Snow Days...Are You Kidding?

It does not seem fair at all. A couple of days ago in snowed. It snowed so hard that nearly 2 inches of snow accumulated on the ground. School was the subsequently closed for 3 days. It was a very creepy feeling driving to work and realizing that I was the only one driving around in the entire city of springfield. The place looked like a ghost town.

I laughed when I heard the poor radio host have to read off all of the schools that were closed, she should probably take a night job as an auctioneer. The snow has been fun and not too much of a bother. Unfortunatley for the kids, their spring break just got a bit shorter.

Lawson Family Holiday Vacation(s)

We just put over 5,000 miles on our mini-van in 2 months.
Liz and I pondered over the necessity of a DVD player installed in our van when we bought it almost a year ago. We decided to and now count that decision the most inspired revelation of our married life.

Our travels began shortly before Thankgiving. We loaded up the van and set a course to Chicago. Traveling with so many women in one car refines and molds a man into a vision of patience. Though inconceivable to me, apparently needing to use a bathroom every hour and a half is a trial that those of the fairer sex have grown accustomed to and I, by personal witness, am amazed.

Chicago was a lot of fun. We stayed at my sister's apartment which is only a few minutes from dowtown Chicago. Unfortunatley for us, my sister was not at her apartment, but was in Utah visiting family.

Thanksgiving at Aaron and Maggie's was awesome. There were so many kids there and it was fun to see them all playing together. And to whoever made the key-lime pie,you will have gold shingles placed on your mansion in heaven.

As part of the festivities, the ladies went to see Wicked, which, judging by the amount of times the soundtrack has been played in our house and car, was a lot of fun. It was a highlight for the girls. I got to drop them off and pick them up from the theater in downtown Chicago. I have never been in a city that size. It was incredible and mind boggling. The architecture of the city is something that can be enjoyed for a long time.

I ran in an 8k with Amelia and Michelle. I beat them both to claim the title "Turkey Trotter Extraordinaire". It turned out to be close to a half-marathon though. We lost the car and wandered for quite sometime through some of Chicago's more, ummm, colorful parts of town.

Fast forward 3 weeks and again we were loading up the van on our way to Utah. FYI, http://www.weather.com/ is not a reliable site for weather information. My hands have still yet to uncurl after driving, white knuckled, for most of the 22 hours it took. My hat goes off to those who live along the I-80 corridor in Wyoming. Truly those people are strong willed or mentally unstable.

Utah was great. Each day the kids got to play with there cousins, we were able to see friends from Bountiful and visit the ward. Katie was able to spend a day with her friend Sister Pope. We will let the pictures do the talking of our expereinces in Utah.

We were grateful for the feelings of sorrow we felt as we left to come back. That might sound strange but it confirmed to us that indeed family is the most important thing to us.
Driving back to Missouri was exceptional. In fact we drove straight through and did so in 4 hours less than it took us to drive to Utah.