::it was just a bad night::

Last night was just a bad night, that's all that can really be said about it. It's kind of a long story too, so enjoy the recounting or don't, it's your choice!

Kris left in the afternoon for the airport. Kelly & Lechelle were getting sealed as a family to their adopted baby Boston in the St Louis temple, and we wanted to be there. Unfortunately we couldn't afford to all go, so Kris was the one to be sent.
It was snowing. Freezing and snowing and hailing too. But Kris left anyway and he got to ABQ just fine. That's just the beginning of the story.
His flight was delayed. By at least an hour. The people at Frontier assured the whole flight that they would make their connections --"everything's delayed" they said.
Well, when Kris arrived in Denver, there was no sign of his connecting flight to St Louis. And since he arrived just about when the flight should've left, seems there would've been some evidence of it. But no. Nothing. So he got to wait in a great big line to try to get a different flight. Sadly the next flight he could take was the next morning, too late to make it to the sealing. So since he was only going to be staying out there for one night anyway, he made the tough call and decided to fly back home instead.

in the meantime I was at home with the boys. No big deal, right? It was cold and snowy out, but we were warm and safe in the house. Well......
The first unfortunate thing that happened was that the deadbolt on the front door froze. At least we think that's what happened. It actually got stuck with the deadbolt sticking out and the door wouldn't close. I had to go and get a mallet from the garage and try to force it back into commission. I did succeed in bashing the deadbolt back in, so at least the door would close, but I also got the key completely stuck in the lock on the outside of the door. That was exciting. Luckily the key didn't work at all, and the bottom lock was still working. So we were ok.

So then I got Max to bed and spent a good 45 minutes trying to talk the baby out of crying all night. He was missing Kris's strong arms. He likes the football hold and he's just too big for me to do it right.
As soon as I got him quiet I heard from Kris that he was coming home. His flight back was supposed to be at 9:30. I called Kelly really quick to tell him so sorry that all of us were going to miss everything.
Then suddenly the lights went out. Everything went out--except my poor laptop of course, that just has about 3 minutes of battery life. The poser was gone.
Luckily I know that Max keeps flashlights very close to his bed. I went in to his room and he lent me his monkey flashlight. I told him to come out with his pillow and blankets and nightlight and lie on the couch.
Max watched the baby for me while I found another flashlight. It was very cute, the baby was asleep and they were all snuggled up on the couch.

THEN the security system started to freak out. We have this lame 3rd party bizarre security system installed at the house, and it doesn't even work. It does us no good. The only thing it does do, is when the power goes out it emits this horrible shrieking noise from the laundry room. It won't stop until the contacts are pulled off the battery. And then once the contacts are pulled off, all the fire alarms in the house start chirping at each other. Turns out if you detach the battery enough times trying to get everything to stop, then luckily the shrieking and the chirping all happen at once, YAY!

So we all went to my bedroom and closed the door to try to hide from the horrible sounds. Sultan had decided he was scared to death during all this. I'm not sure why my big fierce dog that scares people turned so wimpy, but it was not helpful. I was already nervous--it was super dark and lonely and I had my little boys to take care of. Sultan was following me so closely that I tripped on him a bunch of times. He also squeezed between me and whatever I was doing. Like when I was brushing my teeth he had to be between me and the bathroom counter. Annoying!

We covered the fire alarm in the bedroom with a towel taped to the wall. It didn't really help. I read Max a few chapters of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by flashlight, we imagined that the chirps were coming from birds instead of horrible fire alarms and then he fell asleep.

Kris called and said his flight was delayed until 10:45. Argh. So he wouldn't be home until after 1AM.
I went to sleep, and woke up an hour later to the dog leaning over the baby's bed and breathing heavy in my face. I have no idea what he wanted but he was very persistent. So I figured he needed to go out and we headed out and down the hallway.
When I got to the living room I realized it was FREEZING. I thought the heat just wasn't working. But no, turned out that our french doors had blown open in the crazy wind. I couldn't lock them either before I went to bed because their locks were frozen too. (Don't freak out mom, we're in a very safe area as you know. Besides there wasn't much I could do!) So how long had the freezing wind and snow been blowing into the house? Who knows. Plus it's the coldest it's been all year. Freezing for sure.
It was scary.
Then suddenly I had no phone reception. My phone wouldn't work for about a half hour. I was freaking out. Then the power came back, YAY! So I had to go around turning off lights and all that. Then my phone worked. I called Kris and he was on his way home from the airport.
Then I finally got in bed to go back to sleep and the security system went off again! It had realized the power was on but the battery was disconnected. I almost busted the whole dang thing off the wall. ARGH!

Then when Kris got home the baby needed to be fed (2AM). He usually goes right back to sleep, but of course he had gas problems and so was up for at least an hour.

OH gosh I'm tired. I'd say the evening ended well though. Kris made it home safely and everybody got at least a few hours of sleep. Now we're home and warming up the house with some fires in the fireplace.

Sorry for the LOOOOOOONG story, but it was just such a crazy night. I mean what other silly little things could've happened? Hopefully I'll catch up on my sleep someday.
The most surprising part of it all was how helpful and cool Max was during the whole thing. It was like I suddenly had a big kid who could contribute and help rather than just a baby!
I told him he's going to make a good scout someday soon.

