The Great Snow of '06

We had a nice Christmas - and not just Christmas day. I went to bell choir the day I got to town, and the next day to a bell concert by Albuquerque's auditioned bell choir (really neat, I'm jealous) with Jim, Suzi, and Liz, and then hung around the Dresslers' with them and the Liebers (I guess I should say the Taylors too for Laura and Zack...) and the Sharps. We got into a heated discussion about gangs and the problems in the world with Jim - poor, sheltered Jim. Christmas Eve found us busy as usual, ringing at 10:30 so we had to be at church at 8:30, and then going to lunch with the girls again, to my Pop's house, back to church for the kids' service, staying at church to set up for the next service (and, let's be realistic, mostly for Holly Wambold's green chile chicken soup...it's a tradition), practicing bells again at 10, ringing at the 11 o'clock service, and finally dragging our butts home around 12:30. My mom worked on Christmas, so we were all supposed to hang out and wait for her to get home. I got to get up early to call Matt's parents to let them know he was coming...poor guy got stuck in Baltimore, but at least got out Christmas morning instead of the evening. When my mom got home we opened presents - I got a sewing machine and various odds and ends to accompany it. I gave my parents a home theater system (my jet lag worked in my favor as I woke up at 7 the first day I was home and went out and bought it before anyone else woke up) so now my mom can hear things at a normal volume. My dad got a stereo, my brother got a DVD player from me and a digital camera from my parents. My mom got a big fan and some jewelry. My daddy also gave me a pretty topaz ring. He's not real subtle, so I knew it was coming...but I like it! My grandfather also gave me a beautiful hand-made jewelry box that even has a music box in it - it plays "The Top of the World," which is a song that I always used to listen to on one of my grandmother's music boxes. It is a really really awesome gift. He also gave me one of his one-of-a-kind mosaic bowls that he has been making - this is one of the less complicated ones - they are extremely cool. On top of that, I conned my dad out of a couple of the mushrooms he's been carving. Those weren't for Christmas, though. In all, it was a very enjoyable Christmas!



When I got to my parents' house in Albuquerque, there was already a decent snow covering on the bushes and some sidewalks. It started snowing again on the 28th, and didn't stop until the 30th. It is the biggest snow storm Albuquerque has had since the 50s. We got about 21 inches at my house - truly amazing. My mom and I took the dogs for a walk on Saturday and we saw people out cross country skiing in the street! It was sweet. My brother got stuck at his girlfriend, Morgan's house on Friday night because my dad wouldn't go out to get him, and when we went to pick him up on Saturday the truck was buried more than half way up the tires. We went to lunch that day, and the only place we could find that was open was Olive Garden - and they had a 45 minute wait in an empty restaurant! We were patient, though, and it was pretty neat to be out in the snow. Driving around town we saw several broken trees, a few caved in car-ports, a few broken power lines, and a whole gas station that caved in! It was a unique experience.



Being home always makes me anxious to move back to Albuquerque. There is something about the style, pace of life, and general quality of everything that makes me long for it. I'll admit that the food in Baltimore is great, but the people I love most are in Albuquerque (except Matt, but he's portable). My little cousins are so huge. Jonah is 3, almost 4, and we spent the whole time at the Christmas Eve service spelling things and writing letters. He's going to be way ahead. He's on track with Noah, who is also learning to read, talking everyone's ear off with a huge vocabulary, and who is continuing to get really good at sports (ok, so right now it's just gymnastics, but he's going to be good at sports). I miss seeing them grow up! Sigh. Just have to get this education and experience and get myself back here.

My little brother is going to be famous some day. You can tell because he wears girl pants and has stupid hair. :-) But we went to watch his band, "The End of a Revelation," play their first show at the Compound the day after Christmas. Their instrumentation was good, but their "singer" was just a screamer, and I don't care for that. But with cotton in my ears it wasn't so bad. They got a good enough turn out to get paid for the gig - 40 bucks, but still.



Now I'm sitting at the Albuquerque Airport (voted one of the most traveler-friendly airports, partly due to their free wireless internet access!) waiting for my flight. It was supposed to leave at 7:41, then it was delayed to 9 (thank goodness I was smart enough to check that last night so I got to sleep a little more), now we're going on probably 10:30. I'm going to miss my connecting flight, and for all I know I'll end up stuck in Chicago, but you know what? I'm ok with that. I got to see snow and my family, and I don't really want to go back to teaching anyway.