Trip to the Frozen Tundra

It's been a little cool in Texas lately. Ashton is tired of it. She complains when it's below 60 degrees. When my grandma passed away and I announced that we would be making a trip to Wisconsin, Ashton didn't want to go. "It's too cold," was her reasoning. We had quite the adventure getting to Wisconsin and once there, Ashton decided the snow wasn't so terrible. However, if you ask her now, she has no desire to go back until the snow is gone and it's warmer. My little Texan girl.

My grandmother was an amazing woman. My grandpa passed away in 1995 and my grandma stayed strong and active for so long. She continued living in their home for many years and I have fond memories of visiting her to bake cookies (but she never let me eat the cookie dough), having cream soda, playing on my grandpa's workbench, filling the bird bath, and playing "accountant" in their basement. She loved seeing our kids and I am sad she won't get to meet our baby girl. I was planning to come in the spring so she could meet her.

She passed away on January 12 and the funeral was the following week. Due to Joseph's hectic work schedule and demand right now, I knew it was going to just be the kids and I traveling. We booked our tickets to leave on Tanner's birthday. The day before our flight, weather predictions suggested a terrible ice storm coming to Houston. The airlines allowed us to change our ticket for no change fee. School districts were closing in preparation for this so I decided to go ahead and change our ticket to the next day. In hindsight, I don't think it made a huge difference as Wednesday was even worse in my opinion.

Our flight was at noon so we left the house at 8am. I was up most the night checking weather forecasts, road conditions, flight schedules, etc. to ensure our flight was leaving. For most of the morning, main highways were closed in Houston. We hit icy patches the whole way there and the roads were empty. We arrived at the airport at 10am and the lines were insane! It took us two hours to drop off our bag and make it through security. By the end of that, I had almost run out of snacks and entertainment for the kids as Tanner was just stuck in the stroller and we couldn't leave our spot in line. We were the last ones to board our plane with five minutes to spare before closing the cabin doors. Picture this: me at 32 weeks pregnant pushing Tanner in the stroller and Ashton on my back in our carrier running full speed through the Houston airport. I'm sure everyone laughed as I ran by but we made it. Good thing I work out every day!

Our flight ended up leaving the gate late so we had to run once more at the Chicago airport to make our connection to Wausau. Then we arrived in Wausau only to discover our luggage never left Houston. Ugh! Thankfully, it showed up the next day with my brother's flight just in time to change into church clothes for the funeral.

The kids enjoyed the snow. Tanner lasted a lot less than Ashton when we would go outside. He wasn't a huge fan of climbing up the sledding hill all the time. Ashton loved sledding and riding the snowmobiles around. We played lots with family and enjoyed our few days there. We left Saturday morning and our flights were much smoother on the way home. Although, I don't think I'll be flying with the three kids by myself this fall. It was exhausting!