The adventure at home while were in the air between Germany and Russia

When we decided that we were going to add a child to our family we knew we would need a bigger vehicle.  Our Tahoe was the sport version and it just didn't have any storage space for luggage in the back if we used all the seats.  We began our look for a vehicle and as I'm really more of the "as long as we all fit and it is comfortable and reliable it is fine with me" kind of person, I let Chad take over the look.  He called up the lady he bought his truck from and told her what we wanted.  Within about a day she called and said she had an Expedition which fit the bill for what we wanted.  The problem was we were leaving for Russia that following day and just didn’t have time so go look at it.  After sending pictures and deciding it was indeed just what were looking for she said she would bring it to us along with papers to sign if we wanted to purchase it.  So about 2 hours before we left for the airport we got the Expedition and I drove it about a whole 3 blocks to test drive, we signed the papers, loaded the kid paraphernalia in and handed the keys to our wonderful friend Katie who was staying with the boys.  She would be driving it for the week.  We had thought it worked out great because when the word got out that we were going to sell the Tahoe we had 2 different friends contact us wanting to buy it for their daughter that live out of town.  The next day (a whole 24 hours after be bought the Expedition) Katie had to go get something from her house.  She took the boys in and when they came back out the new Expedition would not start.  Katie being the calm person that she is just called one of the wonderful emergency contacts that we left her.  Kendra came to her rescue and went to our house to get the Tahoe. She soon found out that the Tahoe was not there but there was a car from our local dealership sitting in our driveway.  Chad had told Kendra that we had someone wanting to buy the Tahoe but there was a service light on that we wanted to get fixed.  Kendra works with Chad and had seen many times the dealership bring a loaner when they needed to service one of our vehicles. So naturally Kendra assumed that the Tahoe was in the shop and they had left a loaner.  So she took the “loaner” to Katie.   Actually one of the guys that work at that dealership wanted to buy the Tahoe for his daughter and Chad had left him a key so when she came in town he could show her and test drive it.  When this guy got back from his test drive and his car was gone he thought it had been stolen so he called the police.  Meanwhile when the Expedition wouldn't start Katie had put in a movie to keep the boys occupied while she tried to figure out what to do.  Well rather than make the boys leave in the "loaner car" AKA "stolen car" in the middle of the movie they just stayed at her house until it got over. Meanwhile when the police came and realized there was a "stolen car" they also knew we were out of town and began to get concerned about the wear about of our children.  (One advantage of a small town where we go to church with the police chief).  They proceeded to search our house looking for clues as to where our kids were.  They had spotlights out and were spotlighting our neighborhood.  One of our neighbors came outside and the police even had her come search our house with him to see if she thought anything looked out of place.  Everything looked normal so they apparently began to figure out how to contact Katie.  From what I have been told the police got on my computer and looked up Katie’s Face book account and found her brothers phone number.  They called him and got Katie’s number and called her to see if everything was ok.  Of course she had no idea that all this fuss had gone on.  She simply thought she was going to drive this "loaner car" back to our house when the boys got finished watching their movie.  Anyway the dealership where we bought the Expedition came and towed away our new Expedition and brought her a real loaner.  They found out that somehow the key got deprogrammed and the ignition did not recognize it.  They then deprogrammed the whole vehicle then reprogrammed it and it has been fine ever since.  Luckily the whole incident did not scare Katie away and she is willing to watch our kids for us.   I also learned later that before the new Expedition got towed away Kendra’s husband (our pastor) came to take car seats out.  One of them is installed differently than the ones they have and he had trouble getting it out so he called the police to have them tell him how to get it out.  The police came and took the car seat out of the Expedition which was parked right beside the “stolen car”, but no one noticed.  Who would have thought that the pastor would be trying to put car seats in the “stolen car”? 

We appreciate all that everyone had done for us while we are in our adoption process.  We have great friends and family that are so willing to help out with our kids and take over the office while we are away.  We also appreciate that the police were concerned with the safety and whereabouts of our children.  We also appreciate that all you wonderful friend took control of the situation when we were in the air somewhere between Germany and Russia and handled it.  We learned tiny bits thru our e-mail contact but did not even learn of the whole situation until we returned which was no doubt for the better.  Katie even was able to keep the boys busy so they did not even realize the police came and were searching for the “stolen vehicle”.  What great friends!