We started December with a bang, literally.

On the first Saturday night of December, Blake took the kiddos (and one friend) to the Rotary of Lights in downtown La Crosse, which is a beautiful outdoor light display that is open during the holidays.

They were volunteering there that night with a group from Mathy Construction, Blake’s work.

It was very cold so they were bundled up in all of their snow suit gear, but they had a blast!

Addie and I were over at David and Kay’s babysitting the grand babies so that David and Kayla could go to David’s work Christmas dinner.

We had a blast too!

On the way home from the Rotary, my crew was in an accident.

They were coming down ten mile hill into Coon Valley when a huge buck, who was running full speed, came up out of the ditch on the side of the road and ran right into the side of our van.

There are SO many blessings of God’s protection in this story!

The deer’s head and antlers came through the back window on the side of the van RIGHT where Eliza was sitting, BUT the tires of the van then ran over the deer’s legs which flipped it’s head back out of the van.

Crazy. Yes.

ALSO – in the split second that it probably all happened, Chad saw it coming and yelled.

When Chad yelled, Lane (who was in between Tate and Eliza in the back seat) pulled Eliza’s head into his lap and pushed Tate’s face away from the explosion of glass.

I know.

God is SO good!

It was very bad, but they were all ok.

Everyone in the back half of the van was covered in glass and everyone was completely shook up.

Eliza screamed so much that Blake was convinced she had glass in her eyes, but thankfully she did not.

Our van was in bad shape too.

We are so grateful that the police officer that came to the scene let Blake double buckle Lane, Tate, and Eliza on the other’s laps and drive the van home.

We took our van that very Monday morning to get an estimate and see if our insurance would cover the repairs.

It was close!

There was a lot of damage, but they approved the repairs to be covered by our insurance.

SO thankful!

The boys worked on cleaning up the glass before we took it to be repaired.

It took them hours!

We drove the van with plastic over the broken window for over a week while we waited on the parts to arrive that were needed for the repairs to happen.

While the van was being repaired, I drove around in this beauty for close to five weeks.

I will say that beautiful car did not make up for the feeling I had when Chad called us that Saturday night as they stood on the side of the road after the accident.

A call you never want to get!

I cannot say with enough words how very thankful we are that the Lord protected everyone in the van that night, especially Eliza!

The deer’s antlers were inches from her head.

I have tears as I am typing this.

We are so grateful.

Lane had whiplash symptoms for several days after the accident, and none of us slept well for a few nights, but other than that everyone was ok.

So grateful!

Praise the Lord with us!!