Christmas has come to an end, and things are starting to get back to normal around here.  I enjoyed it all while it lasted but honestly I’m glad we get to sit down and rest over the next few days.  I was pretty warn out with all the running from house to house to make it to each family’s celebration on time.  We went non-stop for 4 days, and by the end of the night last night I thought I was going to fall over. 

Our generous family and friends got us some really great gifts that I can’t wait to use.  My aunt gave me a 2qt crock pot which now completes my set.  I now have one in every size, and if you know how much I love to cook in the crock pot you know I’m ecstatic!  We also got a few gift cards, so I now I can get that set of rust free knives I’ve been eyeing.  Ellie got so many toys I don’t know what I’m going to do with them all.  I had to go buy some plastic storage towers yesterday to try to contain all the stuff she got to go with her kitchen set.  She also got a laundry center, nursery set, toddler four wheeler, and a Tek Nek Rock N Ride Pony.  I may not have been able to buy her a lot of stuff for Christmas, but everyone else sure did.  Now the play room is stacked wall to wall with boxes of stuff to be put together.  Hubby’s already realizing he’s going to spend many many Christmas assembling things.

We enjoyed every bit of it even though we did have a few hiccups in our holiday.  It was absolutely awesome to see snow on Christmas!  This is only the 3rd time our county has ever had Christmas snow, and it’s the first in my lifetime.  The downside is we stayed at Hubby’s parent’s house a little too long on Christmas, and by the time we headed home the roads were pretty rough.  They live about 20 miles away and didn’t have a lot of snow on the roads, but when we got closer to home the roads were covered.  We hit a really nasty patch going up a steep hill 3 miles from our house and spun out.  We really need new back tires, and they just couldn’t handle it.  Luckily we weren’t going very fast at all, and everyone is ok.  We slid across the road, bumped an embankment, and the truck traveled up it enough to put the back left tire about 3 ft off the ground.  We hit so lightly the airbags never deployed, and Ellie slept through every bit of it.  If we had gone off the other side we would have landed in a very deep ditch, possibly rolled, and most likely totaled the truck.

Of course I freaked out, though, because Ellie was in the car.  Luckily there was another family traveling home behind us, and as they watched everything they immediately stopped to help us.  Both of our cell phones were dead (mine died a few hours earlier, and Hubby’s beeped off right as we wrecked!), so we asked to use their phone to call for help.  Instead they insisted we let them help us instead of dragging anyone else out in the snow.  I am very gracious for such kindhearted people.  They had their own children in the car, and they went out of their way to help us.  The wife drove out of her way to take Ellie and I home and get us out of the cold while the Husband went home for his own truck and spent his last few hours of Christmas trying to help Hubby get the truck home.  They were unsuccessful because the road was just too slick, but he then insisted on unloading all of our presents and transporting them to our house in case someone saw the truck sitting there and tried to break into it. 

Of course we offered to repay them for their kindness and they refused.  Since Hubby went to their house with them to get the truck I could easily get their address and send them something, but I don’t know how they would react to that.  Instead I chose to send in a big thank you letter to them through the local newspaper.  It’s not often these days that you find such wonderful people so willing to help out a stranger, and I’m very grateful they were behind us on our way home that night.

Sunday morning we woke up to 3″ of snow on the ground, but the roads were clear enough to get the truck home.  My dad pulled it back up on the road, and Hubby drove home.  The only damage is a broken piece on the bottom of the front bumper, and we’re now in serious need of an alignment.  We’re very lucky because it could have been much worse.  Another car slide off the road in the same spot in the early morning hours, and narrowly missed hitting our truck by about 100ft.  That guy was moving pretty fast when he topped the hill hitting the ice, and his car was totaled.

After Hubby got home we waited for it to warm up a bit outside, then we took Ellie out to play in it after her nap.  A lot of the snow had already melted, but there was still plenty to play in.  I bundled her up in 3 layers of clothing, and we spent about 15 minutes outside watching her run a few feet and fall into it.  The poor thing was so bundled up she really couldn’t do much else.  Maybe I should have cut down on the layering since she couldn’t really move her arms lol!  She didn’t really know what to think of it, but at least she got to play in her first snow while Mommy got pictures.

We decided this is definitely a Christmas we’ll always remember.  We got Christmas snow, and we wrecked in it!  I see myself showing Ellie pictures years from now and saying “Yeah baby, we wrecked the truck that night, but you slept through every bit of it!  Then the next day you played in the snow for the first time, and you didn’t know what to think of it.” 

Now I think it’s about time for me to start taking the decorations down while Ellie is asleep.  There’s no way I’ll get stuff packed up while she’s running around my feet pulling things out of boxes!