November 9th

Today, I am thankful for sturdy cars, and sweet strangers. 

I hit a deer, a very large deer, on my way to work. We live on the outskirts of town now, and evidently, so do the deer. Hunters, be jealous, but I hit a HUGE granddaddy 12 point buck! Apparently, my sturdy car won! I came over an overpass and noticed a truck hauling a trailer ahead of me that was moving slow so I started to change lanes. Just as I turned my head to glance in my mirror and over my left shoulder, WHAM! It was SO loud and jolting. My car started getting hard to drive and pulling to the right, so I pulled over. It was dark, cold and windy.. and I was alone! I never saw what I hit, and at first thought I had a blowout. A sweet man, Eric, pulled over to help me. I'm sure he saw me waddling around my car and new I needed some support. He had a big spotlight in his truck and we were able to see the damage. Its pretty bad. Luckily, my airbags did not deploy and PawPaw Deer went to the right and into the ditch and not over or IN my car! The front bumper, hood, headlight, right quarter panel, right front tire, right passenger door, and even the windshield have damage. Evidently, his antlers scratched my windshield. My new friend Eric walked back about a quarter of a mile and found PawPaw Deer in the ditch. He was GIGANTIC! Now, keep in mind that I have never actually seen a deer up close, but it was HUGE! The boys were very impressed that it was a 12 point buck! In Hunters language, thats apparently important. Sweet Eric kept saying.. its a 6 by 6! Also evidently important. A friend of ours, Michael, who happens to be a policeman and who I called after my hubby was funny when he saw the pictures... "Unbelievable. I hunt my entire life and never shoot a 12pt but you can hit one on the road a mile from my house" 

 Here are a few pictures we snapped at the scene...

Things could have definitely been so much worse, and God was really looking out for me and Landrie!