Kentucky Christmas

We hadn't had to outrun a Christmas snowstorm in a few years but we got our chance this year! Due to an impending storm, we changed our plans to leave a day earlier than we'd planned, and altered our route to try and avoid most of messy weather. And to add even more excitement to the trip down, I had a setback with my back which meant I couldn't drive at all and spent most of the trip in the backseat. Poor Bob! He was the hero of this stressful drive!

And it was a very stressful drive! We only drove about six hours our first day (because we left after the kids got out of school), woke up in New Jersey with rain and 50 degrees but it was in the teens by lunch time! And the once we hit the Kentucky border, it was white knuckle driving the whole rest of the way. Again, poor Bob. He was a hero! 

Leaving earlier than we planned meant that we had all day on Christmas Eve to relax and enjoy the pretty snow.

And Bob got to take many trips to the Sherwood. (He deserved them!)

By Christmas morning we realized that poor Audrey was very sick and in hindsight probably had COVID (even after tested negative a couple times...). She spent most of her trip in bed, only coming out occasionally.

Luckily, Charlie saved our Christmas spirit by giving Mom the perfect gift.

This year the icy roads kept any visitors from stopping by and we'd already planned to just have a low-key Christmas day with soup and snacks and that's what we did. Sorry dad, your prime rib was missed, but we were feeling pretty low energy this year.

Patrick had offered to host us the dad after Christmas and we ended up pushing that off one more day to give the roads a chance to clear and for Audrey to get better.

Finally on Tuesday, we made the trek to Patricks and had a nice afternoon.

Audrey achieved her dream of owning a "Murder Goose" sweatshirt.

Bob and I and the kids then stayed in Lexington at Aunt Patti's and spent the night with the Fields, playing pool, singing and having a jolly time. (Maddy is having a hard time believing she is related to these nutballs.)

Wednesday we had our annual UK Arch get-together.

After returning to New Haven to say goodbye to Katie and Charlie, we went back to Patti's on Thursday afternoon to have one more evening to visit and to have a head start on launching our road trip in the morning. We had a really fun time, with some great Chinese takeout and playing Ransom Notes.

 

So it was a Christmas with its ups and downs, tinged with a lot of sadness and missing dad. We had some fun, but mostly we just got through it! We miss you dad!