Thanksgiving with my parents

This trip turned out to be the trip from HELL (sorry for the profanity but there is no other word but that one to describe it). We have traveled to my parents before many times during Thanksgiving and Christmas and have NEVER had traffic like we did this trip. It took us 9 hours to get there when it normally takes us 6.5 or 7 hours at most.

We had a great time with my parents. The girls loved having the huge house to themselves and being able to do what they wanted. Most of my parents things are packed since they will be moving soon so the house was EMPTY which made it easy for the girls to roam and play. We got there Wednesday night late and talked to my parents to let the girls run around since they had been in the car forever. Then when we woke up I made pumpkin pies (yummy!) and we ate lunch/dinner at my sister Dori's that lives next door to my parents.

They have 2 little dogs and the girls loved them. That is all they are getting since Brett and I do not like dogs :)

We ate with Dori's family and some of her friends and my parents. I thought I got a picture of all of us at the table but apparently not.



While at my parents both of the girls allergies were TERRIBLE. Brett got a terrible sore throat which turned into laryngitis and then once we got home we both got Bronchitis. Apparently Utah in the winter does not agree with us.

We did have fun and the girls loved being with my parents. This is what everyone did:

Gwen & Grandma Helen (aka my mom) did crafts. They made Grandma (aka Bretts mom) a birthday card since we would be driving home on her birthday.



The card in progress. Gwen loved the glue and glitter and that my Mom had her wear an apron. She just loves all that crafty stuff.



Then Grandma Helen found playdoh that she had made and some toys and Gwen was in heaven.



Penelope pushed her stroller around since there was a ton of open space in the house. She had a ball. Can you tell from this picture how awful her face looks? It is all red and broken out from her terrible allergies. Poor thing.



Papa Helen played, wait sorry, worked on his computer. He is addicted.



Watched movies on the ipad.



Played cards. My family is huge on playing cards and always has been.



Braved the snow. It was one of the coldest winters Cedar had seen -10 degrees one day.



Gwen loved the snow and took every opportunity to play and jump around in it.



Then on our trip home we had the scariest thing ever happen to us. We left my parents house at 5:30am so we would miss the traffic. Once we hit this place in Cedar City on your way to St. George called the "Black Ridge" it is one of the worst places with the most accidents in Utah. Well it turned into one scary time for us. We were going slow since it was snowing and the roads were not the best and we got on some ice and totally lost control of the car and did 2 360's which made us go into the embankment between the road and the mountain. We felt like we were going to flip over but then we hit the mountain and it stopped us from flipping (well that and we were blessed). Brett then got the car in reverse and drive really fast to try to get us out of the embankment. One awesome good Samaritan pulled over and helped us push the car out and jumped on the side rail to help give the wheels some traction so we could make it out of there. We did as you can see from the picture below. We are on the side of the rode were we stopped to look at the car and found out we had a ruined tire and had a dent in the bumper.





What made it even worse was that we had to wait 3 hours for the tow truck/AAA to come and help us. We did have a little bit of excitement when no one was passing us for almost 45 minutes and we knew there had been an accident before us so no one, now, could get to us. After another hour, making it 3 hours we had waited, a fire truck and an ambulance pulled over to check on us. Gwen liked talking to the fireman. They just wanted to make sure we were warm and had help coming but they were not allowed to help us with the tire or anything. Which did suck since we had been waiting forever but oh well. Finally the AAA people came and fixed the car for us so we could be on the way. Well now it was way late and we had not even got to St. George yet! Traffic was horrible, oh course, and finally in Jean, Nevada we were done and got a room for the night. We rested and let the girls run around for a couple of hours and ate but then decided to just leave and get on the rode since Brett had to be in court first thing in the morning.

So all in all we left my parents house at 5:30am and didn't get home until midnight. Worst trip ever. We may never go to Utah again. Snow is the devil.