1/1/11

Early in the morning on 1/1/11 we got in our truck, loaded with all of Isaac's possessions, and headed up north. We were heading up to Utah for a quick stop and then on to Rexburg to deliver Isaac to BYU-I.

The trip to Utah is routine for us but with the weather had been quite severe so we contemplated going through Las Vegas. It is not much longer for us to make the trip through Vegas from this house. But after some consideration we just forged ahead our usual way. Isaac was wonderful company! NOT! And in many ways the trip was NOT usual.

We could see snow sprinkled mountains almost from the start. When we were still 60 miles outside of Flagstaff everything was covered with snow.

Before long the beautiful red rock mesas were peeking through the fluffy white stuff.

Then the snow got deeper. We could tell it was really cold outside.

Then the roads quit being completely clear and became partly covered with packed snow.

Shortly after that we had some real excitement. We heard a loud noise and immediately felt a thump, thump, thump. Yep, flat tire. Well wasn't that exciting? Dad sprung into action. I got the owners manual to help figure out how to release the spare tire from underneath the truck.

Isaac stood around - in his SHORTS! He was able to use his brute strength to lift the tailgate slightly so dad could get the tire off the truck.

I took a couple of pictures that turned out pretty good. But then the camera refused to work. I guess it just froze up - ha, ha - get it? Froze up?! Pretty funny. But really I called Scott and had him look at what the temperature was in Beaver, UT and it was a frigid 14! But we took care of the problem and continued on.

Anyway, we made it to Utah and had a great time visiting with Evan and Shanna, Lindsey and Rob, and of course the grandkids. We stayed through the weekend and then headed north to Idaho. Isaac and I drove the white Corolla with Kristy (Shanna's sister) squeezed into the back seat. And after dad got a new tire for the truck he headed up alone.

We stayed at Aunt Marcielle's house in Idaho Falls while we helped Isaac move into his apartment and get all set to start his classes. We enjoyed visiting with them and had a restful nights sleep. We only stayed one night because it snowed all day and we didn't want to get snowed in.

They had the snow plows out on the highway on our trip back to Utah.

We made it back to Utah and enjoyed celebrating Calvin's first birthday with everyone. I think I've already shared most of our fun times with them. But here's a picture of a nice icicle that Sadie just had to eat. Yummy!

That concludes my saga of how we started the new year - 1/1/11.

(Better late than never!)