Merry Christmas!!!

This year we had a fabulous Christmas holiday!! We took the longest trip we have since we were students. Our trip to Chicago was 12 days total, including driving both ways. We left Dec. 23 about 7 pm. We were so lucky we did because at midnight they closed down all of the turnpike and other freeways due to an ice storm....we made it out just in time. We drove until about 1:30 am when we saw the temperature was dropping below freezing, and our warning light came on that our car was starting to drive with all four wheels spinning at different rates in order to keep us from sliding off the road at 65 mph. As soon as that happened we put into our GPS "hotels" full knowing it could be up to 60 miles on the turnpike before we found one...3 miles ahead was an exit! We got off and slept for a few hours and when we got up the roads had cleared to being just wet, and we learned there had been 57 accidents on the stretch of road just ahead of us that night! We drove past several semis overturned that had just been left there during the night. We were thankful to be safe and rested. We finished the drive to Chicago with only about 6 hours of "ARE WE THERE YET???" and "IS THAT CHICAGO?" but with no more bad weather! We were there in time for christmas eve nativity and all of the wrapping we had not done...all of it! Christmas was a great day, and i'll give you the run down of all of the kids:
London was so dramatic and darling all day! And if you think she looks excited about her barbie, you should have heard her when she opened her favorite girt...A sleeping beauty night gown! And it's a good thing she loved the barbie because Santa did not bring her the giant pink plastic vanity with talking sleeping beauty head on it she had asked for (and only asked for!!) She did cry for a minute when she realized that she really didn't get it, but later that night when i was tucking her in she said "Santa got me the only thing i wanted more than the vanity, the barbie i wanted!! What a sweet girl!
Camden on the other hand got everything he asked for...A Tendo Wii with stander (aka wii fit) and a nervous slinky. And even Rhino rampage( a board game he saw in a target circular and had to have!!! although it turns out to be a great game.) Next year all circulars go straight to recycling...NO LOOKING AT THEM!!! Although he was heart broken that mommy and daddy opened the wii fit- I guess "family" gifts don't make sense to 3 year olds! hmmm...
Addie is a toy child and LOVED Christmas. Yes that is a picture of her with a purse and a pop gun...that's our girl! She also had her favoirtes- the stroller, baby with baby bottle, giraffe and bear. As you can see she was desperately trying to find a way to play with all at once-fortunately some one helped her put them all in the stroller and she was happy the rest of the trip pushing them all around! We did other fun things like see friends, Tom and Andrea...it was soooo good to see you again!! We went to the aquarium which was fabulous for all...i'm still OCD about seeing all the different sharks in the tank before i can move on...thanks for being patient everyone!!!
And finally it was time to go home! We drove as far as cleveland and decided to make a last minute change of plans since we wouldn't make it home anyways! We pulled off into cleveland to find a hotel only to be surrounded by 3 police cars with in minutes lights flashing telling us we were in the wrong part of town and needed to leave...oops, so we stayed just out side of Kirtland, OH and went to church there sunday morning. We saw a few of the sights from the car like the NKwhitney store, the temple and the john johnson farm...it was great and sent Jared and I back to our Heritage tours memories! So we've thought about all of you that were there!
Well That is one long story, to sum up our longest trip in years...we hope you all had very merry christmases as well!