Life as a Yowler

Anyone who know Brandon knows that he has this unique ability, different than any other human I’ve ever met, to always come insanely close but yet avoid disasters. Very unique things happen to him. There is example after example that I can give, but I’ll narrow it. We can’t foeget the time the turkey came crashing through his windshield after jumping off the overpass. Or the time Brandon slipped on ice and rolled the car upside down into a ditch taking off the luggage wrack and totalling the car, but leaving him scratch free. There was the time his sandal got stuck under the gas pedal of our traverse and Brandon crashed his entire family into a semi truck. The car was totaled(in fact Joah’s door had a huge hole in it) yet all of us walked away with just a few bruises. Then there was the time he got carbon monoxide poisoning. And the time he went snowboarding in the Utah mountains and slid off the trail and got berried neck high in snow. Two hours later he finally found his way back to the trail and suffered only minor frostbite. The man is insane.

I have nearly died of stress several times since being married to him, but I’m figuring out to have better stress management. I mean he is who he is.

This weekend was very stressful for me. It was a lot of fun, but also very stressful because of all the unknowns. Brandon and Joah were outside of cell phone coverage in the mountains of Texas all last week. I was trying to take care of details with the RV(since we were planning to leave Sunday).  I was trying to arrange someone to pick it up(it was getting fixed in Saginaw). No one in the world wants me driving it, hence me making arrangements. So anyways, in the midst of Brielle’s two dance recitals Saturday, Brandon comes rolling in from Texas literally RIGHT as Brielle’s first song of her evening recital was starting. I thought for sure he wasn’t going to make it. Her music started and I felt someone come in and sit down beside me. I was shocked. Catastrophe avoided.

We got through three recitals. We had a little birthday party for Caed Sunday after lunch. We will be gone over his birthday, so wanted to celebrate with family before we left. Grandma Yowler made him a birthday cake. Grandma Yowler and Bethany, along with my mom were SO helpful to us this weekend. They are literally the only reason I made it through. My mom watched kids during recitals. Grandma and Bethany watched kids all night at my parents lake cottage so Brabdon and I could finalize details for this trip Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Sunday morning, we drove to Saginaw and picked up the motor home. We packed and put away everything in the motor home that we needed to travel. We packed and loaded food for 30 days. It was a chaotic and crazy crazy day, but we got it done.

After Brielle’s recital Sunday, we still had some details to finish before we could leave. We ended up not leaving until 8pm. The good news in that the kids were exhausted and slept. They are such angels when they sleep. The bad news is Brandon and I both hadn’t slept much at all the last three nights and we were beat. I stayed awake with him, because I was worried about him falling asleep. We pulled into a campground at 12:45. It was obviously pitch black with no one awake to help direct us in to our campsite.

Brandon was in the process of pulling into our site and then I said “let me get out and help direct you in.” It is a GOOD thing that I did. I yelled “stop!” I realized Brandon was scraping against a pole and a huge rock. Brandon got out and took a look. We were both confused because we didn’t hear any scraping at all. Turns out Brandon was literally just brushing against both things. There wasn’t a scratch on the RV. Again, a catastrophe was avoided. We unhooked the van and trailer we were towing. This is a bigger process than you would think. You have to unchain the van, drive it off the trailer,  then we rolled the trailer by hand way back out of the way so Brandon could reverse the RV.

Miraculously Brandon and I made it through the whole process laughing. We worked together so well as a team. We laughed about his amazing favor and grace. He literally always avoids disasters. God’s hand of protection over him is just amazing. Even the simple things, like saving the RV from a huge scratch is such a blessing. It’s so hard to get any motor home work done while on the road, because it’s our home. So I was SO thankful.

In case anyone is curious, we opted against taking our assigned campsite. It was way too tight to get our huge motor home into. We reversed out of it and took another campsight. We figured at 1:30am, no one else would be rolling into camp.

Summary of pictures from this weekend:I want to remember the fun and not the stress.

Caed turns four on June 5th. Grandma Yowler makes all my kids birthday cakes. Caed wanted a Transformers cake this year.

Bethany got him a hover board and knee pads and elbow pads.

Grandma Yowler got him a T Rex helmet.

Grant picked up how to use the hover board right away. Even I tried it out. After a few near falls, I got the hang of it. I’ve got to be honest, I might have a new hobby. It was so fun. The best news is, it’s  the lazy man’s workout. It’s actually exercise because you have to balance your entire body.

Grandma and Bethany really spoiled Bri. She is so blessed!

Self Expressions has the best staff. I didn’t get a chance to get a picture with Kim, but all of the teachers are incredible.

Caed fell asleep during the recital. He woke up and wondered where the dancing girls were.

After Sunday’s recital, we immediately headed to the motor home. We finished up loading everything, then headed out. Like I said before, we drove until 12:45, knocking a few hours off our drive today.

Blueberry boy.

Bethany did a great job on Brielle’s hair. It held up overnight.

Today has been a fairly quiet day of traveling thanks to 3 nappers. Also, a huge thank you to legos for my oldest. I have found his passion. He can put a set together in about 15-20 minutes. I can’t believe his focus and concentration. They keep him so quiet.