Leaving

More pictures of my trip to visit one of my big brothers!

These were taken on the day we were leaving, which is a month ago now.

It has taken me a bit to have enough "turns" on the computer to get these all done!

 My brother Aaron with the kids

 Ivy being Ivy

 Did you know I am fascinated by old barns?

I think about their stories...the men who built them, the work done inside them,

the families who were fed because of them.

I. love. old. barns.

As we were driving out of his driveway, I had Andrew snap some pictures.

 Western North Dakota is beautiful.

The rolling hills, the breaks, I had never seen anything like it!

 That's my brother's truck ahead of us.

We followed him into town.

Crossing the Missouri River.  

And then my camera's battery died.

We followed him into town so the kids could see where he works, a John Deere dealership.
He drives semi  to deliver farm machinery.
We got to see his truck and the people he works with,
get some John Deere balloons and suckers from the nice receptionist,
and then we loaded up.

As I was buckling little ones,
Aaron told me he was going to take a look at one of the tires.

I wish I could get the picture of that tire off my phone and on to this post
because it's a good thing he took a look!

There were literally chunks of rubber missing and wires poking through--
the guys at the shop were surprised it was even still holding AIR!

Is God big enough for the little things?
Yes.

Here I was, a woman traveling alone with six of her kids,
300 miles from home in a 15 passenger van.
I drove the whole way out there on that bad tire with no problem.
When my brother noticed it, we were at his shop so he just drove it around to the service bay,
jacked it up and the kids and I ate our little lunch in the van while Aaron worked.
He had all the necessary tools there and the spare was a full-sized tire.

How "lucky" was I!?!?!?!?!

I can imagine about a hundred different scenarios that could have taken place.
Can you imagine had I blown that tire on the interstate?
I could have had a car accident, or at least been stranded on the side of the freeway.
The cost of being towed, etc--YOWZA.
It would have most certainly been beyond the constraints of my budget.

I'm so blown away by God's provision for me on my little outing!

I've got one more post I have to finish about our trip and then I'll be done--
not with blogging, but with this particular train of thoughts posts.