The Baur Family: 3 days and 9 hours later

I'm home! Yes, it took exactly 3 days and 9 hours for me to get home from the beach!

After we left my uncle's house, we stopped in Manning, SC for lunch. When we got back on the road, Marc noticed that the car was acting up and wasn't accelerating properly. By the time we got to Sumter, it was really acting up. We stopped and got some gas hoping that whatever was going on, would just have been a fluke and it would be back to normal when we started going again. Of course, that was just wishful thinking on our part. It only got worse from there. We had lost 1st gear and 3rd gear in the car. We couldn't go over 45-50 mph. Wonderful. We got to Camden and tried to put some transmission fluid in thinking the level was just really low (which it was). Unfortunately it didn't change anything once we started back. We called my parents and told them we were going to try and get to Columbia- that took us 1 1/2 hours! NOT fun!

We got to my parents house and my dad offered to drive Marc and Andrew back up to Charlotte for us since Marc had work the next day and Andrew had school. I spent the night with the girls so we could take my car to the dealership Monday morning. By Monday afternoon we found out that the clutch had been burned up and the transmission needed a complete overhaul. They originally told me my car would be ready late Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday afternoon they called and said it would be late Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning I called and was told they were just about finished and needed to do a road test, etc, etc. Long story short, I didn't get my car back until a little after 5:00 Wednesday night.

My parents were saviors for letting me and the girls crash with them for so long. It was fun being with them, but I really missed Marc and Andrew. To top it off, Mary McLean was having bathroom issues, so we were doing laundry 3-4 times/day since we only had a handful of outfits to wear. The best part was my parents taking me shopping for the kids! ;) We have all kinds of cute spring clothes for them now- heehee. My dad told me next time my car broke down, not to come to Columbia, but I think he was just joking- I know he loved spending money on cute clothes for the girls, he enjoys it more than my mom sometimes! :)

We made it home around 7:30 last night and I crashed...hard. I put the kids to bed and then put myself to bed and slept straight through until this morning (that almost never happens, I usually wake up at least once or twice at night). It's so good to be home, I don't think I'll be going anywhere for a while now!

A HUGE thank you also to Misty for getting Andrew from the bus stop for me each day while I was gone. What a lifesaver!!!!