Lost AND Found!

The most amazing thing just happened!

Last Sunday, we drove to Utah to spend Thanksgiving week with my family. Before we were to leave, Scott was going to attend a church meeting. That morning, he walked out the front door at about 6:30 in the morning, only to discover that his car had been stolen. I know...Honda Accords...#1 stolen car. But, our two car garage really only fits one, so he's been parking in the front...for three years now. We have a street light right in front of our house that it gets parked under. So, instead of attending his meeting, we called the police and filed a report. We got the Sequoia packed up and headed to Utah for a week of new memories.

We got home last night and started to face the reality that our car was actually gone. Luckily, Scott's parents are on a cruise this week and so we went to his parents house last night so Scott could borrow his Dad's truck while they are out of town. Scott went off to work today, and things seemed back to normal.

Tonight, we got a lesson in the value of regular Family Home Evening. Scott and I were feeling especially tired after a week of little sleep and a long drive yesterday. We were just finishing dinner when Megan turned to Scott and said, "Dad since it's your birthday (yesterday) you can choose to do a regular family home evening here, OR we can drive around and look at Christmas lights (I know...you can tell who really runs this household). When Meg first mentioned driving around to look at the lights, I thought that it was the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted to get everyone in bed and call it an early night. But when your child is asking for FHE, you can't pretend you forgot about it. So after a lesson, we decided to drive around the neighborhood for our activity.

We were driving around looking at the lights and made it to the next street over from us. All of the sudden, Scott swerved the car over and yelled "Oh my gosh...That's our car!" I hopped out of the car and sure enough, it was ours. Scott called the police while I knocked on the door of the house where the car was parked and asked how long it had been sitting there. He told me 3-4 days. The police officer came and when we opened it up, very little was missing: a phone charger, an iPod charger, and a GPS receiver. Literally, that was it. Radio still there. Disc changer still there. All four tires are still attached. We even have all of our leather seats to sit on. We are shocked that it wasn't taken apart. They went through the glove box, but that seems to be it. The car still had a full tank of gas with only 30-40 miles put on it.

This is my theory: We have a good friend (actually the car was parked 3 doors down from his house) who is a prosecutor for Sacramento County and lives around the corner from us. He was ticked when he found out our car was stolen. We have several Highway Patrol, Roseville Police, Placer Sheriffs officers, prosecutors, and elected officials including the Mayor of Roseville (and of course my sweet husband) that live in our neighborhood. We should be patrolled better than that. On Wednesday, he was coming home from work when he saw a slammed Honda driving through the neighborhood aimlessly. He decided to follow them. Once they threw trash out the window, he called the cops. He called us in Utah to tell us that the police had these guys pulled over, hand-cuffed, and were searching their car. I told Scott at the time that I was hoping it was the guys who took our car just so they'd get a good scare. My thought is that they came and dumped the car after that happened.

We are so thankful to have our car back! It is worth much more to us than its actual value. What a blessing! I'm also thankful for a sweet little girl who knows what is important and keeps her parents doing what they're supposed to do.