While in Utah we were able to see a few good snow storms, and Caleb had his first real experience with the cold, white stuff. For the trip I had to dig our winter clothing out of storage. While I was packing it was in the 70s here in AZ and a little difficult to imagine being in the freezing cold in a day or two. Anyway, after wrestling with 2 closets full of boxes to find the winter clothes and coats, I finally won the exhausting fight and had to have Chris help me re-stack when he got home. The winter gear we own for Caleb amounts to a hat and gloves (no coat, snow pants/suit, or boots) so we made do the best we could. As I'm packing I see the weather is supposed to be quite mild, as UT temps go, so I'm thinking this might not be so bad. Well, we got dumped on our second night in Utah, we were in Logan at this point, and took and extra 30 minutes Saturday morning to drive to the little outlying town where the funeral was held because the roads had not been plowed, imagine that!
Pink was their grandma's favorite color so we dressed accordingly, don't they look snazzy! Later the weather clears up and we race down to Sandy to see Lucy, my ballerina sister, preform in the Nutcracker as part of the snow corps and loved it!
Sunday we had the Lott Family Christmas party at Mike and Catherine's house with lots of yummy food and fun.
opening our goodies
Alex and Caleb
the girls
We had previously decided to split up our drive home, so Caleb would be a little happier, and stay with Chris's cousin in St. George, however we ran into one of the WORST snow storms we've ever been in, over 150 miles of blizzard conditions, crawling along on I-15. Just 15 miles north of Beaver the southbound lanes were at a dead stand-still for an hour and a half. Visualize cars backed up for miles and people walking around and talking trying to pass the time and figure why we were all stopped. About half way into our little stop a semi comes sliding past us in the emergency lane just to the left of the car. Apparently his windshield wipers were broken and he couldn't see the stopped cars until it was too late so he had to veer into the left lane and coast to a stop to avoid hitting anyone. We decided we to have Chris's mom book us a hotel room in Beaver because Chris is exhausted by this point from driving on terrible roads, and I don't drive in bad storms period. Meanwhile, some nice guys are trying to clear a path on the right side by rearranging the parked cars and Chris hops out to help. The goal is to completely clear the right lane so a snow plow or wrecker can fit to get up to the wreck in front of us, which happens to be not 1 but 2 semis jack-knifed. Just as the lane is finally cleared to allow the snow plow through some very arrogant people decide they don't need to wait any longer and want to bypass all of us who are ahead of them by driving right on through; I can tell you there were a lot of choice words shouted at them as they drove by. Finally we make it to Beaver and wait out the storm in the hotel. Thankfully the rest of the trip home the next day was uneventful, except Caleb crying because he had to be strapped in the car seat for 2 days instead of 1.
Moral of the story?
1-Don't trust the weather man, he only called for rain.
2- Driving to Utah in December is never a good thing for us, we drove 2 years ago when I was pregnant with Caleb and got stuck on Hoover Dam for a very long hour and a half (my bladder not being a normal size and all).
