Life without a vehicle

This past week and a half we've had the chance to see what life would be like would we not have our modern conveniences right at our fingertips.

Last Wednesday (9 days ago) our van broke down. We brought it to Bobby, a friend of the family who is a wonderful mechanic. He always fixes our lawnmower, car, and van. He's great and charges us next to nothing. This time, he was rather busy and told us he wouldn't be able to get to our van until next Tuesday. That was fine with us because we didn't have any appointments or places to be and it being summer holidays, we could wait.

Thus began our "no access to a vehicle" week. We had a fridge stocked full of food and a vegetable garden ready for picking so we were good to go. A thunderstorm passing through on Sunday left us without electricity also so we were really living the (high quality) primitive life. It didn't last long though and by Tuesday we were able to pick the van up.

We were running low on some foods and completely out of milk, eggs, and butter, so when we got the van back on Tuesday evening, I decided to do a grocery run on Wednesday. I took Megan (5) and Austen (3) with me because they NEEDED to get out. They were driving each other (and us) NUTS! They were fighting and arguing a lot more lately and with being housebound and not having seen a lot of their friends for the summer, they'd had only each other.

So along they went. They were so happy! We went on our way (it's a 30 minute drive) but 15 minutes into our drive, the cling-clang noise started again. Same noise as last Wednesday. Great. I called Ian from the cell and we put-putt'ed' along with hazard lights on, on the highway. Finally we pulled into Canadian Tire and this began a long morning of figuring out what to do. All with the kids. We went from being picked up, to being dropped off, and grabbing a few staple groceries, to grabbing lunch, all the while waiting to see how much the van repairs would amount to. The quote came back with $1400. 00 Thank goodness my father-in-law knew someone who would fix the van for a bit less so there we went, and we had to get the van to this place. I was very grateful for Ian's family and that they lived close and were able to help us out.

Anyhow, now we're without a vehicle again. It's been interesting.

We've been forced to stay home.

Which has been awesome.

We've been forced into resting which has been a very good thing. We're an "on-the-go" family and now that we've had to stay home for almost 2 weeks, it's been a very good thing. The first few days we didn't do much except spend time outside with the kids and I did a bit of laundry. I found that after those first few days I was so much more tired! I guess our bodies were saying "oh, NOW it's time to rest" and threw us into this recovery stage of re-energizing our bodies.

It's been wonderful. But I do think we're ready to have the van back. We had to go for a bike ride into town yesterday (up MANY big hills) to get Mason his immunization shots and Ian went for a bike ride into town the other day to get a few groceries - he carried them in his backpack. We live about a 5 minute car ride outside of our town which is definitely doable on a bike but we have soooo many hills! It's killer. Especially with two 30 pound boys on my bike. (Ian had Megan on a tag-a-long onto his bike.)

It was a great afternoon. All 5 of us on 2 bikes. We went for ice cream afterwards and had a great time (except for Mason who didn't enjoy his shots, of course).

Right now we're waiting on hearing back from Dave, the current mechanic, to see what the bill is.

This certainly makes you grateful for having modern conveniences!

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This is Ian's dad who came to pick Ian up to go get the van last Tuesday evening. Ian's first time on a motorcycle. What an experience.