Christmas update

My parents, my sisters, my brother-in-law, and my nieces all arrived in Red River On the 22nd. However, I had to work that day so we left early on the 23rd. We left at 5am and made great time. We rolled into Red River around 5:30pm.

On the 24th Susan, Matt, Nathan, and I all set out to locate the Christmas tree. We get a permit and cut it down. There are a lot of restrictions so we usually have to trapse up the side of a mountain.




We had a great Christmas Day. Santa managed to find his way to the cabin. We even took G out for his first time in the snow.




On the 26th we all went to Taos. We did a little shopping around the square and went to an artist's studio that my parents are fans of.

On the 27th Nathan and I took my oldest sister into Red River to do a little shopping. I also got to go to my favorite bear store and add to my collection.

On the 28th it started snowing and snowing and snowing some more. It snowed for three days. We got the snowmobiles out and plowed through all the powder. By the 30th our normal guy that snow plows the driveway had gone out of town and my dad had to chase down a guy with large machinery to come plow the driveway. (Dad was chasing him down with the snowmobile. There was no other way out of the house.)



You just have to see the pictures to understand how much snow there was. And even those don't do justice to what we witnessed.

On the 30th we celebrated the girls 3rd birthday.



We left on the 31st like we were scheduled to do. However, we did not leave until noon. All the roads between New Mexico and Texas were closed. We ended up driving south to Albuquerque and spending the night at a hotel. The highway that went east to Texas was not opened until 10pm on New Year's Eve. The police were escorting 50 vehicles at a time down the freeway. T



The next morning that freeway was still jammed so we went further south to 380 before heading east. We did not pull into our driveway until 11:45pm on the 1st. But the trip turned out great anyway.