Christmas Break... should be called Christmas Adventures here is why....

Christmas break so far has been

PRETTY DANG CRAZY!!!!

(to say the VERY least!)

Well I finished school on Thursday the 19th and then spent most of that weekend packing up my room getting everything i could ready to move. Then worked all day Monday and then we only worked till 12:30 Tuesday. That day was pretty hard on me because it was my last day to work there. I told Dr. Johnson the first day back after Thanksgiving that I would be moving over Christmas break to Thatcher for school and would work up until school started. Well at that point I didn't think school would start till about the 20th like the schools in the valley and if that was the case then I would just live with JoDee and work full-time till I had to be in Thatcher. Well once I did some more research about school I found out that school starts JANUARY 7th! SO EARLY I CAN'T HARDLY BELIEVE IT! Which meant that the last day before Christmas would also be my last day. It was a bittersweet day because everyone was excited for the break and Christmas day but everyone was also sad that I was leaving. I don't know that it will fully hit us all until they all go back to work and I DON'T.

So then once work was done I had to wait to get a set of retainers from my orthodontist and then I headed up to Pinetop. Driving wasn't too bad until I hit Show Low which I was very grateful for. Show Low isn't very smart when it comes to clearing their roads they put the snow in the turning lane and people who don't know how to drive in snow... well they are just dangerous and make stupid choices! Let's just leave it at that. Once I was to Walmart though the roads were pretty clear until I had to turn at Charlie Clark's to go to my house. At that point I was a little worried about my front wheel drive car.... but it did AWESOME!!! I was so proud of my little car I was able to keep it in drive the whole time and not have to switch to manual, I wasn't even sliding all over the place. For anyone who hasn't been to my house there is a HUGE STEEP hill that is terrible without snow and so you can only imagine how bad it is with snow and only a few cinders. My car knocked it out without a problem though I was so happy! Then came RIM ROAD. No one likes to plow that road ever they just don't think it's important I guess, but once again my car was a champ.

Christmas Eve was spent taking my car to get worked on, wrapping presents, and making a huge feast for my Mom, Dad, Brother, and I. There was just the 4 of us since all my sister's and their families had Christmas at their own house or with in-laws. After dinner my mom insisted that we watch her favorite move.... MAMA MIA!!!! haha it is a pretty crazy show!! She was just laughing the whole time! I ended up falling asleep the last 30mins. opps! Then we all went to bed so that Santa would come visit us!!!

CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!! Well we didn't start opening presents until 9a.m. I guess once you get older you can be a little more lazy because when I was little we were up at 3a.m. looking in out stockings and seeing the big gift that Santa brought us and then waiting to wake up my parents at 7a.m. on the dot! Before we started opening presents, my dad rented a machine called a Terex to help plow the snow in our drive way because it was suppose to snow too much for out little four-wheeler to handle, and the tarp he had over it to keep the snow out of the cabin had blown off so I went outside and shoveled the snow off and covered it back up. Then we started opening presents VERY SLOWLY!!! haha We didn't finish until 11:45a.m. then we cleaned up the front room. Once all that was done my dad and I went outside and worked on clearing the driveway for 3 hours. He was on the Terex and I had a shovel and was pulling it out away from the house and trailer and things. The reason we had such a hard time was the snow was SO WET which makes it VERY HEAVY. It would snow and rain and because it was so cold it would freeze to the shovel. The USA network had a marathon of House on (which is my new favorite show) ...then later that night we watched Batman: The Dark Knight. Then we all crashed in our beds!

The day after Christmas we woke up early hoping to leave our house by 8:30 to head down to Gilbert with a trailer to load up my stuff and then drive down the Thatcher and unload my things in my new room. But like always things don't go as planned. I left the house at 8 to return movies to the video store and check out the roads because a huge snow storm had come through over night and was still snowing. Well NONE of the back roads were plowed and I was glad I was in my mom's Yukon with 4WD. Once I got down the highway the stoplight turned green and there was a guy that didn't even try to stop he just went right on through his RED LIGHT. Luckily I know people are stupid and do that so I pay attention and didn't get hit! But even the highway wasn't plowed very well. I was getting worried about how we were going to get the truck with a toy house trailer on the back out of there. Well when we finally attempted to.... we didn't even make it out of our driveway before we got stuck. So my dad and I went to work again shoveling the truck and trailer out a few times to put it BACK in front of the house to use the Terex again. Finally after my dad used the Terex in the drive way at down Rim Road for almost a mile (to the pavement) he jumped in the truck and drove like a wild man down the road hoping not to get stuck!!! HE WAS A HERO!!! He did it and so I drove the Terex down and picked him up took him back to the house and grabbed my mom and brother and then we were off to Gilbert (only a little late... you know like 12:15p.m.).

