When it rains it pours!

I have found this to be a true statement for our family! Our camping season has just started and so we decided to go camping last Monday. We packed up and went out in to the desert. Lots of dirt, stink beetles, sage brush...you know....desert. We dug our toilet hole (and found out that the dog would ONLY go to the bathroom in that area and no where else!) and then took the kids fishing. I know, you would not imagine that there would be any place to go fishing, but we were fairly close the the Highline canal. While we were fishing I noticed that the sky had gotten cloudy. Not a norm for the El Centro area. We did all of the normal things, campfire, tin foil dinners (I forgot to bring marshmallow and Starburst! dang!), scary stories, hot chocolate, a million and one trips to go to the bathroom. When we were all finally in bed and had just gotten to sleep I heard, drip, drip, drip....yep! It is raining! It never rains here and we go camping so it rains! Now, along the roads in the desert there are areas that it slopes down so that when it does rain and flood the water will get off of the road. That is all that I could think about! What if it rained so much it flooded?! We are definitely not on the road and I could picture us being washed down stream! Fortunately it was just a little rain. We ended up getting up at 6:30...some of us couldn't hold it any longer and had to go to the bathroom. Everyone decided to get up. We ate breakfast and packed up to go home. James had to leave for work at 3:00 and we decided to just clean up. We loaded up the car and started to drive out. The sand was really deep, so James got out to let out some of the air in our tires to make it easier to drive. He got out and made this horrible face. He is always trying to get me to think that something bad has happened. I told him that I didn't think that was funny and he said "Neither do I!". I got out not quite sure if I wanted him to be kidding (I would kill him for scaring me) or not kidding (then he wouldn't be in trouble but we would be). I walked around to the front of the car and almost started crying! There was so much red liquid everywhere! What were we to do? We are out in the middle of no where and our cell phones are pretty much dead! I really don't know what I would have done without James there! Fortunately we had a car phone charger. We plugged it in and he called his office to get the name of a tow truck company. He called them and they told him he had to get the name of the dirt road we were off of. The road sign was at least a good 3 miles away. We noticed that there was a trailer about 1/3 of a mile off so James ran over there to see if they knew the name of the road. Fortunately for me James went because this guy answered the door in just a short shirt. Yep! You guessed it, he was wearing NOTHING else! James said he (the man) was not phased at all that James could see every part of his body. YUCK!!!! So, James comes back, calls the tow truck and we found out we had to drive the car out on to the road. We said a prayer (thankfully it was answered) that we would be able to get the car out and not have any additional damage done in doing so. While we were waiting for the tow truck, it started to rain again! HELLO!!!!!! It never rains, what is the deal?! We finally got towed home and James was able to make it to work on time. Good thing we got up so darn early or he would not have made it! We had to pay $150 for the tow and then another $250 to fix the car. One good thing about this is that I was wanting to go home for Thanksgiving. If I had we figured that the car would have broken down about 1 hour after I left and I would have been in the middle of the Chocolate mountains where there is absolutely no phone reception. I never thought that I would be grateful to have not been able to go home! I was also trying to get back to Salt Lake on December 5th to go shopping with my mom and sisters. James was not able to arrange his schedule and so I can't go. This was all before the $400 car issue. As much as I want to go, it is probably better (financially) that I was not able to go. If James had been able to work it out I would have already have bought my tickets and then what?! I know that the Lord definitely watches out for and over us.

Kearney is trying with all of her might to clean her face and keep clean. It was definitely a loosing battle!

The girls and Parker and I (mostly I) did this fire pit....pretty good if I do say so myself

Unbelievably the girls found sea shells. Out in the middle of the desert?!

Kylee is helping Ireland get down the hill. So sweet!

James and Parker fishing. They didn't catch anything!

Lighting the campfire

Look at that flame! He was so excited!!!

Sitting around the campfire.

Ireland found the best place to sleep!

Ireland, Kearney and me.

This is the second pile of transmission fluid. This is what happened after we moved the car to the dirt road. The first pool was A LOT bigger!

Look at Chancho in the window. He was so confused!!!

Our poor car!!!!!