Christmas Break (the extended version)

Christmas in IF at the Taylors'.

Our humble Christmas tree in Rexburg

It’s been a crazy past 3 weeks. My (Will's) semester ended December 12, and Sandy and I planned on leaving for Lake Tahoe, where her dad lives, a week after the following Monday. The week after my semester ended was spent in part doing a lot of packing. I also got a job at Western Watts, where Sandy was working.

I really underestimated the magnitude of the moving task. We “started” by taking the Prizm (the car I drive) and the Focus (the car Sandy drives) full of stuff to Rigby on Monday. Then on Friday I took the Prizm (full) to Idaho Falls, and Sandy drove the Focus (full of stuff also) and we picked up my parents' van and trailer (we had to push the trailer from the back yard, and the yard was full of snow, so that made it a bit difficult. Sandy went to work and I went home and started some more packing and moving stuff. I got one of our neighbors to help me move the couches, bed and dresser. I got the trailer and the van pretty full, and I then went and picked up Sandy from work, and we went to Idaho Falls. By that time I was really sick of moving. I was frustrated with myself for not asking others to help, because it was a huge job for one person. We spent the night in Idaho Falls, then came back early the next morning for Sandy to work. I cleaned and packed while she was at work. Originally I had thought that we would finish by early afternoon. Well, it didn’t work out quite like that. We cleaned and packed all day, then that night, we went to Idaho Falls, to take a load of stuff, and to attend a wedding reception. When we got back up to Rexburg it was around 10, and we went back to packing and cleaning. We had brought up and air mattress and sleeping bags. We finally went to bed at 3, and finished the last things the next day.

Monday we awoke to 8 or so inches of new snow, with it still snowing. We planned to leave around 9, so that we could get to Reno by 9 PM, since we were going to pick up Sandy's sister Amy, who was flying in. We made it to Salt Lake ok although it was really trecherous the whole way.
The drive from Salt Lake to Reno was pretty uneventful. Amy called and told us that her flight was delayed. It started to look like she wasn’t going to get there that night, then finally we found out that she was going to get there around 12:30 AM. We got to Reno around 9 and went to In and Out Burger!! Sandy had talked to her dad, and he had told us that it was snowing hard in Tahoe. I had bought chains the week before, and figured out (or so I thought) how to put the chains on. So we thought we'd be ok...
The snow started after we left Reno. We got to a stretch between Reno and Carson City that said chains or snow tires were required, but I decided not to put the chains on unless I had to. We made it over the small pass without problems, then when we got through Carson City, onto the road to go over the pass to get into Tahoe, we pulled over to put the chains on. I got the chains put on, and we got on our way. We went 20-25 mph the whole way. At one point we got to a parking lot type thing that was lit, where I decided to check the chains. they were ok, but I tightened them a little. As we went to pull out back onto the road I was pretty confident in the ability of the chains to drive through the rather deep snow that we had pulled into to check the chains, and didn’t pull out as cautiously as I should have, and the tires started spinning and one of the chains fell off. I got out to put it back on, this time a bit cold because I was wet because from when I had put them on. I thought I got it back on, but when we got going it fell off. This time, we were in the middle of the road, where there were no lights, and it was snowing hard, and 3:00 in the morning. Suffice it to say, I was a bit worried. However, where we had pulled off to check the chains had been the summit of the pass, so I decided that rather than try and put the chain back on, we’d just try it with chains on one tire. We got going pretty well, then that one fell off. So I thew that one in the car, and we went with no chains. Fortunately we made it. The only problems we had were when we tried to pull into the neighborhood where Sandy’s dad lives, we got a bit stuck. So, Amy and I pushed and Sandy drove, and we got there, at 4 AM.
In Tahoe, there were lots of people that drove around with chains on that were very similar to the ones I had used, and I didn’t understand why theirs worked so much better than mine. Finally, I looked at one up close, and then at mine, and realized that I had put mine on upside down. I am so grateful that we got to Tahoe with as little difficulty as we did. I am so grateful that the chains stayed on, even with them being on upside down.
The first few days in Tahoe were spent doing a bit of sightseeing and helping out at Sandy's Dad's stores.
On Christmas evening, after we had opened presents, gone to Sandy's dad's store for awhile and gone snowmobiling, I noticed that my keys were missing. We had gone snowmobiling. The keys could have fallen out anywhere. Numerous times the thought had gone through my mind in the previous days that I needed to make a copy of my key (I hadn’t brought a spare) but doing that hadn’t been convenient, so I didn’t. I thought of what I could do, and decided to call my mom to ask her to mail me a spare, since I had left a spare in Idaho. I had planned on waiting as long as possible to tell Sandy, but she came into the room when I was talking to my mom. Neither of them were too happy with me.
My mom overnighted the keys to me on Friday, which meant that they were supposed to get there by Saturday. Well, they didn’t arrive until Monday, which was quite inconvenient for us but taught me a valuable lesson about, well, having a brain.
The day before we left we went to eat at a health food restaurant where I had a shot of wheat grass. If you are reading this, and haven't had a shot of wheatgrass in your life, I recommend it. It smells like grass clippings, and tastes like grass clippings. But supposedly it's good for you.
Tuesday morning we drove to LA. We were planning on going to the Rose Parade on New Years and sitting with some people that my grandma knew who always stake out a spot. The day before the parade, on New Years Eve day, we decided to drive the parade route, and it was so crazy to see how many people were already there, camping out.
We went to the parade on New Years around 7. It was fun waiting for the parade and watching all the people. Where we were sitting there are a lot of members of the church that come, and the guy who kind of organizes that seating place had a seating chart and everything, and people from the group brought food. It was pretty cool. The parade itself was really cool. The floats are all made of living things, as in there can be no plastic or anything like that for decoration. A couple of the floats even had portraits on them, which were done with things like seeds and rice. The majority of the color on the floats is done with flowers, and they’re just beautiful. The only downsides were that we were at the end of the route, so the marching bands were really tired, and we were sitting just on the other side of where the route goes through an underpass, under the freeway, and some floats have to be lowered to make it under, and some of the floats didn’t get risen back up.
Friday we drove back home. We stopped and visited one of Sandy’s old roommates in Provo, then drove the rest of the way to Ogden, where we were going to stay with Bonnie. She just gave birth to her second son, who they named Preston Dean Hall.