Dream Come True

We all want things.  Whether it be something as big as a family, a job, or a healthy report from our doctor, or something as small as a few minutes of peace and quiet during the day, we all have things that we want.  I know that I do.  I want my baby to stay healthy.  I want my husband to get a good residency, and then I want us to pay off our HUGE grad school loans.  I want to be able to see my family more often.  I want my dog to stop trying to chew up our rugs in the living room.  (They must taste better than the ones in the dining room...strangely, he never seems to want to chew those...) 

Well, we don't get all of the things that we want, but sometimes God decides to reach down and give one of them to us. 

I have always wanted an SUV, ever since I took the driver's test for the first time at the age of 15.  My dad, who was more concerned about safety than coolness, got me a green Ford Taurus to drive.  Honestly, I was excited about that car.  It was my very first one, and I knew that I was lucky to have it...lots of my friends didn't have cars.  In the interest of full disclosure, it wasn't actually MY car - it was my parents' car - but they let me drive it!

When I went off to college, first-year students weren't allowed to have cars at my school, so the Taurus passed to my little brother.  Then, during my second year of college, dad got me another car, this time, it was a 1997 Toyota Camry.  She was a GREAT car, and I loved her.  Her name was Grace, by the way.  When we brought her home for the first time, my dad told me, "This car will last you  long time.  Some day, you'll drive your children around in this car."  Well, let it be said here and now that he was right.  Almost ten years later, back in March 2010, Grace was the car that we used to drive Ella home from the hospital.

As we pulled up to our house, I remembered my dad's words to me, all those years ago.  I thought of all the places this car has taken me...I drove it to college in Virginia, to my first job back in Georgia, to law school in Missouri, and to vacations in Florida.  We've been a lot of places together, and James loves her as much as I do.  Somehow, it wouldn't have seemed right to take our first baby home in any other car.  This was the car that we depended on to get us where we needed to go for most of our life together, and she came through for us when we needed her.  Now she deserved the honor of taking home our new addition for the first time.

About six weeks after Ella came home from the hospital, James's mom Ruth came to visit her new grandbaby.  We picked her up at the airport, and I remember seeing her eyes get big as she rode down the interstate in the backseat of Grace.  All those huge trucks barreling by us, crazy drivers with little or no fear of cutting us off in traffic.  Don't get me wrong, Grace is a GREAT car, and she handles really well.  But she's a mid-sized sedan - no match for big trucks and vans that might hit us on the interstate.  Well...a week later James got a phone call to the effect that Ruth had decided to give us her SUV and buy herself a new one.

WHAT?!?!?!

Yup, that's right.  Just when we really needed a bigger car (those carseats are BIG), God and my in-laws provided one for us.  And she's GORGEOUS.  She's a light blue 2003 Honda Pilot, just the class of SUV that I always wanted to have.  Good gas mileage, great handling....I love it.  I couldn't even express how thankful we feel for this car.  It's so much fun to drive!! 

And don't worry about Grace...we've still got her.  James drives her to work every day, so she's spending her later years parked in the hospital's covered parking deck during the daytime.  Hopefully that will help her to make it through another winter.  And who knows?  If we get transferred farther south through the medical match this spring, maybe Grace will get to retire to Florida next year!