Winter Wonderland

Well, I suppose we would have been disappointed had we arrived in Michigan to find it only cloudy and chilly. No need to worry though - we certainly weren't disappointed. The last time we came to Michigan in the winter we decided that from then on it would only be summer visits. Easier air travel, fun at the beach, riding the horses, fishing in Grandpa's pond...a never ending parade of delights. But this year with our free travel vouchers (thanks to voluntarily giving up our seats on a previous overbooked airplane) it seemed that the opportunity to travel for free during the most expensive time of year and spend Christmas with Grandpa, Grandma and the rest of our family was just too good to pass up.

We approached our trip out here with an attitude that it was going to be a long day...but that we'd make it fun. Oh, and what a long day it was. We actually made it out of Portland relatively on time but upon landing in Chicago it became obvious that the weather would be a factor there. 4 hours later - made up of consecutive 15-minute delays - we were finally on board. Then another hour waiting in the plane...first for luggage, then for de-icing, then for who knows what, maybe the pilots called for take-out pizza.

Upon arrival in Michigan we found an airport completely without power. They drove a stair truck out to our plane and we climbed down the icy steps and bolted through the blizzard across the pavement to get into the building. The very dark building. They had to unload all the luggage by hand so we waited another hour or so for that. Then they handed it out in the airport.

Much of the drive to Grandpa's house was in white-out conditions. But thanks to Grandpas' decades of Michigan driving we made it safely, if slowly, to his warm house where to Soren's delight Grandma was waiting.

The storm was raging when I tucked Soren in to bed. His bedroom was on the western side of the house. The wind was fierce. After I tucked him in he called me back to the room, crying. He demanded "shut the window, mama!" It was so noisy that he was sure that the window must be open.

This morning though we all awoke to a calm, quiet winter landscape. Blessed to be with our family in a very white Christmas.