Many miles of the Holidays

We had a wonderful Christmas vacation and New Year's (Thanksgiving too!). During the last couple of months of 2007 we spent a lot of time on the road. We made up for the car sitting in the driveway pretty much for the past five months :)

Thanksgiving - Indianapolis 752.49 miles

Thanksgiving (yes, I know this is so late) we headed up to Indiana to visit my sister and her new husband in Indianapolis. The trip up took about 14 1/2 hours due to weather which led to accidents which meant slow downs and stops. During the time we were there (three and a half days) we went over to Spencer's sisters house for dinner. They have three kids with their older two right at Logan and Aurora's age. One of Spencer's other sisters with her family and parents in law also joined us for dinner. The next day we went to the Children's Musuem in Indiapolis. The place was huge, busy, and very neat. We didn't even get to all the areas, so we'll have to go again another time:) Logan and Aurora both thought the Santa slide was the best. It was a big slide that went from the second to the first floor. On Saturday, we fed the ducks and went to see Disney's "Enchanted". I really liked it, but Logan was a big bummer and said "That was a dumb movie" when it was over. I don't think he was paying attention becuase I loved it. We took two days to drive home, so it was a bit easier than making it in one day.

Christmas - Oklahoma City 900.37 miles; Grants 628.24 miles; Los Alamos 173.75miles

For Christmas, we headed out on Dec. 14 after work and school were done. I took off half a day of work to go to Logan's school and help him with a gingerbread house. I was so excited that it worked out to go since I haven't been able to be very involved in school. (That's why I do all the fundraisers...I need to feel like I'm helping out somehow!) We stopped in Layfette, LA at 11 at night and were on the road by 6:30. The desk clerk was jealous that we were gone before she was :) Our travels the next day (after much debate to see what the weather was really doing) led us up to family in OKC. All the kids had a wonderful time together and it's always great for me to see Jesse and Mike and having some nice conversations. Definately a high point for me was leaving five kids at home with Mike to head to the Elephant Bar to celebrate being turning 30 in 2007 with Jesse, Michelle, and Shannon. I was the oldest since my bday was in Aug, with the others having birthdays in Oct. and Dec. Baby Josie came along with us and was just a cutie. When we got home at about 8:30 all five of the kids were asleep in bed (it was a miracle!).

On the road again out to New Mexico, we were the first of my family to arrive (except Nathan, but he just lives in Albuquerque). Dad went to pick up Tommy (Thomas for all those that know him at college) from school in Utah. All the family that was able to come in arrived on Friday evening - Cathleen and Spencer from Indiana, Dad and Tommy, and Aimee and Brian from St. George, UT. Guy and his family were unable to make it since they were in the middle of PCSing (permanent change of station) to Ft. Hood, TX from Ft. Sill, OK. (Since I never mentioned it on the blog before, Guy and Amanda had their third baby, Elizabeth Ann on November 1). I was so excited to see everyone. I really do love getting together with my family - there is nothing like it when us girls get to laughing :)

On Saturday, we had an open house for Cathleen and Spencer for their wedding in September. It was good to see people I grew up with and chat with them. There was a ton of good food (tamlaes, chili, posole, chips, salsa, queso, nanemo bars, cake, etc). I was busy visiting with people, so I had to wait and enjoy the leftovers. I enjoyed them a lot:)

Monday we had headed up to Los Alamos which is about three hours away. (See our wonderful family pic from the post Merry Christmas Eve). It was a nice visit and I love to go see my Grandpa. We arrived home late that evening, so it was time to hustle the kids off to bed in preparation for Santa.

Christmas morning I got a phone call at 5:45 from James to have him say that he was going to try to do a video call, so he could join us for Christmas. I took some time to set it up around 7 before the kids came to see the gifts from Santa. I didn't get it all the way online for James to see the expressions when they first got to see what was under the tree, but we did get it set up for the rest of the presents being opened.
The kids opened up their gifts first, before the rest of us opened ours. James was able to see us and talk to us, but we couldn't get video from his end. That was ok, though. We were very happy he was able to "join" us on Christmas.
Later that day it snowed. It was just enough to cover the ground and was perfect. It has been so long since I have see a "White Christmas" that I was very happy.

As our week wound down, everyone was on the way out the door to their various destinations, whether it be home or time to see more family. I deceided if the weather was cooperative we would head up to Colorado to see James's mom and Grandma.


New Year's - Ft. Collins 587.5 miles


As luck would have it, the weather was on our side. We headed up to Ft. Collins on Dec. 30, so we could ring in the New Year and spend a couple days in CO. I kept this a surprise and waited till we got to Colorado Springs before calling to see if we could join them for dinner. As luck would have it, they were ready for us with a nice pot of chili. The trip was very smooth and we only started to have blowing snow about 20 miles outside of Ft. Collins. Good thing we were not going any further because I-25 was closed north of Ft. Collins due to "adverse weather. Seek alternate route".
We had a wonderful getting to see "grandmas". We went to Vern's one day for breakfast. It is a great place to eat. We took a trip around the outskirts of Ft. Collins and then we headed to Toys R Us to use the gift certificates they had gotten from Grandma S. Logan was very excited to get some K-nex. Aurora took her sweet time checking out everything before decieding on a ice cream play set.
We welcomed the New Year with hot chocolate, popcorn, and a movie. I only made it till 11, but that's 12 my time:) James called at midnight for both his time and our time, so that was great to welcome in the New Year with him. Mom put on the corn beef at midnight, so it would be ready for lunch the next day.
On New Year's day, I helped with moving things around to get ready for the big furniture move the next day. It went by very quickly with Mom and me getting things around while Grandma finished up the corn beef adding in the cabbage, carrots, and potatoes and the kids played.
After all the moving was done and lunch was eaten, we went outside to play in the snow. The kids had a great time. Since the snow was so dry , they had to throw "snow chunks" instead of snow balls. They made a couple of snow angels and had a great time before heading inside for some hot chocolate.

Going Home - Norman 749.57 miles; Lafayette 578.88 miles; Our house 371.02 miles

The next day we were on the road again. We headed back through OK and stayed in Norman. We stayed at the same hotel in Layfette as we did on the way out, but got there early enought to enjoy their pool and hot tub. Back in Florida, there were a few problems to be encountered as we came back in. The heat was not on (50 degrees in the house), the phone was not working, the internet was not working, and the TV was not reseting. This was very tramactic for me, since the only thing I wanted to do was to sit down and watch TV for a bit before unloading the car. I sat down and cried for a couple of minutes then unloaded the car, called the phone company to set up an appt. to get the phone fixed the next day, did trouble shotting for the internet to get it up and running, finally got the tv to reset after many unsuccessful tries, and then sat under a warm blanket as the house very slowly warmed up.