Global Warm this...

GLOBAL WARM this AL GORE!

I know that I have been MIA for the past few weeks.. but I am back from my blogging hiatus and back with plenty of pictures!

So Christmas Eve in NWA was cold and rainy. We got to leave work early and I was super excited cause I was going to have time to go home, pack the car and get the oil changed before Kelly, Kurt and I got on the road.

1pm Kurt and I are sitting at the kitchen table waiting on Kelly to get home from work, when we get the call. “TULSA airport has shut down & all flights are cancelled.”

Are you kidding me?? For the next 2 hours we explored all options for travel. Kurt and I mentioned that we should just drive. Well then Kurt starts researching car rentals. We figured that there would be no way Bobby and Julie would let us drive, but then we heard the weather was going to be bad in Texas too. So the driving option was looking more feasible. We then decided that we would take Kurts car to Tulsa, leave it there (for when we flew home) and pick up the rental.

It took up 3 hours to get to Tulsa, normally about a hour and forty-five minute trip. Things we going ok until we got stuck in the parking garage no lie, there must have been 6-8 inches on the ground. I jumped out and started pushing, Kelly of course is yelling at me telling me I need to be driving and he needed to be pushing. So I am down on the ground trying to dig a path out for the car, in the meantime Kurt’s car had died in the parking lot and he was trying to flag down a shuttle driver to help him. Kurt finally made it over to us and him and Kelly pushed while I drove. When we did finally emerge from the snow I couldn’t stop so they had to jump in the car with it still moving.

this was the start of the trip.. one big happy family!

this was driving to the airport...

It was a flippin Blizzard!

So we just assumed there would be a place that we could pull over and switch spots. Well they closed the roads, including the highway, so unfortunately there were not a lot of people driving on the roads, so there was not a lot of snow and not a lot of traffic to compact the snow. Normally it is a 30-40 min drive from Tulsa to Okmulgee, it took me 2 hours!! I was driving, Kurt in shot-gun and Kelly in the back being stressed and angry that I had ended up in the drivers seat. Let me tell you that without a moment’s hesitation given a choice to drive those 2 hours again or run a marathon, I would take the marathon. NO QUESTION! I was stressed the man on the radio kept saying not to drive, “If you get stuck it could be up to 4 hours before they can come get you, have blankets, food and plenty of gas.” Then I look over and see an 18 wheeler sideways on a hill. Next to the truck is 2, YES 2 wreaker/tow trucks that have gone off the road and are now stuck behind them is a line of probably 20 cars that are sliding all over the place since the truck has now blocked both lanes of the highway and is causing then to roll back down!

This was when I wanted to shoot myself in the FACE

I just kept thinking we could die out here! On Christmas Eve! We finally made it to Okmulgee and Kelly took over the drivers seat. I passed out in the back from the stress of it, but was constantly awoken by the seatbelts being shoved in to my back. If you were wondering, Impala’s have the really hard seat belts that don’t collapse in to the seat so if you try to nap in the back seat they will cause lots of pain and discomfort!

Kelly drove the rest of the way to Dalllas and was up for Aprox 26 hours before he got to take a baby nap! By the time we hit Dallas the trip had taken almost 14 hours. That is when Julie (Kelly’s mom) called us and told us there was a flight we could catch to AZ. By this point we were all tired, hungry (none of us had any dinner or breakfast) and sick of being in the car. When we were planning the trip we had estimated that it would take us 18 hours total… when it took 14 just to get to Dallas, we were OUT on the rest of the adventure.

The funny part to me is that we were so excited when it started out. I had the video camera out and I was documenting it, we were going to get out and take pictures at every state to commemorate the trip. After we had made it safely to Dallas we all decided that we never really thought the weather was going to be THAT BAD! We all just though that it was blown out of proportion… um not so much!

Such a HAPPY SITE TO SEE.. southwest how i love you!

I don't think this picture does the shoes justice..

So this has got to be how her thought process goes..

"15 degree weather-check, 6 inches of snow-check, black open toe cocktail sandals-check! Ready to fly!"

This is a better idea of what the shoes looked like...

Can you tell I was a little sleep deprived?

AZ!!

Please notice the Fireplace DVD in the background!!!

We caught the flight out of Dallas at about 8:30am Christmas Day, had a couple of stops and made it in to AZ by about 11:30am. Once we got to the house the 3 of us pretty much collapsed on the couch until about 4 or 5. We were awoken by the smell of Christmas dinner and the promise of presents.