Don’t worry, Mom. It’s sparkling grape juice.

We were lucky that my dad called us that morning to wake us and say, “Come home” because if we hadn’t left when we did, I’m pretty sure that we would not have made it 50 miles south. We were out of bed at 7am and both showered and packed everything in the car ready to go by 8am. It took us a few minutes to put gas in the car and by the time we were on the road out of Norman there was already a mix of freezing rain falling.

As always, people were driving like nuts in Norman and ignoring the slick roads. By the time we made it to the interstate it looked like the road was pretty clear, but it only took driving south about 10 miles before we saw an accident happen and had to call the highway patrol. That one was pretty scary and to see the car I think you’d be surprised to know that the guy was out of his car and on his cellphone just about the time that we were.

My route to Mom and Dad’s house is usually a winding one. I take one of the earlier exits and spend most of my time on small state highways instead of the interstate. There was no question on Christmas Eve — we were taking the interstate as far as we could. Cars littered the shoulder until we reached Pauls Valley. South of there it was much clearer. I chalk that up to the fact that, no apologies, people from rural areas are generally better at handling this kind of weather in an automobile than their city mouse counterparts.

As we had expected, the state highways were already rather slick and turning on to Highway 76 south was quite a surprise: the highway that runs in front of my parents’ house was the most treacherous we had come to. Finally, a few miles and one tree in the road later, we were home.

The rest of the day I watched the snow accumulate while my husband played video games with my younger brothers. Younger as in 23 and 21, in case you don’t know. I documented the snowfall throughout the day.

Back yard:

Front yard:

I had never seen anything like it. And it wasn’t so much the snow that was remarkable, but the wind with the snow. Forty to fifty mile per hour winds blowing snow across the rolling hills of southern Oklahoma is really something to see.

Our traditional Christmas Eve did not happen because we couldn’t travel the 35 miles to Duncan, Oklahoma, where one set of my grandparents are, to celebrate with them. Their area of the state really got hit the hardest with a ton of sleet and freezing rain dumped on the main highway that runs through town, shutting down most travel. Since we couldn’t make it over there my parents made the call that we were going to do our Christmas that night with dinner followed by opening gifts. Now, in my 25 years of living, they have never let us open a gift on Christmas Eve, much less made us open all of them. This was a record-breaking Christmas in more ways than one.

For my mom, I took a family picture of our snowed in selves right before we opened our gifts.

It was really a great time getting to celebrate with my immediate family and our new addition, even if nothing so far this holiday season had seemed to go right.

For the first time in my life, I woke up to a glittering, white Christmas morning.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas from under over 1′ of snow here in southern Oklahoma. It’s done falling, but Kevin and I are stuck here until…well, it’s looking like Saturday or Sunday at the earliest. On the upside, we still have running water and warmth. I don’t know about you, but I’m not asking for much more than that.

Now, off to enjoy my most favorite Christmas gift…my new Fiesta teapot.

Wanted to give a little update because I’ve had some people texting and what not, wondering if Kevin and I made it to our final destination…well, not that final destination. As you can tell by me typing this, we made it safely to my parents’ house in Pernell, Oklahoma, which is right square in the cross-hairs of the only blizzard I can remember seeing. It’s blowing like no other out there and we have huge drifts already. We’re snowed in and really don’t expect to get to leave for a few days, depending on how quickly this nasty business starts melting.

But I can deal with snow. It’s the ice that’s a killer. Please please please, though, if you are not bleeding from the ears or missing a limb, don’t leave your house. Someone got killed on a highway north of us after having a minor accident, walking for help, and being struck by another vehicle. We witnessed an accident on our way south and stopped to call the highway patrol for them, but even that is not always the best decision. Remember *55 for the state troopers in Oklahoma (I don’t know about other states). Keep yourself safe though. It’s good to help however you can, just stay safe.

Hope you all enjoy your Christmas Eve. I’m going to go enjoy a cup of hot cocoa and The Children’s Blizzard. Just seems appropriate.

