Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas from Elma, WA

Well, here we are in Elma for the Holidays. Kent and I, with the help of our amazing friends and neighbors Heidi and Terek (and baby Trapper) packed up our truck on Saturday night. We finished around 1am and were planning on leaving sometime Sunday to drive home for Christmas. However, thanks to my spontaneous crazy nature, I suggested to Kent that instead of going to sleep for a few short hours, we should just leave right then. So, on Sunday morning at 1:45 am, we left Idaho Falls and drove to WA, having not slept since 8:30 am Saturday. To top it off, we drove straight into that great Arctic Chill storm everyone has been hearing about in the Northwest. It snowed HARD the WHOLE drive, closing I-84 and forcing us to take another route through White Pass to get home. We averaged a blazing 42 mph the WHOLE trip, making our normally 12-13 hour drive a whopping 21 hours of snow, ice, and memories!!!! We arrived sometime around 11pm Sunday night, having been awake for 40 hours, and driving for 21 of those hours. Yuck. Fortunately, we are planning on flying back to IF on Sunday--let's hope the flights are on time!
We've had fun here in Elma so far! We spent all day yesterday building Elma's first 8-foot igloo! It's big enough to fit my family inside, and we can all stand up straight in it! We have also enjoyed sledding down the hill to our river, and jumping off the edge of the same hill; something we have appropriately named 'cliff jumping.' Last night we were also able to make the icy drive to Chehalis to celebrate our cousin Joey's 22nd birthday! Happy Birthday primo!!! So, here we are on Christmas Eve, loving our families and friends, and looking forward to the next few weeks. We are going to miss our home in Idaho Falls more than I can describe here, but we are grateful for the good times we've had there. After Washington, we have El Salvador, and then our 21 state Road Trip of a lifetime out to Boston! We are blessed! Merry Christmas all!

3 comments:

Kenneth said...

What a fun time in Elma. Kent you passed the test Tim hasn't left you out on the logging roads.

Kjerstin said...

I'm so glad you had fun! We're missing you guys already!

Ephra said...

Just finished visiting with you at my house!! Loved seeing you Kent and love you now too Kayla!! You really weren't kidding when you said you really got into Halloween! The picture is pretty scary..;)Enjoy your road trip!!! Stop by anytime your in Utah!!