Monday, December 01, 2008

It's all happening so fast now!

Thanksgiving was a major headache. Major. Headache.

I may have mentioned before that we were going to my father in law's for the holiday. He lives waaaay out in the middle of nowhere. Literally. You turn off a tiny two lane highway and drive down about 4 miles of crazy, unmaintained dirt roads to get to his house, which is in the middle of freaking NOWHERE! You can see miles and miles of nothing from his house. Seriously.
I should have snapped pics to better show the isolation/desolation but I was too traumatized from the trip out there.

We left our house at 9:30 am. It was raining and cold. I took the kids in my car, Bob drove his truck so he could bring a load of firewood to his dad. This was NOT how I planned to go out there since a) the weather was crappy and b) I have NO idea how to get to his dad's house. At all. So before we even left the house, I was in a foul mood. Oh ha! get it, a "fowl" mood. Ha ha. No seriously. I was pissed.

Then Bob had to stop and pick up Cool Whip because his sister forgot to get it. Fine, whatever. We had already pre-arranged to meet up with his sister and her family at the gas station and caravan out to the middle of nowhere. So I drove ahead to the meeting place and Bob bought the Cool Whip at Safeway.

Once I parked the car at the gas station it started to snow. Big flakes of sticky snow. Great. Now I was going to drive my car in snowy weather to a place I didn't know how to get there in the middle of nowhere. I am not a great snow driver. I am not a good snow driver. I would rate my snow driving skills as poor to fair, and that's if it is NOT sticking. If the snow is sticking...I rate, well, what is the rating for "I drive off the road"? I think it's "dangerously poor".

Bob showed up and we talked to each other via cellphone, since it was butt cold outside and I wasn't leaving my vehicle. We calmly discussed the weather situation and came to the mutual decision that he would leave his truck at the gas station and drive my car out there.

Ahem.
Which is to say that I cried until I wore him down and got my way, for him to drive us out there which is what I TOLD HIM I wanted in the FIRST PLACE! Sigh.

Anyway, during our lovely discussion, we were waiting at the gas station for his sister to show up for about 45 minutes. Who knows what took her so long since she lives about 10 minutes away. It was freezing cold.

Once we decided that Bob would drive, and it had been 45 minutes of sitting there, we just left and drove through what was now blizzardy snow and very crappy visibility. Ugh. It was not fun.

We parked our car at the beginning of the horrible dirt road to nowhere and loaded up into Bob's sister's Suburban for the rest of the journey. Oh my hell. It was rough. The dirt road was now a mud road and even the Suburban filled with people slid all over the road. Very scary.

We finally made it out there and dinner was good and the desserts were better and nothing really of note occurred while we were there.

Except that the Suburban broke.

Something about a pumpkin and a gearcase and a "big flippin' hole" I don't know. Maybe a car person could explain this better...All I knew was that the Suburban wouldn't go and we were stuck 4 miles from our car and it was freezing cold and pitch black. Sigh.

We ended up borrowing my father in law's 4-wheel drive truck to drive out to the car, which was even a worse journey than the drive out there, mostly since it was pitch freaking black! My sister in law and her husband drove that truck home since their truck was parked back at the house, damaged.

It rained the whole way back to the gas station where Bob picked up his truck and I drove the rest of the way home in the rain. Thank goodness it didn't switch back to snow...see above "dangerously poor" snow driving rating.

Dylan and Benjamin both went to bed in their winter coats. We didn't want to risk waking them. Dylan later came into our bedroom in the coat saying how he didn't like "these 'jamas!" It was pretty funny.

For the rest of the weekend we concentrated on Christmas. Bob hauled out all the lights and decorations and our fake tree and he and the kids did a great job of setting everything up. I gotta say, I'm not that enthused for Christmas this year. Maybe it's the economy, maybe I'm just tired.
I'll have to muster up some excitement though, since it's Ben's first Christmas.

My mom arrives in three weeks, which will help with the holiday cheer. By which I mean, she's probably bringing brandy and egg nog.

5 comments:

Jessica said...

That is so funny! And sad. But funny. :)

Jessica said...

It WAS funny, like two or three days later...which is probably why I waited so long to post about this. I so hate to post angry!

eaf said...

It's funny and intense. Whew! I'm tired just reading about it. I need a brandy and an egg nog now...

Anonymous said...

I plan to stimulate your local economy with a custom order. I just completely flaked... and I apologize.

glad y'all made it in one piece!

Jessica said...

I forgot to mention....we left our house at 9:30 am and got to our destination around noon...

Seriously...it's like a 30-40 mile trip.

Ridiculous.