christmas riches, travels, weather, and tylenol

we had an abundant Christmas, filled with the people we love and so many presents I have to remind myself of the riches of it all. between work and holiday we spent a lot of time on the road, but the travel was made so much nicer by husband's dependable driving (allowing me to catnap when necessary), fun books to read, and Alistair Begg podcasted sermons (M's a fan now). I totally dropped the ball and didn't take near enough pictures of anything... I didn't even break out the camera once at celebration 3.0 with all of my cousins and their gorgeous children, which is a bit embarrassing... but we seriously had an excellent and special holiday this year and feel so grateful for our families right now.

the big news was the blizzard in Hico on Christmas Eve. we usually head home a few days before Christmas and spend time at the ranch, hanging out with the family and doing last minute shopping. the storm blew in as we were opening our presents with my family Thursday morning, and we all kept looking out the windows in excitement as a few little snowflakes turned into a churling sea of swirling snow. afterward, the reality of our predicament hit - my brother's family needed to drive to Abilene, and M and I were to head for Houston. we loaded up our cars and took off around 3p. since we were headed south, the storm cleared and despite the crazy wind we had a relatively smooth trip to Houston (more specifically, to the Bell's house). Kev, Linda, and Mo, however, spend most of the night on I-20... a normally 2 hour drive took them 16.5 hours, and they rolled into Abilene Friday morning. unreal, right?! I'm sure their nerves were fried, but we were so glad they made it safely.

here's a stylized clip of the blizzard... (music provided by Bjork)... it's hard to tell because of the size, but the snow was blowing sideways and the wind took your breath away:

and a few snapshots of the day there:

Grandma, Grandad, and Sassie

Thanks for the karaoke machine, Santa!

He's not really asleep.

but HE is... I love this sweet picture of Grandad and Sassie! we got Grandad a warm, rust-colored blanket and he and Sassie were cuddled up in it most of the morning.

Mo got so many fun things, but she really liked her Ariel umbrella...

and speaking of fun things, here's my darling niece using her karaoke player to spread the love:

Christmas at the Bell's was so lovely. I slept like a ROCK at their house, and woke up to a day of feasting - first on J's delicious muffins, fruit, bacon, and apple cider, and then later on husband's salt-crusted standing rib roast, mashed potatoes, peas, corn, and rolls. drool. we had such a great, relaxing day.

so pretty, isn't it?!

M playing his Ghostbusters PS3 game.

then we got back on the road and drove up to Hico again for YaYa's Christmas at my aunt and uncle's house, and it was such a good time. most of my cousins and their families were there, and since we don't get to see one another very often it was so wonderful to spend time with them. we stayed the night at Mom and Dad's and left for Dallas Sunday after lunch (and a nap!). Sunday night we went out to eat and bedded down at our hotel, then I dropped M off at the airport yesterday morning so he could fly home while I stayed to work. the forecast looked pretty bad for today, so I ended up rescheduling the work I was supposed to do today and headed home last night (which was a good thing - they sent everyone home from the studio today at 2 due to icy roads). by the time I got in at 10:15 last night I was SO tired... M fed me a plate of food and I fell asleep leaning against him on the couch...

SO, all in all we had an exceptional holiday, and I'm so glad we made it through safely. the only bummer was that my tooth was giving me a hard time through all of it - remember the broken tooth? the temporary crown? yeah, it started hurting last Monday and I survived this holiday by downing Tylenol every 4 hours. I am still astounded at how pain in my mouth so affected the entire side of my head/neck/shoulders, and my respect for people who endure chronic pain is quadrupled. I ended up at my dentist's office at 9 this morning and had a full-on root canal. don't even bother feeling sorry for me - after the serious discomfort of dealing with pain for the last week, I was all 'yeah! a root canal for me, everybody! bring it, doctor, drill it good!' the dentist did mention that he could give me an antibiotic to 'calm the tooth down' and try to wait it out until after the baby is born, and I was like, 'hey, as long as a root canal is safe then please put me out of my misery this instant and don't tease about this lasting FIVE MORE MONTHS...' he wrote me a prescription for Tylenol with codeine, which my doctor said I could have, but so far I've chosen not to fill it and have opted to try my trusty Extra-Strenth Tylenol and see how it goes. I mean, I've already felt uncomfortable taking one 500mg Tylenol every 4 hours for the past week - I'm not a girl who takes meds much, really, and even though I got the okay from my doctor I still don't love the idea of our baby being affected at all by my pain reliever. I'd just rather not introduce the codeine if I don't have to, and honestly the little bit of discomfort I've felt so far is NOTHING compared to the ear-aching/temple pounding/neck spasming pain beast that's been waking me up every night for the past seven days. so, we'll see. if I have a bad night, I'll probably be at CVS first thing in my fuzzy houseshoes frantically waving my prescription around...

husband has made me delicious soup and has promised sympathy for today's oral trauma, so I'm going to go don my pajamas and act like my mouth hurts worse than it really does (for now, anyway). things I'm thankful for:

husband.

our families.

this soup.

the dentist!

the heater.

our wonderful gifts... I had so much fun putting things away today!

an afternoon at home.

things to look forward to.

peace.

-m.y.