Why yes, you can have too much snow...as I am about to discover!

Our Christmas present to the kids this year was a trip to Klamath Falls to enable us some snow days.  The kids were sorely disappointed last year that they didn't get much snow time, so we thought this would be fun, and create a great family memory.  And honestly, my kids don't want for much so buying Christmas gifts is always hard for me.  I'm not so good at saving things up for holiday gift-giving (I'm going to work on that!!)

Brynne sculpted a Panda Bear

Anyway, we had a wonderful few days.  It was too brief for me.  I loved having all my kids around, no obligations, no housework.  Just books, games, hot chocolate and a warm fireplace, with occasional ventures out into the cold to play. 

Logan, Kenna, and Natalie probably spent the most time outside.  They played outside our little rental while the rest of us only really played at the snow parks.  But we were all happy that way!

I was so glad we bought snow gear.  What a difference proper snow attire makes.  I'd never played in the snow and been WARM before!

Hannah and I made this...whatever it is.

The really funny thing is, if we had known exactly how much snow would be falling in Grants Pass this year, I think Brynne and Logan (at least) might have opted for no snow trip.  

Favorite activity - snow tasting!

We capped off a day of snow play with some amazing BBQ in Klamath Falls that Josh had read about online.  It wasn't too expensive, either!  Everyone went home happy that night.  I got deep-fried mushrooms and zucchini, people.  Ah-Maz-Ing.  And the brisket was so tender.  Yummy.

We had Becksteads visiting for a few days and thoroughly enjoyed our time with them.  It was a little weird to be together in Grants Pass - but this time at OUR house.  We used to visit them whenever we could get away long enough to make the drive worth it and have a break from fog and super small towns.  Yes, funny as it seems now, GP was our excitement!

How did Jenny worm her way into this girl's affections so quickly?

On the very last day of December we left to take Hannah to school.  And I can't tell you how sad I was to miss the New Year's Eve fun but how grateful I was later that we made that call.  Our drive to Boise was clear and sunny with decent roads.

Amazing how beautiful the desert can be when it's covered in snow!

Our drive from Boise to Rexburg was a little overcast but the roads were clear.  We could not believe the amount of snow in Rexburg.  It was several feet deep and the roads in town were all covered by a thin layer of ice as I remembered them being in the middle of winter.  So fun.

at the Hathaways.  how do people live like this!?!

We stayed with Jason and Jasmin and had some visits with cousins of Josh and the Hathaways.  Always nice to see people we love.  We made two trips to Walmart to buy necessary supplies.  We registered at BYU-Idaho.  So here's something interesting.  We walked in and Hannah signed in at a desk.  We went upstairs where she got her student ID.  Then we went back downstairs to pick up her books.  The school has everyone pre-order their books and they were all hanging in little bags in a storage room.  She signed in again, walked into the storage room where a BYU Bookstore employee grabbed her bag, she paid, and she walked out again.  I was waiting outside with Faith and I think she was gone maybe three minutes.  Wow.  I remember combing the bookstore shelves for quite awhile trying to gather all the books I needed.  Very organized!

We moved her into her apartment and met some of her roommates and some of their parents.  

{We happened to video chat with her last night and I could tell that she's getting along really well with her room-roommate and I'm so glad.  Two cute Hannah's  (although the other girl spells her name wrong).  We were teasing our Hannah that it sounds like she's talking about herself in the third person all the time when she mentions her roommate.  Funny!}

Anyway, Faith wanted to know why Hannah had a new house.  She wanted to know where her bed was at this new house.  Earlier in the week she had been hanging out with Hannah a lot while Hannah was packing and she wondered where her suitcase was, too.  She did enjoy exploring Hannah's bedroom but got tired of all the waiting and boxes after awhile.

Josh and I attended the BYU parent orientation while Hannah was off getting student-oriented.  We were both very impressed with the format of the orientation.  First President Gilbert talked about the school - did you know that in any given trimester they have 18,000 students there, with almost 30,000 enrolled over the course of the year?  That's almost the same student population as BYU Provo.  They accept 90% of their applicants I believe - utilizing the Pathways program for people who aren't quite college ready. They've been very creative and innovative in how they've approached their educational format in an attempt to make the BYU experience more broadly available.  

her half of the room

After President Gilbert the remaining time was left for parent questions.  Several Deans/Vice-Presidents and other administrators were available to answer any questions we had.  I'm curious if there is another school in the country that has a meeting like this.  And not only that, they each finished their answer to a question they were asked by giving out their email address and also inviting people to call or stop by their office to receive any further needed assistance.  Amazing, really.

We had dinner at Applebees along with every other freshman and their family.  We went there as soon as orientation was over and were so glad we did.  We beat the rush by about 15 minutes.  Hannah's last supper.

Of course, eventually the time came for Hannah to sleep in her own apartment and we had to head back to Rigby.  We dropped her off and hugged her and tried not to cry too much.  Although the drive home was eerily silent with much wiping of the eyes by both of us.  It was weird.  

That night as I was heading to bed I sudden had a panicked thought - I couldn't remember if Josh had given Hannah her back-to-school Father's blessing when he did the other kids in September.  I was pretty sure that Hannah had not been home that night.  Josh checked (he happened to record them this year) and sure enough she didn't have one.  So we texted her and luckily caught her before she was in bed.  She agreed to getting up at the crack of dawn so we could run back up to Rexburg in the morning for that before we headed back to Oregon.  Wednesday morning we were up early, drove the 20 minutes to Rexburg.  It had snowed all night so the streets were deep with snow.  Hannah came out to the warm car and Josh was able to pronounce that blessing, which I think made us all feel better.  And we got to have one more hug.  Then we headed out.

The roads were pretty bad to Boise.  It took us 6.5 hours with only one brief stop for gas.  We had lunch in Boise.  It was so snowy.  The parking lot had 6 inches of fresh snow that we tromped through.  The restaurant owner warned us that the Interstate might be closed, but we were lucky that it was open and kept going.  Our plan was to make it to Kennewick that night.  Once we were west of Ontario the roads were clear and we were fine.  Interestingly enough, though, we found out later we beat the road closures all the way home.  We pulled off in Baker City to switch drivers and as I was getting back on the freeway to head west, all the eastbound traffic was getting routed off the freeway. Everything east of Baker City was getting shut down - we found out later that a windstorm had come up and was blowing the loose snow so fiercely that it was like a blizzard so they had to shut the freeway down.  And apparently the windstorm followed us for awhile.  If we'd spent more time in Baker City we might have been stuck there for a bit.  We were grateful to make it to Kennewick that night and so, so tired.

We drove to Corvallis on Thursday and had a pleasant visit with Mom and Dad (and Shannon drove with us, we got to hang out more)

We got home to a crazy-unusual amount of snow in Grants Pass.  Century-old records were broken.  Brynne and Logan were snowed in at the grandparents for a week.

It snowed more after we got home - this is our yard on Saturday.  By Monday the roads were clear enough for school to resume.  

 After another couple weeks of freezing weather, it's back up to a balmy 42 degrees.  I can really feel the difference.  I went to church on Sunday with just a cardigan on and was totally fine.  ha.  That would have been unimaginable in Fort Bragg.  I remember when it was in the 40s there - we thought we were going to die from cold.  Of course there was always a bitter wind blowing right through your body.  GP winds are small and rare - very unexciting.  (I think that's something else I miss - an exhilarating wind every once in awhile)