Happy Holidays

Tuesday was my annual Christmas out with the girls. We had dinner at Olive Garden. Those in attendance were Jean, Donna, Joy, Val, Maureen and I. Lisa was supposed to come to, but she forgot. Thursday was the monthly Bunco night. I was pretty stressed out because we were driving up to pick up Maddie after school on Friday and we were finishing up auditions and casting the play. I had gotten most of my packing done and all the shopping accomplished so I thought I was pretty well set. I also know that I really need to keep my friendships so I went to the game. I got lost getting to Ann’s house missing the turn and then pulling into two wrong driveways until I finally found hers. I do not drive too well at night

Friday was the last day of school and both the kids and the staff were well ready for it to end. I put the final touches on the cast list and posted it. We had some really great auditions and it was a difficult choice in many cases. If everyone sticks with us we should be good. We had games at the end of the day and the kids had lots of fun. I could hardly wait to get out of the school though and I was out of the door like a shot at the end of the day. I got some very nice gifts from my teachers. Rob gave me some truffles and fancy trail mix along with a very sweet card. Julie gave me a cute little Santa with a clip to hold things on it. The staff gave me a gift certificate and I got the most adorable box and bell from Kelsey S. (she is such a sweet child).

Got home and it only took us 10 minutes to finish packing up the car and get on the road. I drove the whole way there and got us to River Falls in about 4 hours. Only took 3 tries to make the phone work. Maddie was not quite ready. She brought more home than we had expected, which frustrated her dad a little, but was not too unexpected to me. We caught her a little unawares since we were slightly early, but it did not take too much time to get her loaded up in the car. We had dinner at Steve’s Pizza and it was delightful. A Hawaiian special just like we used to order when she was a baby and we used to set her up on the table in her rockaroo.

We then headed to baby sister Sarah’s. Good to get there. We visited for a little while and I headed to bed. Puck and Maddie stayed up a little late watching a movie. In the morning we got up early to go to St. Paul to visit with Michael and Jackie. He had just gotten home from work, but was busy baking bread. We exchanged gifts. Maddie had made pomander balls and we gave Michael the season of Slings and Arrows, which we think he will enjoy greatly. He gave Maddie a whole mess of flashlights and some wonderful theater technical books. He gave Puck and I beautiful ornaments, which he protested were not a good enough gift. He is a silly boy. He gave me a bunch of feathers for my Witchdoctor headdress too. We visited for about an hour and then had to go back to Sarah's. The weather was pretty nasty with snow and slush. We planned to come home that same day despite the horrendous forecast.


Sarah planned Christmas early so we could fit everything in. At 11 o’clock people started coming. Sister Kristi and family came from Wilmer and said the weather was the worst they had ever seen. Cars were in the ditch everywhere. I helped a little in the kitchen. We played a little ping-pong, which was fun even though Maddie and I lost pretty badly. Brother Pat and Angela and the family were in Australia so we were a smaller group than usual. Sarah made chili and fruit salad and pigs in a blanket. We had a lovely time and then opened gifts. Just before we left Sarah insisted that we sing some carols so we sat at the table and sang a few. I love to sing with my sisters and Maddie joined right in. The party broke up around 3:30 and we headed over to our friends in Stillwater.

Linnea was home so we dropped off Christmas bread, had a cup of her strong Norwegian coffee, visited for a half hour and headed to New Richmond to Vicki and Bills. Vicki was off to a movie, but Bill and Claire (the younger daughter) were home and we dropped off another bread and visited there for a little while too then it was off on the road.

We filled up the car with gas and headed out. The roads were nice and dry until we reached Eau Claire… I had decided to start the driving, but around Eau Claire I was getting hungry and the snow was starting so I pulled into McDonalds and we got a little dinner. Puck took over the driving and by the time we got to the highway it was snowing quite heavily.

Traffic was starting to slow down and visibility was not so great. After a couple hours of driving and not seeing a single snowplow we finally made the decision to spend the night in Black River Falls. It was a little frustrating being only three hours from home, but it was a good decision. We got a room at the Day’s Inn. It was dry, warm and out of the cold. It did not stop snowing all night long and in the morning we had quite a bit to shovel off the car.

Puck had to work on Sunday so we left the motel at 11:00. It looked like the plows had been out, but it was still snowing and the traffic was pretty heavy. We could only reach a top speed of 50 mph and many times needed to drive slower than that. Occasionally passing trucks would stir up the snow so much that we could not see anything at all and that was very scary. Bless Puck for driving the whole distance.
When we got about 5 miles from home the road turned to ice and traffic began to stop. We saw car after car off in the ditch. Puck held a slide beautifully and kept us on the road by the skin of our teeth. It was pretty tense for a while. We saw one overturned van and a couple semis jackknifed off in the ditch. I tell you when we finally reached the home exit we all breathed a sigh of relief.

We turned up the heat, greeted the cats, emptied the car, turned on the tree and sat down. Maddie immediately went upstairs and after she had hauled all her things up she called her boyfriend. He is spending the holiday on a cruise so they will not see each other for a week.They talked for about an hour. Puck sat and watched football and I went upstairs and watched the end of some stupid movie about a killer tooth fairy. Puck went off to work and Maddie and I made bird’s nest cookies. Just a single batch for us.

Then we watched a couple episodes of Due South and snuggled on the couch with the cats. It is so nice to have her home :)