BEST VALENTINE'S DAY EVER! (Minivan Edition)

At the beginning of February, I was having an episode of hating everything. Lots of people go through this in January, when it's cold and dreary and nothing fun is going on anymore. Since January is birthday month around here, it's a busy month full of joyness and cake. And, I can't hate the month of my birth- so I hate February instead. We decided to head south to Nevada (warmth, sunshine, and Nana & GrandPar) for President's Day weekend, which coincided with Valentine's Day as well. I checked the kids out early from school, and we were all set to get an early start so we would get to Nevada in the early evening. Oh, irony.

Enter: The Minivan of Doom... Destroyer of Dreams and Road Trips.

We have been lulled into a false sense of security over the last six or seven months, with our minivan running fine-ish; specifically, not giving us further transmission problems whilst driving around town. We thought that surely it would be able to handle a 5 hour trip to Nevada. The reason we thought that is that we're stupid, and because we continue to underestimate the demon powers of this vehicle.

Everything was going smashingly! Movies were on, the kids were eating their Valentine's Day spoils, and around Fillmore (about 2 hours in?) Nils even patted the van on the dashboard and said, "Hey, you're doing good, Vanny!" Vanny? I didn't realize we had named this vehicle, but if we had, I think it should've been more along the lines of "Dark Lord of Engine and Transmission Failure".

15 minutes after that happy little dashboard pat, it all started again. No acceleration, smoking under the hood, stuff like that. We had just gone up that big hill before Beaver- you know the one. Next time you drive that hill, say a prayer for the Rasmussons. We were able to basically coast for 10 miles into Beaver. We told the kids we were going to have to cancel our trip and find a way to get home, and they were all bawling inside the Wendy's we had coasted to. It was a good moment.

Ava wins for best sad face.

Nils called his dad, who suggested that he come pick us up (2 1/2 hr. drive each way). He said it made no sense for us to cancel our whole weekend, that we were out a van either way, so we may as well enjoy the weekend and figure it out on Monday. Wasn't that nice of him? GrandPar: Saver of Fun! While we were waiting, we had someone suggest to us that we sign up for AAA- they have a 48-hour waiting period before you can use their services, so we did that right then. That was a huge blessing.

Nils' dad arrived in his new, company-issued Ford Escape (a 5-passenger vehicle- there are 6 of us, plus our dog, plus all of our stuff.) 4 kids crammed in the back; blankets, booster seats, dog crate, dog in the front with me; luggage, blankets, metaphorical kitchen sink and HUSBAND stuffed in the hatchback trunk. What could go wrong? Nothing went wrong for almost an hour, until we got pulled over. After yelling back to Nils to hide, I said to my father-in-law, "Are we going to get arrested?" He assured me that he wasn't worried in the least, which made perfect sense, since we were only breaking like 6 laws. We got pulled over because the car's tail lights weren't on. And Par had hurried so fast to come get us, that he didn't have his license. And since it was a new company car, he didn't have any registration. And the kids were sharing seatbelts. And Nils was in the trunk. And a dog was on my lap barking at the cop. Par calmly explained the situation to this nice police officer, and after making sure the tail lights were on, the cop let us go! And he was nice about it! GrandPar: Cop Whisperer! 

We got to Logandale at 1:00 in the morning, so I was really glad we had gotten such a nice, early start. Haha. We had a nice, warm weekend in Logandale and Las Vegas with Nana and GrandPar, and when it was over, Par drove us back to Beaver (with Anders stuffed in the trunk this time). AAA arranged a tow home for us. We were able to ride in our van on the tow truck, which was awesome and super classy, in keeping with our life theme of being awesome and super classy.

Laugh or cry?

Then we got to have our transmission rebuilt, which was also awesome (but not that classy).