spent my 48th birthday picking wild huckleberries for jam, and learning about a fish taxi system that helps salmon get around the dams that make Baker Lake.  Found one of the best pizza joints ever in Concrete, Washington. Spent a lot of fun time "decoding" messages in the Junior Ranger program put on at the park and generally avoided the Skagit River which was running so high as to be scary.

The RV is so huge it's quite a chore for Doug to haul it, and since we have the 3 seater truck and there's 5 of us, wherever we go, we have to take the minivan too.  Oh well, live and learn.  Next time a Class C.  Doug and I often disagree about the whole, take it home or take it to storage thing, but since I have to clean it out and change sheets and all, that's a bit of a chore to do down at the storage unit and I invariably forget something and there's no power there for a vacuum etc...  So Doug succumbed to my badgering and we took it home for a clean out. 

Annabelle saw the open door to the truck when we got home, trailing Doug by about half an hour.  WOOO HOOO, thinks she, and climbs in to do her pretend driving as all kids do.  Doug hollered at Angelina to get her out of there.  The emergency brake was on, the truck was in gear, the wheels were chocked.  I climbed in to the RV to clean out the fridge.  Next thing I know I hear a loud sound and we're rolling -- backwards -- down the hill -- with Annabelle in the driver's seat, not that I could see that since I was hanging on for dear life, surfing backwards in a 3 ton RV.  It came to rest in the blackberry bushes below our house, hitch hung up on a huge pile of rocks and jack-knifed. 

I had overheard Lexie talking to Daddy while picking huckleberries and for whatever reason she was telling him that her Mommy was "unscarable."  True, it's pretty hard to get me really rattled over something -- standard daily kid chaos not considered.  Yeah, well.  I was literally shaking as I climbed out of the RV into the blackberries and bushwhacked my way to the front of the rig. 

Doug was sprinting down the hill to assess the damage and see that we were all OK.  We were phenomenally lucky that no kids were behind that juggernaut or between the truck and the RV or they would have been crushed.  The rear stabilizer jacks got jacked.  The bumper of the truck got bent, and a couple other minor things were damaged, but on the whole, it's absolute BLISS to only be worrying about some bent metal, not praying in an emergency room somewhere. 

So the argument between Doug and me has been forever settled and the RV will be loaded at the storage place.  Our friend Lani came to our rescue and took care of the girls while we got it back to storage and cleaned it out.  Closest thing we've had to a date in forever and I had to spend about 90% of it listening to Doug say I told you so in about 1,000 different ways.  The accident happened at about 3:45.  Finally at about 5:29 the words "I'm glad you're not hurt" came out of his mouth :-).

It was like that line from the movie "Airplane."   "Guess I picked the wrong day to stop taking blood pressure meds!" 

Rasar State Park
fish taxi
Skagit River

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Hard to believe, but Angelina turned nine last week. I was bemoaning that a bit when Lexie shook her head in sympathetic agreement and said "she's growing up so fast!". That from a six year old!