Happy New Year!

It has been a whirlwind of a season. We have successfully moved from Idaho to California. (Mostly thanks to my Mom and Charles and friends, I really didn't do much packing or cleaning)



This is the delicious pizza my visiting teacher brought us for dinner. Instead of red sauce it had a creamy garlic one. Yum!

Funny how the weather in Idaho has been mild until we decided to move, then we have major snowstorms and record low temperatures. Driving from Idaho was definitely exciting. We were in snowstorms most of the way. We stopped in Salt Lake, Provo and in Prim Nevada. Prim was the most eventful because we were stranded there for 24 hours. The 15 was closed due to the snowstorms. Lucky for us we had made reservations to stay there beforehand. I am not sure I can convey in writing how crazy Prim was. We arrived after a terrifying drive at about 6:00p.pm. We were tired, hungry and cold. I thought it would be easy for us to get into our room and get some food since we had reservations. Boy was I wrong. There was absolutely no parking in the hotels huge lot and valet was completely full as well. I had Charles drop me off at the door so I could go check in. The plan was that he would wait for me and then we would go get some food, that way we would only have to park once. When I got into the casino I found hundreds of people in line waiting to check in. It was worse than a ride at Disneyland. (They only had a few employees available to check in) More people were camped out on the ground. There were families, kids and older people scattered everywhere. There was no line for those with reservations so I walked around till I found the end of the line. I called Charles to have him get food and then come back and park. He did not have any cash and the machines were down so he ended up coming back without food and reliving me in the line. We waited for about three hours to get our room. By that time I was so hungry I thought I would pass out. The casino had a bunch of restaurants but only two were open! (McDonald’s was even closed, I thought they were open 24 hrs…) I couldn't believe it. There must have been a thousand people at this one hotel and there was no food. We got in another line at the restaurant and finally sat down to eat around 9:30 or 10. We kept hearing rumors of when the 15 would re-open. Some said it would be a day or two. Others claimed it would be the next morning. We finally went to our room and dropped into bed. The next morning we checked out at about nine. Of course it was only after we checked out that we heard the 15 hadn’t opened yet. We decided to go and get some breakfast at the same restaurant as before. The line was longer this time. By the time we went in to eat we found out that the 15 was going to open at noon. After eating we decided to get out of the casino (it was very dark, dreary and smoky) and sit in the car. It was quite a shock to find that there was already a line to get onto the 15. Cars were parked in the street waiting for the interstate to open. We went to get gas and found a spot in line. We were finally able to leave Prim around 1:00. It was such a relief to get out of there!



Waiting to leave Prim. You might have to make the picture bigger to relly see how many cars there were. It was crazy!

It was such a strange experience. I realized how important it is to be prepared. Because we were traveling in winter, we should have had more water and food with us in the car. Charles and I should both have had cash so that we could pay for food even with the machines down. I felt a little bit like Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem. Everywhere was so full that they had to turn people away. Prim is a small town and they did not have enough staff to support the amount of people who were forced to stay there. That is why many of the restaurants were closed. We were lucky there was room in the inn for us.





One of the few picture of Christmas. (They are all pretty blurry) I forgot to take my camera with me to San Diego.

We are so happy to be in southern California where it only snows once every hundred years or so! Christmas and New years were wonderful. We spent time in San Diego as well as Pasadena. We love being so close to family! So for now life is pretty calm. Don’t worry though, give it a few more weeks and the baby will be here. After that I don’t know if it will ever be “calm” again. :)