Thanking our lucky stars

Today was to be one of our patented super-fun-cram too much into it-days.  I had a foot appointment (all of my warty-friends are gone...hurray!).  While I was at said appointment, James drove the boys to his parents place in Brampton.  I got home and cleaned while I waited for James to get home.  Once he was home, we loaded up the van with lots of crap from my brother's old room (which we're cleaning out to make into either a bedroom/office or a playroom/office, we haven't decided yet) and headed for the dump.  James took me out for a fun lunch at Ned Devine's in Milton where we spent 50$ on our food/drinks.  I nearly fainted when I saw our bill.  This mama is used to spending 15$ at McDonald's or Subway....50$ seemed a bit much.  After lunch we headed back home so James could change and then headed to pick up the boys.  Our plan was to pick them up, head to Yorkdale to beat the traffic and then on to L and N's at around 5 to have dinner with them.

Today was very windy and there was blowing snow all over 5 sideroad.  There were drifts of snow every so often, and both James and I were thinking in our heads how glad we were that we shelled out the money for snow tires, as the van was driving through them without any trouble.  Apparently thoughts like that can only lead to trouble.

I was reading my book on my I-phone (shopaholic ties the knot - loving it!) when I felt the van swerve and heard James say, "uh oh"(we had hit one of the snow drifts, which apparently had some ice underneath it).  I looked up and felt so out of control as I watched us head straight for the ditch.  The ditch we rocketed into was quite deep, and we did quite a few bumps and thumps as we skidded along.  We came to rest about a metre from a large tree.  Once we had stopped, we both looked at each other to make sure we were ok, which we were, thank god.  I felt like my chest was going to explode my heart was beating so fast and I was shaking like crazy.  After a few moments, we both asked, "what the f@#$ do we do now???  The first call was to James' parents to let them know that we were going to be a little late picking up the boys.  Roadside assistance was the next call, where we learned we had to call the police too, to report the accident.  Once the police/tow truck arrived, James called my dad to come and pick us up.

After the phone call to roadside assistance, we were waiting there for a while (maybe 30-40 minutes).  During that time, there were numerous cars that drove by.  Only a handful stopped to make sure we were ok.  I am so grateful to them, but it really surprises me that so few stopped.

We are so thankful that the boys weren't with us, that there wasn't any oncoming traffic (we crossed lanes when we went into the ditch) and that we missed hitting the tree.  I'm sure the repair of the van is going to cost us a pretty penny, but I'd rather that than one or both of us hurt.  It really does go to show you that you never know what's going to happen, and time is not something to be taken for granted.

Scary, scary day.