Stay safe, my blizzardy friends!
Our Sunnyview
Redneck Diva
But I digress…
Maternal Maddness

Boy, this is just the Christmas of throwing a kink in things, huh? First, we don’t get to go to Philly and now it’s looking like I will be getting a white Christmas for the first time in my life. It’s been quite a year.

With that knowledge though, and the new forecasts, we are going to be heading out this morning to try and beat the storm to my parents’ house. It’s in the southern part of the state and is expecting more snow than us here in Norman. It’s likely we’re going to get snowed in down at Mom and Dad’s, but we’d rather do that than be stuck up here and miss Christmas altogether.

Have a blessed Christmas and I’ll be seeing you soon!

As we made our way through one of the 3 airports we were in on Sunday, Kevin said to me, “I think this is blogworthy.” Now, he doesn’t say that often so I am going to roll with it.

We were both awake super early compared to our usual time (me at 4 am and him at 5 am) and I was rushing about the house getting last minute things ready to go. Once everything was packed up we were out the door by 6 am and on the road to the airport in OKC.

I’d had a funny feeling about it all morning and had even awoken to a strange dream thinking we shouldn’t go on the trip, but we arrived at the airport and our flight was still scheduled as being on time. Through security (quickly, I might add — thank you, Will Rogers World Airport!) and on to wait for our plane, we boarded with a number of other people who had Philly in mind as a final destination. The first leg of our flight from Oklahoma City to St. Louis was pretty uneventful. I napped a bit, but experienced my first light case of motion sickness on a plane. It was mild and I think mostly due to my sinuses being a bit bothered already. Remind me to tell you about my worst case of motion sickness sometime. The story involves Scranton, PA, so, yeah, interesting.

We landed safely in St. Louis to find a number of messages on Kevin’s phone. Our flight from St. Louis to Philly was canceled and we soon confirmed it for a second time on arrivals and departures board.

I’ve seen plenty of episodes of that Airline on A&E to know how this sort of situation usually goes. There’s often screaming and/or drunkenness. However, neither Kevin nor I are prone to being screamy or drunk, so we were already ahead. We went to the counter and were helped pretty quickly by a Southwest employee. He got us on a flight headed to Dallas and then on to OKC.

The whole thing really wasn’t a big surprise to me. I’d checked the boards that morning online and all of the other flights from St. Louis to Philly had been canceled, so our chances weren’t good.

Instead of moping, we got bagels with cream cheese. Cream cheese makes everything better. Seriously. My friend, those are words to live by. Write them down. And my bagel had pepperoni and mozzarella baked all into the crust. Yum.

It was when we got onto the plane that things got interesting. We preboarded (for the first time in both of our lives) and seated ourselves at the very front of the plane. Another first for me. The preboarding pass was so that we could get off the plane and onto the next one as quickly as possible because we had such a slim window. So, at best we were going to be the first off the plane and we’d made our next flight. At worst…we wouldn’t feel a thing (a joke you don’t make while you’re on the plane).

What I hadn’t factored into the equation was The 3rd Seat. You know, we’re traveling as a couple and have done so on every plane trip I have been on. Up to this point we have made it through dozens of flights unscathed. No arm rest hogs, no one napping on our shoulders, no one reading over our shoulder. But this time…oy. A young man seated himself down beside Kevin and proceeded to start telling us his life story. Your classic oversharer. Then he got loud and started joking with the people around us and tried to get the flight attendants to sing. Numerous times. It continued and I turned to the window to take a nap, leaving my dear husband to fend for himself.

When I woke up we were about 10 minutes from touching down and the young man turned to both of us and asked, “So, what are your majors?” Later I told Kevin that we should take it as a compliment that we still look like we could be undergrads. It was after this question that I made my fatal mistake. I told him my degree was in writing. He then started telling me about how he had written a chapter book that was almost 80 pages long. And then. He got out his phone (we were taxiing) and started searching. He handed me the phone and asked me to read his poetry. I don’t even want to do that for people I know. Especially not for total strangers who aren’t asking for criticism, but instead it’s all, “Look! See how good I am at what I do!” It was about an ocean tearing him away from a girl. There was rhyming. Lots and lots of rhyming.

