Christmas 2008

For the first time in years and years, I traveled out of state for Christmas. A few months back, while sitting around my uncle's table with the family, we were talking about upcoming holidays. We lost my Grandma back in the spring and this would be the first holiday season without her. I was talking to my sister and cousin and mentioned the idea of going to Kansas for Christmas or Thanksgiving since our Aunt and Uncle usually come here. We were all enthused by the idea and settled on Christmas since we would all have a 4-5 day weekend. My Dad and my Uncle agreed and Aunt Kristy was excited about it when we talked to her.

When it came down to it, my Uncle and cousin were not able to go because her work schedule changed. :( The rest of us decided to go ahead with the plans. So on the 23rd, we set out in two cars (me and Dad in one and Missy, Ryan and the kiddos in the other). And promptly came to a screeching halt. Central Indiana was hit with freezing rain that afternoon. We oh so brilliantly had planned on traveling overnight so the kids would sleep in the car. After killing some time by eating dinner, we finally got on the road around 9pm. The temps were rising and regular old rain was falling. It will wash away the ice right?

Our first clue was the state trooper parked on the entrance ramp to I-70 at the Plainfield exit. He was just sitting there, not blocking it, no lights on. We thought "alright! the interstate is open and we are good to go." We started on down the road, passed the rest stop two miles on down and promptly parked it along with the tons of cars and trucks sitting in front of us. It took us 3 hours to get past Little Point. That would be 15 miles! And another two to get out of state. It should have taken a little over an hour and it took 5! Thank God for cell phones. Missy and I sent so many text messages. (as I write this my roommate is in the other room on her computer and we are IM'ing each other even though we could easily be talking outloud) At first it was kinda funny, ironic etc.. but it got old really quick. Once we got to Effiingham, Dad and Ryan decided they needed some sleep. We had been on the road for over 6 hours. You know that big white cross you can see from the interstate? We parked the cars at the base of it and slept for about two hours. It was misting and foggy when we got back underway in the very early morning, and we were still only traveling about 60mph. As we got passed St. Louis, the fog began to lift and the roads got drier. We made up some time and even saw glimpses of sunshine. I was never so happy to reach my destination as when we pulled up at Kristy and Matt's house.

Not long after we got there, my cousin Shayne who lives in Guadalajara, Mexico arrived and later that night, Trevor, Tiffany and their girls came in. We had a nice big crowd, everybody got along. Well except for Kristy's three cats and Trevor's dog Jedda. We kept them separated. We all crashed early on Christmas Eve, but the kids woke us up early the next morning and we had a fun time watching them do their presents. We had fun playing Wii and other games. There were only a few meltdowns and lots and lots food. We all pitched in to make dinner (ham and turkey) with all the fixins. It disappeared a lot faster than it took to make.

We were able to stay until last Saturday and we hit the road around noon and got home around 10pm. The return was so much better. Since then, I have been hanging out with friends, fighting a nasty cold, passing off that cold to others, sweet of me I know, and generally being lazy. And I still have 4 more days before I go back to work. When I get the pictures off my camera I will post a few. In the meantime, I am gonna hit the shower cause there is no help in the world for the bed head I got working today.

Happy New Year!