The bad and the ugly

There was so much about Christmas that was good (and I'll blog about that later), but first let's get through the bad and the ugly.
We started our trip to Texas out a little late- but we weren't worried. We had kind of planned on taking it in three easy days so we could stop and have a little visit with Shelby. But we had only just gotten into Spanish Fork Canyon when...


we hit a HUGE rock in the road. We weren't the only ones- an eighteen wheeler and 3 other cars hit it as well. We waited a couple of hours for AAA, but when they didn't show up, the firefighters there to clean up the mess from the gas spill from the eighteen wheeler offered to help... and we were on our way. We could only go about 50 mph with the doughnut spare and we were so late, we only made it to Green River. (We were shooting for Grand Junction, the next biggest town to get a new tire). We got a fairly good start the next morning, in spite of spending a couple of hours on the tire, but were stone walled again when the road we were traveling on was closed for avalanche control- for FOUR HOURS!! I have never felt so blessed that I have such amazing kids as I was when we spent those four hours in a very small convenient store. So again, we didn't get far and didn't make it to visit Shelby. :-( The next morning we had an amazing travel day with no incident... but I said I'd save the good for later.
On the way back, our first day was great until we took the exit for our motel in Albuquerque. The car shuddered a bit at the red light and stopped. That's right- it just stopped! A couple seconds later I turned it back on and it acted completely normal- no warning lights, nothing. We took it into a shop and they couldn't find anything wrong- so we were off again. The next day of travel was without incident but I began getting sick about halfway through the day. I don't even know how to describe this last week of my life. I guess I've never had the flu. I had no idea. My fever was so high most days, I couldn't even think straight. Starting last Friday, I kept feeling a little better and I would try to get up and get some things done and find myself flat on my back again. I'm so sorry for my kids because the last week they had off from school has been anything but fun.
Oh, and for the icing on the cake. The bishop called. Since I didn't know when I'd be well enough for a formal interview, he decided he'd better just go ahead and give me my new calling over the phone. Teaching gospel doctrine. Happy New Year!