Home at last

After spending an enjoyable New Years at the Bellamys we opted to make the trip back home the following Monday.  Liz's sister Carrie is going to stay with us for a month in Colorado, so we caravaned back together.  According to the weather forecast and road reports the roads were open and there wasn't anything to be overly concerned about.  After driving for 5 hours we got to Rawlins, Wyoming and discovered they had shut down I-80 and all bypass roads for the next 150 miles!  As best as we could tell it wasn't due to a snowstorm, but rather the wind was blowing so hard it was causing whiteout conditions from snow on the ground.  All the hotels in the area were full. 

After considering our options, we drove all the way back to Utah and spent the night back with the Bellamys!  We had driven for 10 hours just to get back to where we started!  The Bellamys were patient and accommodating and even turned their Christmas lights back on for us before we arrived.  The four older children spent the night sleeping under the Christmas tree so that Brooklyn would have her own room.  She had stayed in the room with us for the duration of our trip, but after almost a week of her waking us up crying throughout the night, we'd had enough!

On Tuesday the wind died down, so once again we ventured to make the drive back to Colorado.  Michael was super upset to have to get back in the car and made it clear we had used up his entire allotment of good traveler behavior the previous day.  After I'd had enough screaming, I pulled over and moved his carseat to a different location so he could spend the day staring at the back of someone else's seat instead of mine.  That seemed to appease him, and we resumed our journey without further incident.

We tried to make the most of the long drive and took a more leisurely pace on Tuesday.  For instance, it was the third time stopping at Little America in two days, and at each stop we let the kids have an ice cream cone or play at the playground there.  They all wanted to climb the buffalo statue.

Little America, Big Buffalo

Fortunately the roads didn't close on Tuesday and we finally made it back home and were able to sleep in our own beds again. 

It's been great having Carrie with us, she's been fun to have around and has been a huge help.  This week Liz and I and a few of the kids have been battling with colds, so having an extra adult set of hands has been a particular blessing.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

The day after Michael's clean MRI, he underwent eye surgery to try to help correct his inability to keep his eyes straight.  This is his third such surgery in the last two years.  Last time he had the surgery he was pretty miserable for about a week and a half afterwards.  This time around he was miserable the day of the surgery, but by the next day he was happy and doing just fine.  Another great blessing this Christmas season!

Michael has been anesthetized so many times we've long since lost count.  Nowadays they usually give him nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to put him to sleep before they tap into a vein and give him propofol to keep him asleep.  This week, one of the times he was given laughing gas he actually did start laughing.  It was the funniest thing and it made the doctors laugh, too!  Then, like Vizzini in "The Princess Bride", Michael conked out mid-laughter and was fast asleep.

We've had an unusually warm December, which I certainly don't mind.  Christmas Day however, it started to snow, so we got our white Christmas this year after all.

 We love our Christmas lights this year

Riding on a sled after a white Christmas

One of the Christmas gifts Liz and I gave to our 3 oldest children is some 2-on-1 time.  On the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Christmas we hired a babysitter and both Liz and I took one of our children out on a lunch date to the restaurant of their choice.  We enjoyed getting some more personalized time with our children, and those at home enjoyed getting their face painted by the babysitter.

Baking Christmas cookies

We can't wait for Christmas!

We spent Christmas Day at home relaxing with the family.  Santa left a new book for each child under the small Christmas trees in the children's bedrooms so they had a present to open and something fun to read while waiting to open presents.  One noteworthy present this year was an indoor slide for Michael.  He absolutely loves climbing slides and sliding back down again, and it's so good for helping him build up his strength and coordination.  So he was thrilled to get an indoor slide he can use when it's cold outside.

Michael's new slide

Brooklyn loves to eat, er, color with her new markers

We were supposed to head to Utah to visit Liz's family the day after Christmas, but we'd been having intermittent problems with our minivan.  We had taken it into the shop a few weeks earlier, but the mechanic couldn't reproduce the problem.   So we continued driving it until the 23rd, when the strange noise returned, the engine stalled, and the check engine light went on.  We took the van back into the shop on the 24th (Christmas Eve), but the mechanic was closed during the holidays and couldn't fix it until the 29th.  They were able to find and fix the problem this time around, so we drove out to Utah on the 31st instead (New Years Eve).  With the snowstorms we've received since Christmas Day it's unclear we would have been able to make the drive anyway, even if the minivan hadn't broken down. As it was, we had cold temperatures during the drive (it was -15 degrees in Fort Collins as we packed up the car to go) but the roads were clear and we arrived in time to bring in the New Year with the Bellamy family.