Red River

We left for our annual Christmas trip to Red River on Monday, December 22nd.  We made it to the house in time to cook dinner, and the snow storm was already starting to roll in.  My sister and her family had arrived the day before, so the house was warm.  My parents and other sister arrived a couple of hours after us. 

On the 23rd, the guys headed into Taos.  Normally, we search the mountains for a tree to cut down.  It was still snowing and there was so much powder on the ground, so the boys brought home a tree from somewhere in Taos. 

 

Christmas Eve was the only day that week where it was not snowing.  The twins went and had their first ski lesson and my parents went to Taos for some things.  Nathan, G and I played outside in the snow. G kept talking about how he wanted to throw snowballs at us.  

That evening grandpa read Twas the Night Before Christmas to the grandkids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Day we woke up and did the present thing.  Garrett actually made it all the way through without having to take a break this year.  The kids were all surprised when the woke up and saw all the presents.   It took a while to open them all.  We had lunch and ended up staying in the house all day due to all the snow. 

It snowed all day on the 26th as well.  By this time we had already had the driveway plowed multiple times and the trucks had all been towed out of the driveway by the plow.  However, my dad's truck was still in the driveway.  Our friends, Ashley and Justin were flying in the next day, so mom and dad were going to go to Albuquerque and spend the night so they could pick A&J up the next morning.  It is about a 3 hour drive one direction. It had snowed so much, that they had to wait to be pulled out by the plow again.  There was so much snow, that we had to shovel out the back door multiple times so the dogs could go out.  The amount of the snow just out the back door was about 4-5 feet. 

After an entire tour of the area between Albuquerque and Red River, my parents, Ashley, and Justin finally showed up.  The rest of us had spent the entire morning without electricity.  And that was the day the high was not going to get above 20 degrees.   After Friday, the snow was done falling.  We were all able to go out on Sunday and play in the snow.  However, there was so much snow that our playing around was pretty limited on this day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Justin thought he would see if he could sled down the powder.

 

 

On the 29th J&A went skiing.  Nathan, G & and took them into town to get outfitted and eat lunch. 

The 30th was the twins 5th birthday.   One of their presents was to spend the day in ski school.  So, we spent the day on the snowmobiles. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had an interesting time when we tried to take the snowmobiles out.  First we had to wait for an Excursion to move out of a one lane road.  Then we had just started going when I looked down and noticed the temp light was on.  So we turned around.  Then the temp light went off so we turned around again.  Then it came on again so we turned back around and headed home.  Then we had to wait on the same Excursion again.  Eventually we did make it.  I bailed on Nathan a few times due to all the powder we were going through.  We were just sinking the machine.  But it was a huge workout to try to walk through that powder.

That evening we went to the mexican restaurant in town.  We had a great dinner and then came back to the house for the birthday party. 

 

We had cupcakes and presents.  And then the girls played the Horton Hears a Who game that they got.  This was probably the entertainment of the evening.  The players had to put on the elephant trunk and follow the instructions to find things that they had previously hidden. 

 

On the 31st my sister and her family left for Texas.  My brother-in-law had tickets to the Cotton Bowl.  My parents went back to Taos and the rest of us went to town for more shopping.  We had lunch at the bottom of the lift at an italian restaurant. 

 

 

The boys did some more sledding in the afternoon and the power went out again.  So, we left G at the cabin with my parents and went to a restaurant in town for dinner.  We managed to find a place with only a 45 minute wait.  And it was right across the street from the ski area, so we were able to go outside when it was time for the skiers to do the torchlight parade. We left early the next morning to go home.  Justin & Ashley rode back with us, so my parents had the cats.  As we drove through the curvy roads of Cimarron Garrett lost his breakfast.  After the guys stopped the car, they jumped out into a wind gust of at least 60 mph.  The wind nearly took the truck door off.  Let's just say the door needs a little repair now.  Luckily, dad took us home a new way which ended up being an hour less.

It was a great Christmas vacation!!