Our Christmas Vacation, Part I

Hello!  Merry Christmas!!!  Happy New Year!!  It has been too long since we've chatted.  I didn't mean to be away so long but I just never got around to posting while I was on vacation.  I had a lot of things to share but nothing so important it couldn't wait.  And now it's 6am and I am on the bus again, back to work, like vacation never happened.  I am hoping I am refreshed for the new year and motivated to get a lot of work done and all that.  We'll see what happens when I get to the office...that motivation often disappears!

We had such a fun holiday.  Honestly, it would have been difficult to not have fun though.  We really needed some time away from reality and work and the move and unpacking and all that jazz.  By the end of the month it was starting to wear us down and we just wanted to be finished with it all.  I took my Chem final without studying (and luckily got a B, not a high B but I still kept my A in the class so who cares), we moved, started to slowly unpack (which we are still doing), and packed up our suitcases for Vermont.

Yet again we woke up on the Friday before Christmas super early and were on the road close to 5:30am...me, hubs, Evan, and Dolce.  It was squishy like always but we survived another ten hour car ride.

The dog and Evan get lots of very close time together.  Evan pulls out Dolce's fur and Dolce eats Evan's snacks.  I think it's a fair trade.

Once we hit Albany the drive got a bit interesting.  The temperatures started dropping and it started raining...and freezing.  Literally the rain froze on our windshield almost faster that we could clear it.

That stuff in the upper right corner is pure ice.  It was crazy!  Ivan was driving and he did a great job...while I took pictures.  We were still able to make decent time and arrived at my parent's house close to 4pm.  Not too shabby.  And even though it was a bit treacherous, it was a very pretty snow-filled trip.

If you can believe it, the picture above is Lake Champlain, frozen over and covered with snow.  It was weird looking at it and knowing it was a lake, but seeing no water.

The rest of our trip went similar to the car ride: snow-filled, treacherous, lots of people and animals, yet still filled with the people you love and lots of fun times together that make it special.  Our first adventure was a terrible ice storm (figures, since we battled ice on our drive up).  Literally everything was frozen -the streets, our cars, the trees, the snow.

It looked beautiful though.

The snow was frozen right onto the trees, which I thought was the prettiest thing ever.  It made the trees look like they had fresh snow on them for days.  However, you know what else freezes during a nice storm?  Power lines!  And it rural-ish Vermont, when you have no power, you also have no heat and no water.  Not fun...especially since a nice storm usually means cold temperatures.  I was happy that power was restored about four hours later...not too much suffering.  It would have been three weeks before we got power back in Maryland!

Ok, I feel like this is getting long and I still have so much to share so I think I'll end it now and continue tomorrow.  Don't stay away too long though - the adventures continue!!

Happy Monday!!

Five Question Friday

Just typing the word Friday makes me very happy when I have a three-day weekend ahead of me.  One extra day to relax.  One extra day to get things done.  It’s amazing how wondering that feels.  Yay for holiday weekends!

I felt like doing Five Question Friday today, in honor of relaxation and good things to come.  If you want to participate, hope over to Five Crooked Halos and link up!

1. Do you wake before the alarm or stay in bed until the last possible moment?
   Well, that depends.  If I am getting up for work, I rarely wake up before my 4:30am alarm goes off.  Unless Evan wakes up and wants to eat.  Which happens often.  I am usually so happy to be in bed that I wait until the last possible moment to get up – five seconds extra rest can be the difference between a good day and an exhausting day!
   
2. Who should get a baby shower?  Is it just the first baby or all babies?
   I know a baby shower is traditionally to shower the new mom with new stuff for the baby.  However, I believe that baby showers are a great time to shower moms with love.  My sister has had three kids and I’ve given her a shower each time.  Of course, not huge showers with registries or anything – that was what we did for the first one.  For the other two they were more intimate gatherings with a few gifts.  I kind of feel like each child is worthy of some sort of celebration!
   
3. How will you spend Memorial Day?
   I have a wedding on Saturday (my bus friend’s wedding – that’s how much time I spend commuting to work…I’m going to the wedding of a woman I met on the commuter bus!) and then on Monday we are having a small BBQ.  I love BBQs so I am excited.  I hope the weather cooperates!
   
4. Do you have a storm/tornado/hurricane/fire plan for your kids/house?
   No.  We should, but we don’t.  We don’t really live in an area that has many natural disasters though – at least not yet.  With global warming who knows what the next ten years has in store for us.  My fire plan would be to exit through the front door and if the fire was in the way of that, to go to one of the bedrooms, put a wet towel under the door, and wait for the fire engines.  We are on the fourth floor so jumping isn’t really an option.  I should get an escape latter, but I haven’t yet.
   
5. What is your favorite morning drink?
   Coffee with cream and sugar.  I love coffee in the morning – I love the idea of it more than I actually like the drink, but a nice creamy warm drink in the morning is the best feeling.  When I was pregnant I hated the taste of coffee so I drank tea every morning (and sometimes just hot water) and it worked too.  But there is just something special about coffee.  And I drink decaf so it’s not really the caffeine.

 

What are your Memorial Day plans?

Do you have a long or short commute to work?