(heres' the future scout with the backpack he got for Christmas and all the "supplies" he fills it with. Always prepared. You can see his awesome monkey flashlight in the middle of the stuff.)

Winter, yuck.

::festive part 1::

Just thought a fun Christmas Eve activity would be to show you some of the festive stuff happening around here.
Not all of these were either photographed or done today. Just so you know.


This is a fun gingerbread house that Kris helped Max make. Max did all the decorating. The kit was donated by a sweet friend.

The playful penguin race. This thing is super fun, but SO so SO loud and obnoxious. It squeaks and squeaks the whole time that the penguins are climbing the stairs and sliding down the ramps. Thus it is only allowed to be out a few days before Christmas. This results in a few solid days of squeaking penguins, but at least it's fun and hard won entertainment for Max.

Present wrapping with Boys. This was the other day after we went and got Max's present for Kris. They're cute, aren't they?


Our archway of Christmas cards. I love Christmas cards, so I send out a bunch and this year we've gotten a ton back which makes me very happy. I love seeing friends and family's faces up there!
Speaking of, in case you didn't get one, here's our Christmas card. The photo was taken by my friend Renatha in our ward, and I did the card design.

The couch in the desert was Kris's idea, and since he used the Land Rover to get it out there, he's pretty proud of it all. That is essentially our back yard, by the way.
We have another shot from this session up on the wall of the office. People like it.

I have more, but now we have to get ready to go out--Max's school teacher invited us to their church's Christmas Eve service and we're going to go and check it out, along with lights and festivities downtown. We'll be back home for scripture reading, Christmas Eve present opening and not sleeping (Max & Sandy). If I can get the rest of the festivities posted I will!

::week 5 highlights::

Here's a little of Sandy's week five for you.
It was a busy one, what with the snowstorm and the football game and getting ready for Christmas. We still got some fun pictures though of course!
This week Sandy got to take his first "real" bath. He loved it. He would've stayed in there all afternoon if he could've.

You've seen a couple other of these carseat ones, but I thought this one was just so cute. I love the stripey suit and his silly face.


Ok, here's the funniest thing I have for the week. Kris wanted a picture of Sandy with his dental books for something, so we did a couple of little photo shoots. Since I don't have lights, it's complicate to get things looking right, and they're still not where I wanted, but they did turn out pretty cute. Sandy was patient for about 3 minutes and then he wanted off the shelf, dang it!!


So we got him off before he got too mad.

And last but not least, Sandy sitting in the rocking chair that is currently in our room, waiting for me to do something like dry my hair or brush my teeth. Little guys sure have to wait around a lot.

5 weeks already? Yikes, time flies.

::speaking of::

Speaking of cozy fires, (we were speaking of those at some point, right?) weren't you wondering where we got all that wood to burn??

Well, I hope you were wondering, because I'm going to tell you.
Early this week Kris bet up with a friend from the ward who works for the Forest Service. He's like a genuine mountain man (well, sort of), and he's awesome. He had a permit to cute firewood--which are evidently very affordable--and he took Kris out into the middle of nowhere to find a great big deadwood fallen tree that he had run across at some point. I guess it was crazy getting there--no roads or anything of course.
They chopped it up with Gilbert's chainsaw and axe and then filled the back of the Land Rover with chunks of (extremely aromatic) wood.


No--that chainsaw doesn't look very safe or secure--we'll assume they moved that after the picture and before driving home, right? They both made it home with heads intact anyway, that's the important part.

Kris was pretty proud of his load of wood.
And rightly so, it's quite impressive.

Sultan was less impressed and more distressed--the wood was in his spot. What's a dog to do?

The wood smells amazing and it's been really fun to have cozy fires on cold days. And I think the cutting of the wood satisfied a need for adventure in my husband--well a bit of that need anyway. Feeling like a real mountain man is pretty awesome.

::are you ready for this?::

Check it out.
So there was yesterday morning:

And yesterday afternoon:


And do you want to see how it looked first thing this morning? Here you go:

WOW!
It snowed all night and now the snow is so deep here. It's amazing. And it's funny because this one of the biggest snows we've experienced, even after living out east and in the midwest. And it was the least hyped by the media! If this snow had been heading towards anywhere else we lived people would be mobbing the grocery store to get supplies and getting ready to hole up for weeks. Funny stuff.

Kris left this morning in the Land Rover because he had a dental surgery scheduled at the hospital at 7AM. He barely made it out of the driveway. The patient didn't make it to the hospital of course. By the time he got done calling all of our patients for the day and rescheduling them, he came home and all the freeways and highways were being closed.
We'll see if we make it out of here this afternoon--we're supposed to be going to Albuquerque for the NM Bowl. We were going to stay the night and go to the game tomorrow. We'll see!

Here are some more snowy scenes for you.
The french doors in the dining room. Poor Sultan can't make it out to use the facilites:

Our high windows in the living room, all plastered:

Max, enjoying his snow day home from school:

Sultan, bummed because Kris left in the Land Rover without him:

The view from the front door:



And the view out the back door onto our weird patio:

I think these little snow dunes are my favorite.

A fun view from Max's bathroom window:


Days like this make me truly appreciate a warm cozy house and other temporal blessings. It's also nice to be the bosses instead of being bossed around--making the call on whether this should be a snow day or not was nice instead of just being forced to go in whether we wanted to or not!
Happy snow day. Looks like it may still be white by Christmas!