Why the 15 hour drive took 18 hours. We have the worst luck with cars, EVER!

If you wanna feel good about YOUR car situation, read on :-)

Thanksgiving was awesome. We made the 15 hour drive out to Kansas in our Jeep to spend the week with my family and spend some time in Branson with the Brett's for Thanksgiving. It was such a fun week! We did alot of playing, eating, and not sleeping.

But this post isn't completely about Thanksgiving, it's about what happened afterward, on the way home.

Have you ever driven on i-80? With a broken car? I don't recommend it.

Our Jeep had a couple issues on the way out, but nothing big. We took it to the shop and he couldn't find anything wrong. So we thought we'd be okay driving back.

About 30 minutes west of Lincoln (or about 3 1/2 hours on the road), our day became a nightmare.

Our car started having this problem with the gas and acceleration. Basically, we'd have our foot on the pedal, and it'd be fine then suddenly the pedal would seem to disengage and gas would stop getting to the engine, so we had to coast until the pedal and gas would catch again and we could keep going.

It kept doing this over and over about every 20 miles. Then every 10. Then we couldn't go over 70 mph. Then we couldn't go above 65. At least 4 times we had to pull over and coast or stop to get the gas to catch again and drive.

Twice we the car completely lost power. We had to pull over and sit for a couple minutes before we could get it started.

After this happened continuously for about 200 miles, we decided to start stopping at every town and filling up the tank. Of course it was Sunday and not a single shop was open.

Oh wait, one shop was open. And we went to it. It was in Cheyenne, WY about 500 miles from home.

Biggest waste of 45 minutes ever. The guy was completely dumb and had no idea what was wrong. He couldn't help us at all, and he was rude. The only thing he did was quote a new fuel pump and filter at $400 and 2 1/2 hours. (like we have that time and money)

Plus he was smoking a cigarette. (While messing with the gas gauge and testing the gas pressure.)

So we left.

Scott gave the car a blessing (sounds dumb, but keep reading) and we kept praying...along with my entire family and Scott's parents too. After the blessing we started off again. Going slow, nursing the gas pedal and stopping every 100 miles or so to fill up the gas tank. It didn't completely stop having problems, but it became infrequent enough that we were able to at least drive the speed limit and not worry so much. We only had one more episode of all the lights going off then on, and a few more small episodes of the gas losing power.

Scott was such a trooper and drove the entire way home. He was exhausted by the time we reached Provo canyon, but we made it. We could not have made it home without the prayers and faith of our families. THANK YOU!!!!! It was a crazy adventure, something I won't forget, and something I don't want to repeat.

It was also a testimony building experience about the power of prayer. The Lord really is out there and although we have challenges and trials, He's gonna take care of us. I have never been so grateful to fall into my own bed safe and sound as I was last night (well, this morning around 1:30 am). And that's our story.

Highlights of the actual vacation part (if you keep reading):

-playing rock band with my family

-seeing Kent and talking to him! that was awesome!

-eating amazing Thanksgiving food and watching the men have a towel whipping war after doing the dishes

-finding a great laptop deal at Best buy....

-....camping out overnight for 4 hours at Best Buy in 30 degree weather to GET the great laptop deal

-seeing the Brett's show.

-spending time with mom and dad and the rest of the family

-eating delicious Mexican at Jose Peppers the last night in Kansas

-being in Kansas

-being with my Family!!