Home for the Holidays!

I am a Southerner born and raised who has lived in the North for many years now.  Being that my husband and I are high school sweethearts, all of our family lives in the same small Southern town.  During the holidays we try our best to get back there, no matter where we are living at the time.  This year it was going to be more of an adventure because we decided to take Louie, our 4 month old Shih Tzu.  We have never traveled with Louie before this trip so I was really concerned.  Turns out, Louie was no trouble at all compared to the rest of our adventure.

We stayed at my Mom’s house and Louie loved it.  He also loved this reindeer skin that we got on a 3 month trip to Alaska when I was in 9th grade.  He blended right in.  Maybe he’s part reindeer!

The first day of our adventure included a long car trip, Louie’s first night in a hotel (he was nervous) and arriving at my Mom’s house to 30 family members (my Mom was hosting a family reunion the day we arrived).  The adventure continued on our second day with something I haven’t done since I was in Jr. High 4-H club.  As I mentioned before, my son is interested in war history including the guns they used.  Well, a friend of my Mom’s collects guns and brought them up to the farm for my son to learn about/use them.  It was such a special treat for him.  As I was walking Louie, I checked in on the guys to see how it was going and got roped in to trying them out myself.  I don’t know what happened, but my inner Annie Oakley came out and I had the best time trying to hit the cans that they had put up.  Sorry to toot my own horn, but I was awesome!  The men were all impressed! I felt like Sydney Bristow on Alias.  I always thought being a spy would be fun.

I want you to take notice of the weather in this shot.  I didn’t even need a jacket.  It was so nice to escape the cold temperatures of the North.

As the days past, we had a wonderful time with my husband’s family on Christmas Eve, a beautiful candlelight service at my Mom’s church that night and Christmas with all my family.  I always laugh at people in the South when they wish for a White Christmas.  I guess since we get snow every year, I’m not wishing for it no matter what day it is.  Well, this year their wish came true and for the first time in 80 YEARS, it snowed on Christmas at my Mom’s house.  This is what we woke up to on Wednesday morning…13 inches of snow!

This wouldn’t be a problem if we weren’t supposed to head home first thing Wednesday morning, but we were.  And so the adventure continued…

While snow can be beautiful, like above, it can also cause problems, like below.  Just getting down the driveway at my Mom’s house was the beginning of a trip home from Christmas that we will NEVER forget.  My husband and son worked hard getting the driveway cleared and we finally got on the road about three hours late.

Turns out the branches in the driveway were just the beginning.  After we got on the highway we saw entire trees that had fallen on the road.

About an hour into the trip we came to a standstill.  We ended up turning off the car and taking Louie for a walk.  I never thought I would be taking the dog for a walk in the middle of the interstate!  Turns out a semi had jack-knifed and was blocking both lanes.  After sitting there for over an hour, we finally got going again.  Our normal 11 hour trip ended up taking over 14 hours.  We were just grateful to be safely home from a Christmas adventure that we will never forget.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the over 200,000 people who lost power, including several of my family members, many who still don’t have it.  I’m not sure they will be wishing for a white Christmas next year.

Many people were dog walking, as well as, snow ball fights and building snowmen.  I like to see people making the most of a bad situation.

On a funny side note, Louie had to travel over 600 miles South to see snow for the first time and he LOVED it!  He jumped around like crazy and stuck his face right in it.

 

Unfortunately, the snow did not love him back.  Long haired dogs and snow are not a good mix. Check out the massive amount of snow balls he had attached to his hair when he came in.  Poor puppy! 🙁

Here’s a little video I made on YouTube of Louie in the snow.

Sometimes traveling can become an adventure when you least expect it.  We’ve dealt with car breakdowns 1000 miles from home, making our way through Europe with no map or GPS and many other travel adventures.  Now we have another one to add to the list.  What adventures have you dealt with in your travels?