Friday, December 28, 2012

A Little Christmas Disappointment…

We had a lovely Christmas as a family this year.  Probably one of my most favorites ever.  We had my extended family the Saturday before, and the members of Andy’s family that have anything to do with us were out of town, so it was just the four of us.  I LOVE that! We had all day Christmas Eve and all day Christmas Day to ourselves.  It was fabulous.

We had planned to drive to Pennsylvania the day after Christmas, to visit my dear friend Deeds, who comes to the states from England every other year.  Two years ago she made the trip to my house, and I finally got to see her in person.  This year it was my turn, and I can’t tell you how much we were looking forward to this.  I was going to get to meet her extended family, take her family photos again, and spend more time with her than we got to last time.  I was looking forward to getting a picture of the two of us together.

Christmas Day, the route we would have taken got hit with a winter storm named Euclid.  I’d like to know when we started naming winter storms…just seems weird to me.  By Christmas night,  after reading the weather reports, we made the horribly difficult, and VERY disappointing decision to not chance the trip.  My poor girl immediately dissolved into great alligator tears.  She was SO looking forward to this trip.  I wanted to cry so bad, but I didn’t want to upset the kids…so I waited until I was by myself that night.  Words can’t describe how sad we were…

Andy and I wracked our brains to come up with something to make this up to the kids…as if anything would! We decided to book a room an hour north of us in the same hotel we spent our wedding night and 1st anniversary.  We’ve been there a few times with the lovies too.  It is beautiful, and has several fun pools, waterslides, indoor putt putt, and an arcade my lovies really enjoy.  Thankfully they had a room available, and we went for it!

We encountered no snow on the way up.  It all started once we were up there.  It snowed a bit up there, but home was hit with 5-6 inches while we were gone. I was so glad we were spared seeing that, because I think it would have depressed us more,  knowing the snow was what ruined our trip.  We wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the snow.

The kids ended up having a blast…we spoiled them rotten while we were there, letting them stay up really late, and letting them do things we don’t always allow at home (soda pop at meals, arcade games, late night snacks, etc.).  I think we succeeded in making up for the cancelled trip, and giving them something else to enjoy instead.

What this last minute trip did for me was to solidify in my mind how much I love these three people God has entrusted to me, how grateful I am that He gave them to me, and how much I LOVE to spend time with them…just them.  The kids thanked us profusely for taking them, and it made us all feel so much better.

Here are a few pictures from our trip…

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We came home to 5 inches of snow, and a completely blocked driveway.  After several minutes of shoveling, we were able to get our van in the driveway!

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I hope you all had a great Christmas.  Ours was wonderful, and we had a great time away, though we wish it had been in Pennsylvania!

2 comments:

Deeds said...

Hiya Kath!

I've only just read this as it was just a little too hard to read your blog after the dissapointment till now.

It looks like you had a nice time and I'm sooo glad for your all. I'm still disspionted that things didn't work out differently but it is in God's hands and at least everyone was kept safe! :)

Happy New Year! - Deeds

Kathryn said...

Me too, sweetie. Me too :( we were all SO disappointed. If we hadn't gotten the kids out of here it would have been awful. We have had NO snow until we wanted to take our trip...Dealing with a little anger over that! I'm SO sorry! News reports of accidents an cars in ditches tell us we made the right decision, but our hearts say otherwise :( Love you all!