Boys and their toys

Chance will be home tomorrow for a couple of weeks R&R. We are so excited that he will be home, but no more excited than he is. LOL! He will get to see his son, Jacob, and I know they will both be beyond thrilled to each other. It is so hard for daddy and son to be apart for so long. The rest of the family, of course, misses him but we all understand where he is and why he is there. It is hard for a 4-year-old (as of 2/15) to understand why daddy is gone for so long.

Hubby decided that he wanted to clean and detail Chance's car for him, as apparently guys love really clean cars. Now, you would not know that by looking at Chance's car. LOL! The outside is perfect, but the inside it SO junky. We have never seen it neat. Of course, a lot of what is in there is "soldier stuff", but a lot was also trash. So, Hubby wanted to clean it for him.

When Chance deployed to Afghanistan, he left his vehicle (Nissan Murano, so it is not a car) at his mom's. He had talked about leaving it with us last summer, but I knew that would not be the case as his mom cosigned the loan on the car. Plus she is the best parent. Yes, my friends in our family there IS a best parent. In her own mind for sure, but that is what she is. But off of that and on to the real story here.

I KNEW that Chance's mom WOULD NOT agree to letting Hubby take the car for any reason. Why? Because she despises him. That's okay, since he despises her right back. I don't know why she despises him, but he will always dislike her for the lack of parenting she gave the kids when they needed it and some of the things she allowed to happen to them when she was married to their stepdad. He did not have a problem knocking our kids around and she did nothing to stop it. Her reasoning, "They have to follow his rules."

Anyway, Hubby had Samantha ask her mom if he could get the car. Surprise! Surprise! She actually said yes to him picking up Chance’s car and cleaning it. Color me shocked! Of course, she also wants it brought back to her house so she can pick Chance up from the airport on Friday. We do not know what time he is coming in and if she has her way, we won't find out, but that is okay. We have learned to deal with stuff like that. We will just see Chance when he gets time. And if we don't, well, that is okay, too, as long as he gets to see Jacob a lot.

So, yesterday, Hubby drove me to the park and ride to catch the bus. Then later in the morning, drove to Samantha and John’s, where he left his car and John drove him to Chance's mom's about 1/2 hour away. She had told Samantha that she would just leave the car outside the garage for Hubby to get. While Hubby and John were on the way over, BioMom (the kids mom) texted Samantha that the car would not start so she just pushed it out of the garage.

How NICE of her to not worry why it wouldn't start and to leave that to Hubby to deal with. He and John jumpstarted it and it was fine.  Ummmm...yeah....you can't leave a car sitting in a garage for 4 months and expect it to start right up. Oh well. (Bob told Samantha to tell her mom to start it once in a while after Chance goes back.) Hubby took the car to our house and washed, waxed, cleaned out and vacuuumed Chance's car. He said it took 45 minutes just to get all the trash out and an hour to vacuum it. He also had a couple of bags of laundry in it.

Then, Hubby picked me up after work and we went to Samantha's to pick up his car. We left her place at 6:10 and got home at 7:05. Yep, it took 55 minutes. The traffic sucked.

I am so glad I ride the bus to work.

Last night, Hubby did some of the laundry that appeared to be dirty. This morning, he took the car to Walmart for an oil change. Tonight, when I get off, I will follow Hubby to BioMom's place to drop off Chance's car. At that time of day, it will probably be at least a hour and a half trip.

This really seems to me to be a whole lot of trouble, but that’s my Hubby. He thinks that a clean car will thrill Chance. It probably will, since it has been a pit the last few times we have seen it. If not, at least it thrilled Hubby to do it.