Christmas Blizzard of 2009

I do realize this is after Christmas but I just haven't had time to post.  I do hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your families.  We certainly did!  It was definitely a different Christmas for us this year.  The plan was to have Christmas with my parents and brother on Christmas Eve, our little family would have our Christmas on Christmas morning, and then we would spend the rest of Christmas day with Jorge's family.  That was the plan.  My, how things change.

I made Holiday Cheesecake and Autumn Surprise Pie to take to my parents on Christmas Eve.  They both turned out very good!  My favorite was the pie.

It was the first time I've made a lattice crust so I was pretty happy with how it turned out.  I have finally figured out how to make a great crust (thanks to Pioneer Woman!) so now I love to make pies and this one had such great flavor.  The spices were heavenly!

The cheesecake was very good as well.  It was a basic cheesecake with a hint of orange topped with cranberries.  I 'm not a big fan of cranberries so I could have done without the topping but everyone else seemed to like it.

We planned on leaving the house around 12:00 in the afternoon to head for my parents house (which is about 30 mins. away).  It started sleeting the night before which turned into snow that afternoon.  We knew we were supposed to get about a foot of snow and it would take longer to get to my parents house than normal (thinking maybe an hour) but we had no idea of the events that would follow.  It wasn't too bad when we first got on the road.  Traffic was slow but we were moving and heading in the right direction.  After a while, we got stopped on the highway and sat, moved an inch or two, sat some more, etc.  This went on for a couple hours.  We eventually made it to an exit off of the highway (they closed down the highway) and found ourselves stuck in another huge mess.  It was so surreal - like watching a movie.  There were abandoned cars left in the middle of the road, people were walking, trying to get cars out of ditches and snow drifts.  Thankfully, we were not part of any of these events.  After several hours we decided to stop at a CVS to use the restroom and get some water and snacks.  By this time it was starting to get dark and we thought we were going to have to spend the night in our vehicle.  We were in contact with my parents this whole time to let them know what was going on.  While we were at CVS my Dad decided that he was going to get into his work truck and start heading our way to see if we would even be able to make it to their house that night.  He got to us within 30 minutes.  From there, we followed him to their house and arrived about an hour and a half later.  It took us a total of 6 1/2 hours.  I never would have imagined that it would have taken us so long.  We were so thankful to have arrived safely.  There were many people involved in accidents, many people involved in getting stuck in the snow, and many even had to spend the night in their cars.  A few people even died.  I know God was watching over us and protecting us and we are so grateful.

We had our Christmas meal and opened presents with my family that night.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a wonderful evening together.  We, as well as my brother, were not about to attempt to make it back home so we all spent the night at my parents house.  The next morning I made the Pumpkin Goat-Cheese Cheesecake to take to my in-laws while Hubby and my Dad headed back to our house in Edmond to pick up some things.

We made it to the in-laws house about 5:00 that evening and spent the rest of the day there.  JJ got a cute little OU Sooners hat and sweatshirt and a Cowboys outfit.

 

We didn't get to have our family Christmas on Christmas morning, as planned, so we had it on Saturday morning.  We had a wonderful little family Christmas, just the 3 of us.

 

 

 

 

All-in-all, it was a great weekend. Didn't turn out exactly how we planned but we were able to spend time with family and no one was severely affected by the blizzard of 2009.  And we got to have 3 Christmases!  :)

It was definitely a memorable Christmas!