Christmas Road Trip - Journal Entry

We made our annual Christmas Road Trip this past weekend. We try to make a visit to see each of our kids and their families and deliver Christmas presents before the big day. We left home Friday morning (12-12) and headed north. Though there was storm forecast, the roads were dry all the way and we didn't encounter any bad weather. We arrived at Jillyn's house in Lehi around 1:00 pm and visited for a couple of hours. Jillyn and family are coming to our house for Christmas so we will be seeing them again in about a week. Kenny dropped in from work so we also got to see him for a few minutes.

We arrived at Joel's house about 4:00 pm just as it started to snow. Tiffany cooked some great Chinese food for supper and after the girls were in bed we watched a Batman movie, "Dark Knight".

We arrived at Clay's home in Rexburg, Idaho just after noon on Saturday. Clay was working so we played with the grand kids and visited and read most of the afternoon. After Clay got home he took us down to his office for a tour of the newly remodeled facility. It is fabulous. We also met Dr. Zollinger and his wife Mary, both seem like really nice people.

Ayla playing with her dinosaurs

Lori cooked chicken tacos for dinner, along with a really good spinach salad and honey bun cake for dessert. After the kids went to bed we played Scrabble. Clay won with Lori close behind.

We had a lazy Sunday morning before going to church at 11:00. Clay made crepes for breakfast, they were excellent with Lori's apple pie filling or buttered with cinnamon and powdered sugar. It was bitter cold and the wind was blowing which made it even worse. It must have snowed three of four inches during the night but it is hard to tell because of the wind. Their new church is already too crowded. It is a big ward with lots of young families. We played Scrabble again after the kids went to bed. I started out with a seven letter word "tougher", using only one blank. The 78 points I got from that blew out the competition and I won by about 50.

Nathan and Grandma having a piano lesson

Monday morning we had breakfast with the family and shortly after Clay went to work and the kids to school we hit the road. We made a little detour through Inkom to look at the area where a large development is planned. I am doing a little consulting for a company the may be putting in the telecommunications.

We arrived in Kamas about 2:30 pm. We stopped and had a short visit with Tony and Mona Powell, then went on to Darin's. The kids weren't home from school yet so I dropped Ellie and I went over to All West and paid a visit to the folks there. Lynne's father passed away this past weekend so she wasn't there, but I think I saw about everyone else. I got back to Darin's around 5:00pm. Suzanne made Spicy Chicken Chili for dinner and we enjoyed family home evening, visiting and playing with the grand kids.


Tuesday morning we had waffles for breakfast, then everyone was off to work and school except Paxtin. When we were ready to leave we took him to Diane (Goates) Bayles' for daycare. We stopped and visited with Larae DiStefano before leaving the valley . It snowed a few inches in the night and was still snowing when we left. The roads were snow packed through Heber, then slushy into Provo but clear after that until we got to Cedar. We made a couple of stops in Provo, had some lunch at Subway after finding they have closed Fazolis, then headed south.

If this blog seems to be mostly about food, it is probably because it seems like about all we did was sleep, eat and drive. When we got home about 5:00pm we found our road blocked by two feet of new snow. I put on my boots and hiked in and brought out the truck, pushing snow with the bumper all the way. We left the car at Frehner's and loaded what we needed in the truck and drove to the house.