Blessed

Okay, so we just go back from a wonderful weekend snowmobiling. I had thought of lots of things to write about the trip.
1. The feeling of flying over the powder at 40 mph feeling much more like "Carol" then "Mom" and loving every minute of it.
2. The fun of seeing my family all together and Brooklynn enjoying her first
Snow outing. Man, she's a great baby!
But I think what I'll tell you about is my gratefulness of a Heavenly Father who watches over us, even when we don't know it. Three times yesterday we totally needed help. Some more than others. The first was when we were checking out of the condo, had everything loaded up in the car, and couldn't find the keys. We totally looked everywhere! My only thought was that they must have been loaded up in the luggage somewhere. After much stress and prayer, we finally found the keys in Will's coat pocket. Not the one he was wearing, but the one he had been wearing, and then packed away. Yeah, if he wasn't so cute I would have strangled him.
The second was when my 14 year old son went missing as we were starting to load the snowmobiles up to drive home. He had taken off to play one last time before we had to leave. Will and our friend Tyler searched everywhere. Places we had been, places we hadn't. I stood on the hill trying not to freak out, crying and hoping no one would see me, but not really caring if they did. I started walking up to complete strangers who were heading out, asking them to look out for my son. In my head I was starting to go through the motions of making arrangements for my other kids. I could imagine the search and rescue vehicle and the news crews. I gathered my children together in the Suburban and we knelt on the seats. I prayed and cried, and cried and prayed. Over an hour had passed when Will pulled up with Brennan on the back of his snowmobile. I held him and cried. He had gotten stuck in deep powder, tried to dig himself out, and finally gave up and started to walk out through waist deep snow. Will found him walking along the tree line on some snowmobile tracks, about a mile away. He was tired and thirsty and fine. I was thrilled.
As we were driving home, we stopped for gas, and went through a drive-thru to get drinks. As Will maneuvered the turn he saw in the rear view mirror one of our trailer tires completely bending. He called his friend who is a mechanic and he advised us to not drive the trailer home. (We were still 70 miles away) Luckily, we were able to drive a couple of miles to a brother of a friend's house and leave the trailer there. I don't even want to think of what would have happened if we had lost the tire on the freeway.
By now it was dark and we were hours behind schedule. Some of the kids complained about what an unlucky day it was. I thought it must be the luckiest day of all. Heavenly Father had watched over us constantly and brought us safely home. I felt blessed.