Usually that is only a 3 hour and 15 min drive but it took us about 4 hours to get to my house. Once there we had to work like crazy people to load all my stuff up because it was going to be getting dark fast. Well we left my house at 6 so we did REALLY good about moving all my stuff in about about an hour and a half. Then we went to Arby's for a quick dinner so that we could get back on the road and head down to Thatcher. That is when I found out that the room I was suppose to move into wasn't empty... there was a big mix up. The girl whose room I am moving into isn't moving out until the 1st of January. So I tried calling the landlord and they didn't answer. I didn't know what to do. We decided to get on the road though because we were suppose to stay at my grandma's house in Pima. So we left Gilbert about 7:40p.m. towards Globe. Sure enough we hit weather!!! Guess what it did.... a WET, heavy, ICY, snow storm! It started in Superior so of course you are dealing with people that don't know how to drive in it and so you only drive about 25 mph. Well there is a point called Top of the World about 12 miles outside Miami and out gas light came on. (My dad and I couldn't figure it out we both looked when we were leaving AJ and we had half a tank of gas. The only answer is the fact that we were pulling a trailer up hill going so slow that it much of just drained the tank. So we had to sit the whole time with the truck off and only start it to get momentum and then once we had enough turn it off and just coast.) Once we reached this point though traffic was going about 4 mph and was eventually stopped with people pulled off the road everywhere. We didn't know what we were going to do. We sat in the same spot for about 45mins before we called 911 they said the road had been shut down but it should be opening up. About a half hour later DPS showed up but didn't stop and say or do anything. finally people started passing us going down the hill so we watched them and they seemed to be ok so we followed. We drove about a mile before we were stopped again for over an hour. This whole way luckily down to Miami is down hill so we were betting on the fact that we could coast down but traffic needed to be going fast enough for us to be able to do that and they weren't. So if we waited for there to be about 50 yards between us and the car in front of us then a car behind us would pass us. It was really annoying and RUDE, not to mention EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HELLO!!! Anyways we finally were able to coast into a gas station in Miami a little after 11p.m. It was the longest 3 hours or should I say 12 miles of my life. Usually from Gilbert to Miami takes an hour. We were truly blessed to make it, there was no way that we could've done it without Heavenly Father's help and I know that we were all praying the whole time and our prayers were answered. I had a friend who is from Globe and she was there that night and so I called her and put her on alert in case we needed the gas. What a blessing it was that we had that option. I don't know how she would have been able to get us the gas because the road was blocked off because of the road conditions and the accident but I am still thankful for her.

Once we were through Globe headed to Pima we saw one accident on a bridge but were stopped there less than 5 mins. All the bridges were icy and we were protected and watched over ALL DAY. There were so many things that could've happened and been a lot worse, or even gotten in a wreck but we didn't and I am so thankful for that. We didn't arrive at my grandma's house until after 1a.m. so it was a LONG and STRESSFUL day.

We ended up not moving my stuff into my room but just left it in the trailer parked at my grandma's house, we will have to do that next Sunday. We just spent the weekend cleaning up the yards at my grandma's and visiting with her. I also was able to go see the house I am moving into for the first time and meet Jenny my roommate! She seems like so much fun and I am really excited! It is going to be a big difference going from 1 roommate to 4 other roommates but I can't wait!

Today (Sunday) we traveled back to Luna to feed the cattle and take care of a few things here and will be heading back to Pinetop shortly. On Wednesday we will be headed back over here to have Christmas with the WHOLE FAMILY!!! I am super excited!!! And then onto Round 2 of moving and before I know it I will be back in school again.