This sweet girl thought her birthday would be ruined this year. If you remember from an earlier post, she wanted to cancel it. True, we had many plans for her Sweet Sixteen that weren't able to come to fruition. But we knew it wouldn't be as horrible as she was thinking because we had an ace up our sleeve.
We had bought her a car back in February. I know, shocking. I didn't see this coming either. But we did it. And how thankful we are that we followed our gut and bought it when we did. The coronavirus was still not yet a threat. We had no idea the world would come to a screeching halt just a few weeks after we purchased this. We had previously told Chloe we would look for a car together this summer and hopefully find one before school started. She accepted that with no problems. Not once did she beg, cajole, manipulate, or complain about the situation. However, I had been looking online to see what was available in the price range we wanted to spend. Chuck and I were just supposed to go out looking that day. But this car had Chloe's name written all over it. It was perfect. Some friends of ours let us park it in their driveway until the big day. It was almost impossible to keep this secret for 5 weeks. I think Chuck and I deserve an Oscar for faking it so well the whole time. Man, was it hard! But the joy it gave her was priceless.
Even Brooke got to come over and share in Chloe's joy...the social distancing way.
The one caveat about this car...it's a stick shift. So Chloe and Chuck started lessons right away. Honestly, she's pretty good at it. She'll have this down in no time.
She's got the best dad ever! The day was chalk full of FaceTimes with all our loved ones. Lots of texts and calls from friends. Her friend Katie even drove over and dropped off a gift. The gift of just seeing a friend, whether or not you can hangout, is precious. Friendships and physical contact are taking on a whole new meaning.
We took a break from spikeball to take pictures with our new 16 year
old. The joke has been that she's been 15 for 2 years now and she
thought she might be 15 this year again. But having a car all your
own helps make that 16 mile marker feel a little more special and real. She was
supposed to do her driver's test today. But that is impossible since the
DMV is closed until the end of April.
One day the actual license will
come, but until that time, you'll find her sitting in her car with a
huge smile on her face.