We got out of that plane fast.

On the way to our next gate we ran into the man who had been in the same situation as us early that morning. He was the only person on our flight who had decided to come back to Oklahoma City. He walked along next to us and asked us what we had been heading to Philly for.

“Christmas,” we said in unison. Kevin asked him what his trip was for.

The man kept his quick pace as he spoke, “Going to see my mom. She’s dying.”

Our day might not have turned out the way we had anticipated, but it wasn’t bad. And it most certainly could have been worse.

Dallas to OKC was much less eventful, minus the UTEP basketball team being on our flight and the bulk of them choosing to share their music with the entire plane, but whatev. We made it home and *drumroll* so did my bag. I was more worried about that than anything else. So many crazy transfers to make. Thank you, Southwest, for getting my bag home with me. It was pretty worse for wear, but I can deal.

It doesn’t look like we’re going to make it to see Kevin’s parents this Christmas, so we’re going to save our flights for this summer and try to get out to see them then. Not ideal, but not bad either.

Brr. Well, Philly, it would have been nice to see you in all your snowy glory. It wasn’t meant to be though.

We were heading up to Philadelphia to celebrate Christmas with Kevin’s parents, but plans changed. A lot.

We arrived at St. Louis right on schedule only to find out that our flight from St. Louis to Philadelphia had been canceled and that there was very little chance that we would make it onto one of the later flights to Philly, assuming that those didn’t end up canceled. And they had arrival times after 9pm — no my cup of tea. I’m disappointed, but Southwest took care of us and we are going to try to fly out again after Christmas. I was so looking forward to being at my in-laws. I’m sure the house is toasty warm with the fire going and I don’t know about you, but a nice fire makes everything better for me.

Instead we are back home. My mom and dad are in OKC doing some last minute Christmas shopping and when they are all finished with that they are coming by to see why my washing machine is leaking when it drains. Eep. Yeah, that is a new development as of yesterday. After that, I think we’re going to head out for dinner somewhere. While we enjoy an evening with family, even though it’s not the side of the family we’d planned on spending our evening with, I wanted to share with you all a few memorable posts related to our families that this Christmas season had me thinking about.

• We Remain – A few thoughts on my Native ancestors and the culture I wasn’t raised in.
• Big buck!
• Like a jam jar. – The first time our parents met.
• Manipulation 101
• The Christmas Story According to 3-year-old Me

What a quiet evening. We’re packing up to head to Philadelphia for Christmas with Kevin’s parents. No telling how the travel will go at this point. Snow, snow everywhere. We’d both appreciate your prayers for a safe flight tomorrow.

So, while I enjoy this quiet night next to my glowing white Christmas tree, I wanted to share my favorite Christmas cartoon with you. I first saw it when I was really little and accidentally ran across it a few years ago when I purchased “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” for a Christmas party I was hosting. One of the shorts on the DVD was this little movie — The Small One. It’s a precious, poignant film about a donkey that no one had use for anymore, except for the little boy that loves him. It’s made by Disney during the last of the Don Bluth years, a fact that shocked me considering the content of this film and the direction Disney has gone in recent years. I hope you and yours enjoy it as much as I do.

The Small One (in three parts)

This is our first year that Kevin and I will attend Thanksgiving as a married couple and we’re bringing his grandmother’s famous chocolate pie with it. I don’t know if I am free to give the recipe out for this one. It’s probably some big family secret. But I’ll give you a clue. There are basically two ingredients. You just have to know how to mix them and how to tell when it’s perfect to pour. Oh, and you have to be an accomplished meringue maker.

I love the word meringue. Is it just me? Look at it. MERINGUE.

And the peaks. I love it when the meringues begin to peak. Only that by the time I’ve got them doing their thing I no longer have any muscle control in my right arm from the vibration of the hand mixer. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrweeeeeeeee! (Hand mixer sound.)