I first have to write about our CRAZY trip up to my grandparent's house last week. If we are FB friends, you probably already know of the craziness we went through. If not, sit back and enjoy at our expense!
Snow and ice was in the forecast for Christmas day. I didn't really think it would happen, but Drew did. We talked about leaving for Oklahoma around noon that day, but Drew kept talking about leaving earlier. Again, I didn't really think the weather people were right (they hardly ever are!), so I went back to bed after the kids opened presents. They woke us up at 5 am, so I had plenty of time to get a nap! I finally got up and started throwing some stuff in a bag. We leave clothes for all seasons up there so we don't have to take too much. Drew was already loading the car and getting things ready. In fact, he never went back to bed.
By the time we were loaded and in the car it was 10:00. I had been raining for several hours at this point and the temperature was in the upper 30's. We had eaten a little breakfast but were starting to get hungry around noon. We noticed that the only places that were open were convenience stores and the occasional drug store. Even McDonald's was closed. We FINALLY found a Jack in the Box in Paris, TX open. Apparently, we aren't the only crazy people who travel on Christmas day. Jack in the Box was packed! When Drew ordered he learned they were out of chicken nuggets, Coke and tea. By the way, it was still raining~ hard.
We ate lunch and were on our way. By the time we got to Broken Bow, the rain had turned to sleet. In a matter of minutes the sleet turned to snow. In the blink of an eye the snow turned into a blizzard and the roads were covered! Addie had to stop and poo at this point, so Drew found a gas station. Gross, I know, but what else do you do??? When we got back on the road the roads were starting to get slippery. Thankfully there wasn't a lot of traffic because we started slipping and sliding all over the highway! It is a two-lane road and we were in the other lane a lot of the time at one point. The roads are very curvy, also. At times we were going sideways along the highway. Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck! I didn't help the kids' nerves, either. I called my grandparents at this point to tell them the road conditions and to expect us later than we had planned. We still had about 35 miles to go and Drew could only drive about 20-25 mph. By the time we were 10 miles away from their house Addie had to poop again! This time there was no gas station. We stopped on the highway so she could go. We couldn't even pull off onto the shoulder for fear of getting stuck. There really aren't shoulders on this highway so we would have had to go down into a little ditch. Thankfully there wasn't any traffic and Addie took care of business quickly!
We finally made it to their house and only had one more hill to go up. Drew made it about 2/3 of the way up the hill and started sliding sideways and backward. He went back down and tried to gain some momentum, but that didn't work either. After the third attempt, he decided not to push it. We stayed in the car and he walked up the hill to get a four-wheeler. He brought it back down to us so we could ride it up to the house. My uncle got his tractor and pulled Drew up the hill to the house. The snow was still coming down hard at this point. While Drew and the boys were unloading the car (this is their job) I made a snowman.
After the car was unloaded we all went inside to warm up. My grandmother had been cooking a ham all day so we peeled some potatoes for potato salad. Before we even put the potatoes on to boil the electricity went off. It does that sometimes during storms and usually comes back on in just a little while. After an hour or so we knew it wasn't going to come back on for a while. We found some lanterns and old oil lamps for light. We also reminded the kids not to flush the toilets because they are on a septic system and the pumps run on electricity. Of course, all three had to go after we told them that! Go figure! We were hungry for dinner by then, so we had ham and the peanut butter cake we brought from home. That ended up being our Christmas meal!
We didn't have the heater but the living room stayed warm because of a propane heater they have. We decided we would all sleep in the living room to stay warm. That's when the heater went out. We were out of propane. So, the house was dark (except for the lanterns and oil lamps), we couldn't flush and were now without our only source of heat. AND it was only about 7:00 in the evening! I knew it was going to be a long night!
Finally, about an hour or so later we decided to try and sleep. The boys had sleeping bags to sleep on the floor in the living room. My granddad fell asleep in his recliner. Drew, Addie and I went to our room and my grandmother went to her bed. At some point during the night the electricity came back on. I woke up to the sound of the heater going and knew the day was going to be okay.
When we finally got up the snow outside was just beautiful. It had continued to snow during the night and it covered everything. They probably got 5-6 inches. Later I went out on the four-wheeler to take some pictures. The trails were mostly impassable because the snow made the branches of the trees so heavy they bent over in the trails. It was so pretty! The snow was still on the ground when we left on Saturday. We had fun playing in the snow and walking on the trails. I have never seen snow like that up there and it was awesome!
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