Fa la la la la 2009

Christmas Season at the Jones home has begun...

We started off our Christmas season with an impromptu candlelit dinner. It was just the four of us with wilted roses and leftovers, but I couldn't have enjoyed it more. Mallory set the table herself and even made special place cards for everyone.

The next day, we got to work on the tree. With Mal's allergies we have to have an artificial tree, but there's something to be said for predictability. It's perfectly beautiful to us and looks exactly the same as it did last year (with one exception).

The exception: Will. He has never been interested in helping with the tree before. This year you couldn't pry him away from that ornament box. He worked for an hour putting every one of "his" ornaments exactly where he wanted them...

all on the same branch. If you look closely, you might be able to distinguish the 10 or so ornaments all dangling from one poor branch. It's horribly cute, so there's no way I'm fixing it. Especially knowing how proud Will was of his hard work.

One benefit to an artificial tree is that each branch can be examined with loving care.

"First wrapped present under the tree" honor.

The mantle with our special guest peeking over the top. His name is Eli Freckles and Mallory is in luuuvv! I really thought Will would be the one who was into the whole Elf on the Shelf thing, but I was wrong. Eli Freckles and his whereabouts are the hottest things at our house this year.

Recovery

The next morning, the sun came out and provided some much needed relief from that scary storm.

 The kids were not about to let one bad day ruin their entire vacation. As soon as breakfast was over, they begged to go outside. Of course, just getting ready to go out in the snow is a 30 minute process. Will doesn't like to get dressed anyway, so he didn't take to well to all the necessary layers.

 

 See his pout? That's because he would have gone outside in nothing but a t-shirt and underwear if it were up to him.

 

Mallory immediately had a marvelous time exploring all the real snow...

 

and eventually, Will warmed up to it as well.

He couldn't figure out how to walk without falling down at first.

 

Meanwhile the men dug and shoveled and tried to get the van unstuck!

At least they did it with a smile! Eventually, we flagged down a passing snow plow and paid him to clear the driveway and free the van. Finally, we could drive to the store to buy some groceries.

Surviving the worst day ever

One year ago I was just as excited as Jeremy was when he called to tell me that we won a week vacation at the Colorado house. That is, until I realized what the weather would be like in November.

I'm not a huge fan of being cold.

Colorado in November pretty much guarantees that we would be playing in snow and that I would spend a lot of time bundled up inside. I shivered just thinking about how cold I would be. The biggest concern I had about the whole trip, though, was that we don't know how to drive in the snow. I had experienced what that was like 17 years ago with my parents and I wasn't eager to try it again. Jeremy was confident, however, that we would be fine, and so we began to plan our trip to the snow.

Unbelievably, my worst fears came true. As we pulled into Denver and prepared to drive the last 2 hours of a 12 hour trip a snow storm settled in. It came down hard and fast. Almost before we realized what was going on we found ourselves trapped on the freeway with thousands of other cars with no way out.

This is what the road looked like pretty much the whole way.

The next four hours were spent in complete fear of our lives. The van alternated between roars of the engine and the rear wheels spinning on the ice. Each time we slid I just knew that was the end. If we weren't sliding then one of the cars around us was. Eighteen wheelers stalled in the middle of the lanes and wrecks were a dime a dozen.

We contemplated exiting to the nearest parking lot and just waiting out the storm. But, we were so afraid that the feeder roads would be far worse than the freeway that we didn't attempt it. Every person in the van was praying to God, even sweet little Mallory. Miraculously, and I do mean that Jesus had to have been clearing the way, we pulled into the house in Silverthorne. Our nightmare wasn't over as we realized, too late, that our van couldn't pull into the snow covered driveway. It was stuck.

Exhausted both physically and emotionally, and clueless about how to fix the problem, we left it there overnight. There was just enough food left in the house from the previous tenants for us to scrounge up a dinner. Then, everyone collapsed.

The next morning, was all about getting the van unstuck.

Here's Jeremy trying to shovel the driveway.

 Our first view of the house in the daylight...pretty huh? As it turns out, snow is much prettier when you're not having to drive through it!