A Snowy Keoni Holiday

Dear Reader,

If you have read my blog long, you know that things often get interesting when I go home to my folks’.  My visit over Christmas and New Year’s vacation was no different. Except this time, instead of being stuck there taking care of my siblings while my parents were gone, I was stuck there due to the weather.

Yep, we were snowed-in for about two weeks.

I use the term “snowed-in” loosely because it would have been possible to get out and go home but pretty risky.

I’m a chicken...

A chicken who knows she has four-wheel drive but doesn‘t care...

A chicken with three small children who deserve better than to be plunged into an icy ditch because their mother was home-sick...

A chicken who lacked the wings to fly home, poor flightless bird.  

Okay, you can relax. I’m officially done with the chicken metaphor.

There were advantages to being stuck there.

1. My mother‘s cooking. Here comes those holiday pounds.

    “Butter, Oh, how I love thee…”

2. They have a fireplace. I got to get me one of those.

     “♫ Ohhh, Mr. Loggerhead… ♪"

3. LOTS of hands to help with my children.

There was such a sweet feeling in my heart as I watched my little brother put my infant son to sleep. I remember rocking my brother as a baby. He was cuddlier then. Smaller. Less smelly. (Sorry, 'bout that, West)

Oh baby, the delightful rolls, the gurgles and chirps, the stubborn refusal to fit into my muted color-scheme.

Just look at that yummy baby skin, the peachiness of it. It could not be masked in almost black and white tones. It would not. It had to be shared. Makes me want to go wake him up for a snuggle right now. Almost. Not quite, but almost.

These babies have the oddest habit of growing up.

One minute they are playing at your feet.

The next, they hardly fit on your lap.

Or the couch.

And they start avoiding your camera.

They give you this look when you start sneaking shots of their cute little gathering.

The nerve, I tell ya.

Mr. Loggerhead is not a chicken. Oops, I said I was done with that. Okay, Mr. Loggerhead is brave, much, much, much braver than his wife.

The wife, it turns out, that he missed an awful lot.

The wife who is very similar to a smallish, floppy, egg-laying bird, known for it’s fear of many things.

When the wife could not, would not come home,

He came to her.

 He even brought her little sister so we could all be together, despite the snow.

He drove through terrible blowing snow, across icy roads, past ump-teen stranded motorists, over the river and through the woods to his in-laws' house, to be with me, his wife.

[Sigh] My hero.

"Don’t ever do something that dangerous again. Do you hear me?"

He wasn’t even late for our Christmas-y dinner. The meal went perfectly.

Ha! I hope you know us better than that by now. I mean, our life is pretty wonderful but, Utopia? Hardly. In all reality, we all ate dinner, at the table, together, which was pretty nice. It wasn't perfect,

It was slightly distracted,

A little sleepy,

A tad impatient,

But very loving, and mostly happy (with dessert and coffee) ever after.

Love,
Put Another Log On The Fire In Nebraska