January 9, 2009

Happy New Year!

Well, I did it again. I let three weeks pass since posting another blog. On my behalf, we have been extraordinarily busy. I was super sick the few days before Christmas. During that time, I had to take two extra days off work, pack and prepare our family for a Christmas trip to Omaha and prepare as much as possible for our New Year's extravaganza, since I would only have a day between coming home from Omaha and leaving for Running Y.

We were divinely meant to go to Omaha. Due to the outrageous snow storms in Portland and Seattle, flights out of Medford were pretty much at a stand still. Our initial plan was to drive to Klamath Falls on Christmas Eve, after Joe got off work, take a flight to San Francisco and from there take a red-eye to Chicago or Denver. Our hope was to arrive from one of those destination to Omaha some time Christmas morning.

As I prepared for our trip Christmas Eve morning, Joe called me from work and told me we may not have to drive to Klamath Falls, but would need to be at the Medford airport by noon if we were going to get out. I put myself into overdrive and we made it there, packed up and ready to go. We actually decided to go through Portland instead of San Fran because Joe saw that a flew flights were making it out and they miraculously had seats on them. We flew to Portland and arrived with 20 minutes until our next flight to Denver. There was no problem getting us on in 1st class--it was half empty.

We arrived in Denver and knew we were going to have to run for the Omaha flight as it was boarding, pretty much at the same time we were supposed to land. Also, it was pretty full. We got off at gate 47 and ran to the reader board. The Omaha flight was at gate 45...literally right next to us. I ran up to the counter as they were just beginning to board and asked if there were seats for us. The gate agent said he was just about to call our names. There were exactly five seats left and they were in 1st class once again (Ron flew with us if you're wondering about the "five"--no we have not added another Molzer since my last post). We immediately boarded and were in Omaha by 9:00 PM on Christmas Eve. Only God could have allowed that to happen.

We had a spectacular time with Ron's family and Laura's family. I learned how to make leftse and was a natural as it turns out. We did a Nativity pageant with all the kids at Judy's house--our boys were the cutest shepherds. And we sang/acted out the 12 days of Christmas. The white elephant gift exchange topped it all off. Unfortunately, our presents were of a size and nature that they could not be brought home--we donated them back for next year's exchange.

The trip home went less smoothly. After getting up at 3:00 AM central time, we tried for the first two flights out of Omaha and quickly found out our chances of getting our were not good--not for the entire day. We made a quick decision to drive to Denver (546 miles). We rented a car and got on our way. 11 hours later we arrived at the Denver airport. We blessedly made a flight to Portland where Joe's aunt Barb picked us up. We didn't get to her house until 1:00 Am (or 3:00 am central time). Yes, we were up for 24 hours straight trying to get back home. We got to sleep in wonderful warm beds at Barb's and she made us the best scrambled eggs ever that morning. Then we hopped a flight to Medford and got home around noon on Monday. We were exhausted, to say the least.

But alas, Joe had to work 15 hours on Tuesday and I had to prepare our New Year's trip for us and 16 other people. We took two vehicles, his Montero and my new mini-van, packed to the gills with food, games and gear. I cooked my rear-end off for five days and had a great time playing games, watching movies and talking with friends. New Year's is always a great time and worth the effort.

We got back Sunday afternoon and, once again, had virtually no time to prepare for the week ahead. I had taken two weeks off work, but really felt like a still needed a vacation. We started back to work bright and early Monday morning.

Our holiday season was very busy but we really did have a lot fun. I'm glad this week is over and I can start to play catch up. I'm also glad that we can get back to our normal routines. I am starting a weight loss regimen and participating in the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association's Lose-a-thon. You can check it all out, keep track of my progress and donate to the cause by going to my official page at our website: www.molzerfamily.com/lose.

That's it, as concisely as I can get in for the last three weeks. I'll keep up better with posting now that we're not going a million miles an hour.