Thanks and giving

We were driving across the state on our way to visit my sister-in-law's family and I was reaching my hand into my new Pioneer Woman jar for some more homemade apple chips when "Thud."

I froze with my hand hovering above the jar and looked at my husband with huge eyes, and his expression mimicked my own.

The car had shook with the explosive noise, and I put the jar lid on as a grinding noise started somewhere underneath the vehicle.

"Did we blow a tire?" I asked, my eyes still huge and the dog on the backseat looking at us like "What the heck?"

Nate pulled onto the new off ramp and slowed the vehicle down on the shoulder. We both put on the coats we had taken off during the drive and opened our doors to the -15 degree temperatures and frigid winds of the day.

We walked around the car.

Nothing. No exploded tires. Nothing hanging underneath the vehicle. No smoke coming from under the hood.

It didn't look like anything was wrong.

We were almost exactly halfway between where we were coming from and where we were going, out in the middle of nowhere on the Saturday before New Year's Eve. The temperatures for the next few days were not supposed to get much above -10 degrees, and this is the time that we have car trouble?

Nate looked under the hood, around the tires and tried to figure out where the grinding sound was coming from but to no avail.

We called my dad, the usual guru in times of car trouble and tried to explain what happened. It wasn't a chunk of ice in the wheel well; there was no snow buildup. There was absolutely nothing visibly wrong.

"Where are you? We can head out to meet you and your dad can help Nate work on the car," Mom offered.

"No, we're too far away. It's too cold. There's nothing we could do at this point anyway," we answered via speakerphone inside the Dodge Journey.

We were blessed that not only my parents but Nate's sister also offered to drive hours to come pick us up. What a great family we have.

After much back and forth, we decided to head to the closest people we knew --- Nate's grandparents who lived about 45 minutes away. Maybe then Nate could figure out how to fix what appeared to be a wheel bearing issue.

We called my dad and told him, and immediately he said, "Do you want me to come help you fix it? I'll toss some tools in the car and drive over."

"That's a 2.5-hour drive for you; you certainly don't have to do that," I said. "I mean, if you want to, that'd be amazing, but you certainly don't have to."

But he did.

He drove 2.5 hours to us. He spent 5 hours in a cold garage underneath a cold car on a frigid night, changing first one wheel bearing then another and finally deciding it wasn't the wheel bearings after all but the rear differential.

He spent the night in a stranger's house (Nate's grandparents, but still, my dad didn't know them) and got up early the next morning to make it home to my mom.

We didn't even really know how to respond, because I think the percent of men that would drop everything at a moment's notice and drive halfway across the state to help his grown daughter and son-in-law work on their vehicle in absolutely freezing cold temperatures has to be slim to none.

That, folks, is generosity at its finest, selflessness at its core, love in action. It makes tears come to my eyes thinking just how much God has blessed my family with a man that is so often silent and yet so often speaking loudly through his actions.

It's impossible to thank someone for that, to show how much we appreciated that. We gave him an MRE. That's the best we could do.

But we're so thankful. We're thankful for my dad. We're thankful we made it home safely. We're thankful it wasn't worse than it was. We're thankful for a giving family that will house us at last minute's notice. We're thankful for family that will do anything to help. We're thankful for offers of assistance from kind strangers.

In what could have been a situation that led us to memories of a horrible New Year's trip, I now have memories of what a great family we have, and what an amazing father I have.

Thank you Dad. It's not enough, but thank you. I love you.