Praying for a Car and Rampaging in a Garden

I celebrated my 40th birthday in May and asked to revisit Ohme Gardens. Twenty-one years ago, The Hunky Hubby asked me out while sitting on a rock bench in this lovely garden paradise nestled in the dry Wenatchee desert. Oh, before that, we went used car shopping instead of watching a movie, but I’ll get back to that later.

This time around, we were accompanied by Grandma Judy and three active boys who asked: “We just walk around the gardens?” with incredulous expressions upon their faces when I tried to explain what we were doing. Believe me, it was not Grandma Judy who made me realize that strolling through a garden was more perilous than I had ever considered before.

Ohme Gardens is full of steep slopes and amazing views and the boys found great joy in hurtling up and down these lovely but treacherous walkways at breakneck speeds and causing their mother to gasp and clutch at nearby foliage. Although there are many charming paths, they kept abandoning them in favor of wild scrambles, leaps, and climbs.

There were bushes to press through

Rocks to climb

Bushes to hide inside

Rocks to sit on

And of course, trees to climb. Here is Sweet Boy#3.

Sweet Boy#2

And Sweet Boy#1

Not to mention all the velvety lawns to roll on

And drag brothers across

And broken robin’s eggs to discover

They really did have more fun than expected and I enjoyed much more adrenaline than last time as I watched them thunder about like mountain goats with a death wish. They are incredibly fleet of foot, however, and no injuries or plunges unto doom occurred.

Yep, more rocks to sit on

And brothers

 

Sweet Boy#3 held the map so that we wouldn’t get lost. However, he often streaked off so quickly into one direction or another that we were more often than not left mapless.

They occasionally ceased their rampaging to briefly express their fatigue before charging onward.

They gazed into placid pools, mostly without incident, although one of them may have lost a shoe in this one.

However, one should never underestimate the peskiness of older brothers

Or linger near wishing wells in an inattentive fashion

A fun birthday indeed … . Now back to the used car shopping! I want to share our amazing answered prayer. Our mechanic kindly informed us to seek new transportation, but purchasing a used car is fraught with peril. We searched and searched. First there would be nothing, then there would be too many options, all of which might be owned by persons wishing to foist a lemon off onto unsuspecting car shoppers. We narrowed it down to two vehicles, one very affordable but without everything we were looking for and one whose owner didn’t get back to us. We set up a meeting with the one owner and I prayed that if the other car was something good for us that the Lord would have that owner respond that day, before we purchased our last option. Lo and behold the owner sent us a text at 7:30 in the morning and we scrambled to set up a meeting. We visited the car and it looked lovely. We intended to also look at the other car a second time. But then The Hunky Hubby lost his wallet and we missed our meeting. We knew that the car we were currently looking at was definitely the better option, it had everything we had prayed for. A reliable vehicle with four wheel drive, more seats (yes, the boys were attacking one another all smooshed together in the back seat), and 4 working windows and AC! We had just enough money and so on my birthday we purchased Glamdring AC. Yes, we name all of our cars. Don’t you? God does not always give a “yes” but oh the joy when the Lord’s love and care is so very clear. Glamdring AC is above what we asked for by so much! So, this is a picture of us beside our amazing new vehicle, Glamdring AC. How has the Lord shown His love to you lately? He is never predictable, but ever faithful.