I know I should be working this weekend. I have a project that I really want to get finished. But, my family sacrifices a lot… a lot of “sorry, Dad needs to work”. Today, I wanted it to be about them.

We went to the Buda Wiener Dog Races. I’ve heard about this for numerous years and people always say what fun they had. I figured one of these days we had to check it out, and when I heard a few days ago that it was this weekend, I knew we had to go. It was fun. Had no idea so many wiener dogs lived in the area. 🙂  It was fun to watch them race. Yes, I groan a bit at people who dress up their pets, but hey… if that’s your thing, fine. I will admit a few people had little “caps” (baseball, cowboy, etc.) on their dogs and they did look mighty cute. Had some good food, picked up a few interesting crafts. A good time with the family.

Then… we went to leave. As we were pulling out of the parking area one of the attendants waved us down and told us our front left tire was flat. Great. I examined the tire and it was sliced on the inside… not sure what the deal was, but there’s no patching this. Pulled over and changed to the spare. I can’t remember the last time I had to change a tire, and certainly it was the first time for the Kiddos to experience it. Showed them how it works and how it’s actually pretty easy to do. Thankfully it’s Saturday and Discount Tire was open. Thing is, I bought some Arizonian tires from them for the minivan about 5 years ago. I wanted Michelin’s, but money was tight at the time and the guy talked me into it (my mistake). Sure, they are tires, they do the job… but I was never happy with them. Loud. They seemed to lose air faster than other tires I’ve had. Seemed to wear faster than their label would lead you to believe, and the wear seemed rather uneven. I actually said a couple of months ago that I wanted to buy new tires for the minivan, and they’d be Michelin’s this time. Well… today was the day. 🙂  Had them put on a set of Michelin Destiny‘s. We’ll see how they do. Bummed that I didn’t have the ability to shop around and get a tire of my choice at the best price, but hopefully this will work out well.

Thing is, while it wasn’t the way I wanted to spend the remainder of my Saturday, I’m just thankful I could. That I still have a good paying job. That I had the money to be able to handle this unexpected event, and didn’t have to compromise all that much. That I was able to spend a day with my family; Oldest even came with me on his own choice to the tire store.

Life doesn’t always give you what you want, but if you play things right it seems to give you what you need. Life is good.