Blessed & Thankful- Boy's Jeep Ride

Monday, September 26th I came home from meetings just after 6pm. Tyler knew that I was going to be home around 6, and he is so good at making sure he and the boys are home and dinner is ready or getting prepared. When I got home no one was  home. I looked around and the truck was in the back yard and I could tell he had been working on sprinklers...doors were unlocked and the jeep was gone. So I just assumed that he and the boys needed to get out of the house and so they probably went for a drive through Warner Valley. I started cleaning up the house...then it became 7:00...and then 7:30...I called his dad and our friends to see if they had heard from him, and no one knew anything. By 7:45 I started to worry more and more. I tried calling his cell phone but there was no answer....it just rang and rang. Our friends Kason and Brittnie got in their truck and took off through Warner Valley looking for them. At this point I am panicking thinking that he might've rolled the jeep or somehow wrecked it. Both boys are with him, and I doubt he has any supplies..... I ended up calling dispatch to see if they could ping his last phone signal...they said they would need to send a cop out to my house.

Now it is 8:15..I have friends and family over at my house just waiting to hear what to do. There had RZRs ready to go out to look for my boys. At 8:30 I got a call from Tyler and he was crying...which is not like him. I immediately panicked thinking the worst....he said he was fine but that he was totally lost in AZ. He had gotten the jeep stuck....hiked for 2 hours with both boys, finally got cell service at the top of a hill and had no idea where he was...nothing looked familiar and his GPS was not working. The officer that was at my house told him to hang up and Call 9-1-1 so we could find the GPS location of his phone. They were able to find the coordinates of his current location and dispatched out "Mohave Search and Rescue". Monday was cool and windy. I knew that we had a huge storm rolling into town that night...and that my boys are stuck somewhere on the Arizona Strip with nothing and now its dark.

Our friends and my brother in laws were determined to go find them, they got the coordinates from the officer, they loaded up their trucks and trailers and RZRs and headed out. Ty's parents came down from Dammeron Valley with their RZR and they all took off.

I kept it together pretty well until I called my mom in Mexico. I just wanted to talk to her and she was in a different country. It still was so nice to hear her voice and hear her say that everything was going to be okay. The officer told me to not contact Tyler because he needed to save his cell phone battery.

Brittnie and Rachel (my sister in law) stayed with me. Mohave Search and Rescue called me and asked me a 1,000 lame questions...."Was Tyler sad or depressed earlier"..."How tall is he...what size of shoe...Hair color?...Eye Color"...."How tall is Tatum??...what shoes was he wearing?...." I was getting frustrated on the phone and just wanted them to be out looking for the boys...not asking me a billion questions (Even though I know that they were doing their job).

I continued to text Tyler periodically just to hear that they were okay, he texted and said that it was cold and windy, but that he had both boys asleep and that they were laying under a tree. At around midnight I got a text from Tyler saying that he thought he could see someone coming. They were pickup by our friends 15 minutes later....I called and let Mohave S&R know that we were found safe. I was so grateful for everyone's help & so grateful that the boys were okay.

Come to find out...Tyler had loaded up the boys at 4pm just to get out of the house...got stuck around 5:30pm....worked on getting the jeep out for an hour...At 6:30 Decided that he need to start hiking out so the he didn't loose daylight....His phone beeped at 8:30 with a text which means that he had cell service and that is when he called me. He found a tree to lay under with the boys until he was found. Tyler said the boys were rockstars, barely even complained while he hiked 4 miles with them and laid down on his chest and fell asleep when he told them it was time for bed.

A horrible downpour storm hit a 3:00am and my boys were safe and in bed, and I had an anxiety attack. Just the thought that a couple hours ago they were under a tree alone in the dark and there was a chance that they could've still been out there freaked me out.

I am so grateful for prayer and so blessed that nothing terrible happened. I am so grateful for many friends and family who dropped everything and took off through the desert in the dark looking for these boys of mine. We are blessed.

(PHOTOS TAKEN THE NEXT DAY)

tTt