One Crazy Christmas

Our crazy Christmas started on Monday with our drive from Boise to Salt Lake. The roads were horrendous! When we got to Burley my sister called to inform me that the roads were closed from Boise to Twin Falls - I guess we'd just missed the closure. We kept driving and found the freeway between Burley and Tremonton was closed as well. This time we weren't so lucky and had to detour through Pocatello. That drive was a nightmare and I hate to think what the closed section of freeway was like given how awful conditions were on the open section. Luckily the roads from Pocatello to Salt Lake were almost completely clear making what is normally a 5 1/2 hour trip only 8 hours as opposed to who knows how long had our luck been any worse.

Our crazy Christmas continued when our baby woke up at 1:00 AM our first night in town screaming and crying. Then he started vomiting (as opposed to the less violent and chunky "spitting-up") bits of breakfast, lunch, and dinner and following that up with some nice diarrhea diapers and more screaming. After changing his barf covered jammies and putting him back to sleep for five minutes he was immediately back to barfing and we were back to changing clothes. Finally he got to sleep and was out for the rest of the night. Our baby continued to be sick until today. Thank goodness he is a much happier baby now.

Our crazy Christmas continued when we decided to donate blood on Christmas Eve. We thought that would be a good idea - you know, "Give the gift of life this Christmas". Scott wasn't able to donate because of an incompetent phlebotomist and his "passy-outy" reaction to having the needle jiggled and jabbed around in his arm for several minutes. I was barely able to donate after many tears, needles in both arms, and the aid of the head phlebotomist. I have very small veins so I've had lots of traumatic experiences. Jeff and Carole donated without too much trouble. The only problem was that when we woke up Christmas morning and all three successful donors were sick with the flu all day long. Apparently donating blood when you are exposed to a sick child is not a good idea. Sadly Janet woke up this morning and has been sick all day as well. Sad times.

Our crazy Christmas continued when we woke up Christmas morning to a 60 degree house with partial power. Thanks to a vicious wind storm that lasted all of Christmas eve night many in the city woke up without any power on Christmas morning. Here most of the lights worked but the heat and oven did not work. We broke out some space heaters and forged on ahead. Of course the breakfast casserole could not be eaten and the turkey could not be cooked until after the power came back. The power guy came around 1:00 and we had a warm house again and a slightly later Christmas dinner.

All in all it was a crazy Christmas but it was still great to spend time with family. We hope all of you had a Christmas with a little less drama than ours.