Not Our Lucky Day!!

Well - after 6 years in Iowa we finally picked the wrong days to travel. I find this ironic because I was just telling Dave how lucky we have been to never have had a cancelled flight or any major traveling problems since living here. Our lucky streak ended this week. Our oldest niece is getting married tomorrow in Utah and unfortunately we will not be able to go. We thought we had planned well and allowed 2 extra days for travel in case we had some bad weather and had delayed flights. As we watched the weather all week we thought we had planned PERFECTLY! Our area was supposed to get a big snow/ice storm that would start sometime Thurs. afternoon and our plane left Thurs. morning. We woke up and started getting ready when Dave decided to check our flight info. and that is when our bad luck started. Our flight was cancelled due to weather. We couldn't believe it because it was nice and sunny outside! We called the airline and found out that our connecting flight in Dallas was cancelled because of dense fog! They couldn't get us out on anything Thurs. but put us on their first flight out today and this time they had us connecting in Chicago. We told them we were worried about this because of the big storm that was coming through and what if this flight was cancelled. They just told us to hope for the best.

Well - the freezing rain started at 6pm last night and it was still going when I woke up at 2:45am to start getting us ready to go. Even though we had freezing rain all night the airline still had our flight leaving on time. I was about to wake up Dave but then decided to check our flight from Chicago to SLC and wouldn't you know it - it was cancelled! I called the airline back and they started looking for another flight that would get us all into SLC sometime today but the earliest flight they had with 3 seats wasn't until 3:30 tomorrow (Sat.) afternoon! Liz's wedding is Sat. morning so we are going to miss the whole thing! Our one piece of good luck is that the airline gave us a full refund for our tickets because we missed the event we were going for. Of course we are sad about missing the wedding and not being able to see family and show off our newest addition. And Dave was really excited to finally show Lauren "Real" mountains. So it looks like we will have to try to get out to Utah another time so Lydia can meet her Folsom Grandparents who are currently serving an LDS Mission at the Provo MTC.

We have been trying to enjoy the holiday season though. We had our ward Christmas party last weekend and had a fun time with friends. And Lauren had a Christmas performance at her dance studio. It was fun to see her first dance performance and it was extra special because Santa was there too and he gave her a candy cane after her dance. We also had our annual friend gingerbread house making party with all of Lauren’s friends. We had a great time being with friends and eating candy and frosting! And now that we will be staying in Iowa and missing out on our holiday fun with family in Utah we need to find a few more things to do! I think we need to rent some holiday movies and have some fun evenings cuddled up in front of the fire with some yummy popcorn and orange Julius. And we will definitely be making sugar cookies a little closer to Christmas Day to give to Santa. And we are looking forward to our Christmas Eve Party with a bunch of our friends who are also staying in Iowa for the holidays. All the kids will be acting out the nativity and Lauren gets to be an angel.

So for your viewing pleasure – here are a few recent pictures of the girls.

After their group performed Santa gave each of the girls a candy cane and they got to have their pict. taken with him.

I LOVE the look of sheer joy on her face. This was right after they danced and she has her candy cane in one hand and her star wand that they danced with in the other!

So Happy! And you can even see Lydia back behind.

Our Gingerbread (Grahm Cracker) House. We made ours "Adobe" style (very Arizona) with a flat roof so we could pile it high with candy!

Since we were supposed to be in Utah this Sunday we let the girls wear their Christmas Dresses to church last week. This was our attempt at trying to get a quick picture before running out the door.

Last week Lauren walked up to me dressed like this and asked me to take a picture of her "style"! I though it was so funny that she then started posing for the camera.

I love it when she is sleeping so peacefully - all snuggled up in her BundleMe - as I run errands all over town!