Toyota Total Home Makeover

The day after the truck incident, I went back to the house to take photos of items to claim for our insurance.  It was futile, however, to find much those first few days.  Here in Dane's room I could see the furnace and the crib, but not much else.

This is what I ran into that night, in the dark, running from my room to Dane's, except a Toyota Tundra (extended cab) was also in the mix, with the passenger window at about my eye level on the right side of the hall and the hood of the truck extending several feet into the nursery.

It took a couple of days to get the debris cleared out and add a few support timbers for stability.  We like the new open floor plan.

So many people ask me how the truck ran through the middle of the house.  I tried to show the path here.  The starting point was the neighbor's driveway (which is where we live now, by the way!), then he crossed that lawn and our lawn, our driveway, our patio, and then our front door.

Perhaps the diagram on the police report makes it more clear.  Add a blood alcohol level of .232 and it becomes abundantly more clear how this could happen.  LOL  The sad thing is that the young man (22 years old) only lives 3 houses down from us.  He ALMOST made it home!  (I edited out addresses, so to explain: A = our house and B = the house next door, which we are now renting.)

Some kind folks have asked how the kids are doing after the truck trauma.  As you can see, Logan is doing just fine.  This was soon after we moved into the hotel and Logan discovered he could have Fruit Loops or waffles for breakfast every day.


Tristan seemed distressed by the violence and intrusion of it all, and processed his grief through conversation and artwork.  He first thought the driver had been trying to hurt our family and had deliberately driven his vehicle into our home.  Landon and I gently explained that the collision was simply an accident, after which Tristan drew us this Christmas card (it was just a few days before Christmas).

Front: our house with a hole in the side

Back: a seemingly contradicting message that made us laugh. 

He also wrote a postcard to his Grandma and Grandpa Williford:

"I had a very busy month.  A car crashed into my house at midnight.  First I thought somebody was robbing us, then mom saw a car in the house.  Then we called 911.  They found the guy.  He was innocent (he calls him this since we explained to Tristan that this was an accident).  We are staying in a hotel for about a month.  We're having so much fun!  We're going to have time to swim.  Merry Christmas."

Chloe is still full of sunshine.  She rolled with the punches of moving twice in a month and remained cheerful, even when she discovered a couple of her personal items were damaged or lost.  What a trooper!

Jocelynne was pretty subdued the day after we were displaced, but soon found solace in the attention she gained from her school friends.  She also found hotel living to be very agreeable, mostly because she no longer had to do chores.  Her least favorite chore was scrubbing the bathtub every Friday.  When she first learned that the truck had destroyed the bathroom, she exploded, "Yay!  I'll never have to scrub that old tub again!"

Finally, there's Dane.  While the rest of us had a scare that night, only Dane had his bed "go sailing into the unknown with a noisy, huge truck pushing it." (Those were my mom's words.)  For over a week Dane had trouble sleeping and cried throughout the night.  We had a hard time getting him to laugh and be his goofy self.  Grandma bought him a Teddy Bear, who is now his constant sleeping companion.  And I suspect that the unseen angel who guarded Dane on that fateful night in December continues to watch over him.

Although still a bit clingier to his Momma than before, Dane is now laughing and smiling again and sleeping through the night.  (Unless you count the 1-2 times he wakes up to nurse.  STILL!)

We enjoyed a lot of family time at the hotel.

And then more family joined us!  The Needhams and Ververas came for Christmas, and the cousins had a blast reconnecting after too long.  Meagan painted their faces for our Christmas Eve feast.

The girls giggled as much as they slept.

Playing with baby Malcom, the cousin they just met.

We prepared the food at the hotel and then used the church's oven to cook it.  The kids had plenty of room to run around and we had ample table space for everyone.  Let's do Christmas at the church every year!

 We had Hebert's deboned, shrimp-stuffed chicken, of course.  Add to that candied yams, spoon cornbread, mashed potatoes, and stuffing.  Yum!

The kids alternated between the spa and the (unheated) pool at the hotel.  Since it was December/January, Landon and I stuck to the spa.

We moved into our rental on Wednesday, January 4th.  Although the hotel was fun, it is nice to live in a place where I don't need to walk 100 yards to get to a washer and dryer.  

Dane got a ride on the dolly. 

The kids are happy to be back in the old neighborhood, mostly because they can once again jump on our trampoline and play with our neighbor, Kaia.

Moving, cleaning, and organizing around a toddler while coordinating with two insurance companies and their contractors has been stressful.  And tiring.  Honestly, sometimes I get discouraged.

  But even that hasn't been able to extinguish the joy and love I felt over Christmas and throughout the whole ordeal.  I am surrounded by people I love, and I was reminded all to poingantly of how blessed I am to have them.  Especially at Christmastime, I remember to praise God that His Son has made it possible for that to continue for eternity.