Christmas Wrap-Up

I know that I have been dreaming of a White Christmas, and I don't want to sound too demanding, but it was a little TOO white! To quote my Dad~ A White Christmas is overrated! Here's how it all went down:

At 8:45 on Christmas Eve, my Dad called and said "What are you doing?". Nothing, I replied (translation: sleeping). "You better hit the road soon because it has started snowing here," he replied. Ok, I'll try to get off in the next couple of hours, I answered. Once I woke-up, I decided that I would just hit the road as soon as possible.

Lola riding in the back seat

(she cracks me up the way she sits appropriately in the seat!)

We didn't hit any precipitation during the first 30 minutes of our trip, then we encountered rain.

Then about 15 minutes later, we hit a winter mix.

Then about 25 miles outside of Nocona, we entered this

This is what we saw as we entered Nocona...

(this is the old Nocona Boot Company in case you were wondering)

I saw this as I drove through town, and it made me laugh

The snowy conditions is SO NOT a "Real Texas Christmas" y'all!

Christmas Eve is Milly's birthday, so not long after we arrived, she opened her birthday presents

while Lola watched

I was such a good Mom and in my rush to get out of the house ASAP, forgot her sweaters.

This is my Macy's coat and was a little big on Lola.

Is this what they call a Blizzard?

Yes, Lola, it is.

It continued to snow, and snow, and snow, and snow.

It was still snowing when we went out to family friends, Bec & Billy's house for our annual Christmas Eve dinner.

They live out "in the country", but it is really only a few miles from town and is on a paved county road, but the drive still took a while. We were willing to risk it for the prime rib dinner that they always serve.

Everything went well until their daughter Colby and her husband Shawn and their two kids tried to leave about 9:15. They got stuck in the drive way... in their 4 wheel drive Jeep! They got unstuck and then we watched them make their way down the drive way and start heading up the county road. They made it about 100 yards and got stuck again. Rusty (B&B's son) headed out in the tractor to pull them out. He came back a while later with the whole crew because the Jeep was still stuck and so was the tractor. Then Billy headed out in his 4x4 truck and went to pull them out, but that got stuck too! Then Rusty headed down there in his 4x4 truck, and yep, got it stuck as well! Finally, they called my Dad, who went down his is 4x4 truck. We were all trying to watch from the window and finally couldn't see the lights, so we thought that meant they had all gotten out of the snow banks.

Then they all came walking in the house and someone said, "Well, they're all stuck now!" and we all busted out laughing. It seems that the snow drifts were so high on the road that all these huge trucks were high centered!

This is Shawn after the "all got stuck" realization...

There was nothing to do but hang out. It seemed we were all there for the night, and I was really regretting changing out of my t-shirt and sweatshirt into "nicer" clothes since it appeared we were going to be sleeping in them.

Oh, and did I mention that we had a very pregnant person there?

That's Trena and Rusty. Trena was having some form of contractions all night...and we had no way to town. Luckily, Trena is a nurse, Rusty is an Fireman/Paramedic, and Shawn is a doctor, so we didn't feel at a complete loss. Though Trena was unhappy that nobody had the ability to give epidurals. I tried to convince Trena that if Oprah ran a post-Christmas contest, that the Texas Blizzard and getting stuck was a great and odd story, but I really thought we needed her to give birth to "throw us over the edge" and win us a trip to Chicago. I mean, stranded. Christmas Eve. We even had a donkey out back. How can you get better than that? She still wasn't keen on the idea.

Someone called another family friend to bring out the "big tractor" and help us all out. He headed out to help us at about 11:00, but his tractor was being used out North of town, so it was going to be a while.

We just hung out watching movies...

some dug through closets and showed us what they found...

and some continued to work on our predicament.

Billy took off back down to the road in his 4x4 1 ton truck and managed to pull out every single vehicle and then make his way to the highway. He came back for us and we were able to follow him out and make our way back to the highway. We FINALLY made it home at 1:00 a.m.! We had some very lonely pups who were very happy to see us!

This is what we woke up to on Christmas morning...

Such a heavy & wet snow. The holly bushes were weighed down and falling into the pool...

My Dad wasn't able to go to work right away (he was hoping that road crews would do something if he hung around the house a little while), so we opened presents. As usual, the dogs were the most excited.

Impatient little gremlins trying to get in their stockings

These are PART of their gifts.

It's really a shame they aren't spoiled!

After presents were unwrapped and Dad went to work, someone got brave and decided to go exploring.

and then forgot how she had gotten out there in the first place

and then got WAY too close to the edge of the pool for her Mom's comfort

Hold on Lola! I'm coming to rescue you!

Because there was so much snow, our plans changed. Dad went to work late and though he usually speeds through all his leases on the holidays, he was at it for hours due to the snow. We moved our lunch with my Dad's parents to dinner. The roads to Wichita Falls were BAD, so we skipped the movie that I had already purchased tickets for.

This snow storm was serious. It was the most snow that anyone had ever seen around Nocona. People were stuck all over the place if they were even able to get out of their drive-ways to get to the point of being stuck. Our driveway was so bad that our neighbor's son got his suv stuck in it on Christmas Eve! Our neighbor's other son was about 15 miles west at their Bunkhouse on Christmas Eve and got snowed in, so he had to call some guy we know to come and get them with a helicopter! That is SO typical Nocona for you. Always someone to call with a tractor or a helicopter!

This is the view as I was leaving town yesterday...look at all that snow piled up!

On the 26th, we went to my Mom's parent's for Christmas and then I headed home. I got home at about 6:30, so I hit up Target for some after Christmas sales. Today I hit up Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, two more Targets, Sam's and went to Terrel with Lisa to go to a Paper Factory Outlet we like that is closing on January 10th. I got some good stuff for my bedroom tree (because the tree in there will be bigger next year), some tissue paper for next year, and scotch tape and sharpies to use all year long.

It was a good holiday, but a lot outside of the norm. My Uggs have never seen so much snowy winter action!