Christmas in Arkansas

Christmas 2009 will be a Christmas we will all remember forever. I know the kids will look back on the Christmases of their childhood and this one will stand out. For starters this was our first Christmastime in Texas and away from all of Brent's family in California. That meant the kids missed out on cookie and gingerbread parties, a Christmas Eve Eve party with their Great-Aunt Linda and seeing two sets of grandparents not to mention lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was hard for us but we knew that was part of the consequences for moving so far away.

In November Brent's Aunt Robyn and Uncle Dad invited us to come spend Christmas with them in Arkansas. They retired to Arkansas from Southern California over a year ago. We were so excited to go and see them and also Brent's Grandma Lo and Grandpa Jim from Ohio were making the trip. We hadn't seen any of them since July 2007.

Our Christmas trip worked out wonderful because Brent had Friday the 25th to Wednesday the 30th off from work. This was our first Christmas in 8 years that Brent has had time off at the holidays. We are so thankful for his wonderful job that allows him to spend time with all of us.

Our plans were to leave at 2pm on Christmas Eve to make the 8 hour trip to Arkansas. About 2 hours before it was time to leave Aunt Robyn called us and said that northern Texas and Arkansas were having bad winter weather. Being from Southern California Brent and I just assumed that states this far south didn't get bad winter weather or at the very least it was a very rare thing so we hadn't even considered snow, wind, and ice in our travel. We checked the weather and it looked like we could beat the storm in Dallas and make it to Arkansas before it hit... we were wrong.

We were only about 30 minutes north of Austin (2 hours from home) when we saw some very light snow falling. We made really good time though until we were about 60 miles from Dallas. Just north of Waco we ran right into the middle of a snow storm. Brent's only driving experience with snow has been in his tractor-trailer in Reno and Tahoe and never during a heavy, windy storm like we ran into. Traffic came to a crawl of about 10 m.p.h for the next 90 miles. By the time we made it to downtown Dallas the freeways were all iced over. We were sitting on the freeway barely moving and the van right in front of us started sliding into the lane to the left and nearly missed a car and the center divider. Brent realized we couldn't drive where the van just was so we made our own lane. It was crazy watching vehicles slip and slide all over the road. We saw tons of accidents and cars that had slid off the road. We hit a couple patches of ice in Dallas but nothing that caused us any alarm. We had to get gas in Dallas so we ate as well. Here is a picture of the 3 girls out in the snow.

The temperature was 28 with a wind chill of 17. The wind made it hurt to stand outside for longer than just a couple minutes.

After we ate we braved the freeways again and did alright until about 30 miles north of Dallas when Brent hit a patch of ice and started to spin out. We got way to close to the guard rail but thankfully Brent was able to regain control of our car. We had off an on heavy snow until we made it to our destination. We were very thankful we made it there all in once piece and not super behind schedule.

Christmas morning we were up and at'em by 8:15am. The kids were super happy and relieved to see that Santa was able to find them in Arkansas! The kids made out like bandits as usual this Christmas.

After we opened presents the kids were thrilled to see that they had their very first white Christmas. There was just enough snow on the ground for the kids to play in it and hit me with a snowball.

I forced all the kids out in the backyard for a quick photo on Christmas morning. Aunt Robyn and Uncle Dan live right on a lake. You step out of the back door and the lake and boat is only 20 feet away! Their home and where they live is absolutely gorgeous. We hope we can go back this summer when all the trees are green and we can spend the days by the lake.

On Christmas we bundled up, it was only 28, and went for a 2 1/2 mile hike. It is so pretty. We walked along streams and a lot of the trees were still covered in icicles. We also took a 1 1/2 mile hike the day after Christmas (pictured above). It was warmer that day, around 38.

We left to come home on Monday morning. We all had such a good time that we didn't want to leave. Top row - Brent, Maia, Uncle Dan, & Aunt Robyn. Bottom row - Larissa, Hannah, Great Grandpa Jim, Kirstine, Great Grandma Lo, & Seth.

We decided to go home through Louisiana and see another part of the country. We stopped in Shreveport and walked around the boardwalk, saw the Red River, and had lunch at a Cajun restaurant. It was a lot of fun and broke up our trip home.

We had a wonderful time, and added two more states to my map at the bottom of my blog. We are so thankful that Aunt Robyn and Uncle Dan opened their home to us and really enjoyed visiting with Grandma Lo and Grandpa Jim.