Back in August 2005 I officially started blogging and did a fair job at it for a while, especially since live was a bit more interesting while moving to and living in London. Then Cheryl took over the blogging duties for a while after Caleb was born. I imagine she will get things up and running again soon once Levi arrives, but I make no guarantees.

Most of you know that 2009 has been a very interesting year for us (and it's only April). I don't want to get into all the events and details that have transpired over the last 4 months, but want to take the opportunity to revisit the title of the blog.

As my first post explained, I named this blog after Jack Johnson's song "Better Together". Reflecting on the theme that we are always somewhere in between different stages in our lives, here is where I am at.

I am somewhere in between...

My old job and a new job
Father of 1 to father of 2
Being eligible for the CPA exam and actually being a CPA
Questioning God regarding our current situation and fully trusting/relying on Him

Since the early part of my unemployment I have been wondering what God has in store for me, why this happened, and what action from me is appropriate. I am actively searching for work, but do I need a part-time job?, what does that do to unemployment money?, why am I still not praying enough?...

I know I usually state at the end of posts that I will try to keep up, but I really do want to get back more often and share. Even if its just a lyrics to a song. For a couple of weeks, I really just felt I could best express myself through songs.

More to come...

Labels: Faith, Random, Scott

I figured most of you who read this blog have either talked to us or been keeping up-to-date through Scott's Facebook, but I have realized that Scott was really only putting snippets and not really many details about what happened. So here's the story:

We were driving out to my sister's house on Sunday afternoon. She lives northwest of town, out in a rural area. Scott was driving, I was in the front passenger seat, Caleb was asleep in his carseat directly behind me. We were in the left hand lane following this car (in the right lane) and semi truck (in the left lane) for several minutes. They were both driving the same speed (below the speed limit) and neither was passing the other. Finally the truck moved over into the right lane behind the car and we started to pass the truck (increasing speed just to 65 - the speed limit - because we're so paranoid about tickets these days (which we really cannot afford) that we're very careful to stick to the speed limit and not drive above it at all).

Anyhow, when we got about even with the back of the truck's cab, he decided to move back over into the left lane, not seeming to notice that we were right next to him. We saw the blinker go on and then he almost immediately started moving over. Naturally, Scott laid on his horn and swerved off onto the shoulder / partly into the grass. However, right at that point our shoulder started to disappear and we were headed head-first toward a guard rail. Scott turned the wheel and was able to get us on the little shoulder and partly back in the lane (where the truck still was!), narrowly squeezing between the guardrail and the truck. In the meantime, he's trying to slow down (but doesn't want to slam on his breaks and lose control of the car). We actually thought that we might pull out of the situation without getting hit, but then the impact came.

A witness who was behind us told us the impact occurred because the trailer of the truck jack-knifed, probably because he slammed on his brakes. At that point everything happened very quickly. The trailer hit the front passenger side of the car (aka: where I was sitting). The windshield smashed (hooray for safety glass!), and the front part of my door (but luckily not further back!) was crushed, popping it open slightly, but it was wedged at that point so luckily it didn't fly open. A tire popped as well. We then spun 360 degrees counter clockwise. At some point while spinning, the back of our car smashed into something. I have no idea if it smashed into the truck again or into the guard rail. We were then able to stop.

At first the truck continued down the road and I seriously thought it was going to be a hit and run. However, he finally pulled off about a quarter of a mile or more down the road. What makes me the most mad is that he never came back to see if we were okay!!! So we never talked to the guy at all (I figured all sorts of people - Scott, witnesses, police - would yell at me if I started hiking my way along the highway to go talk to the man - which I REALLY wanted to do!). His truck appeared to be relatively unscathed (granted, it was much much much larger than ours) with the exception of losing a few mud flaps. He was definitely able to drive off after talking to the police.

We had a couple of cars of witnesses who vouched that it was not our fault but who thought there was no way that anybody would walk away from the accident. It is a miracle that none of us was touched. The only part of the car not banged up in some way was the cab where we were sitting. Scott, Caleb, and Levi are completely unscathed. I wrenched my back pretty badly, but I had already scheduled a chiropractic appointment for two days later because of the pain I'm experiencing from pregnancy. Now our car insurance is paying for these appointments and the chiropractor said that since I came in so quickly after the accident, I should not have chronic issues from the accident.

So that's our story. The car is totaled, but we got enough money (more than we expected!) to enable us to find another decent used car without getting a car payment (which obviously we couldn't afford to pay right now). That was our biggest fear (after coming to terms with the fact that we were all actually okay) because we didn't have any car payments before and we were going to be horrified if we ended up with a payment because of something that wasn't our fault. The police report will come in next week (probably) but they indicated that there was almost no chance we could be held at fault for anything (hooray for witnesses!!!). So our premiums shouldn't be affected at all.

Overall, we are very blessed. But the saying is definitely true (in our case, at least) - "When it rains, it pours."