Christmas Festivities (part 3) ... and New Years

Grandma Moreton with all the grandsons!

The morning after Christmas we headed out to spend the next week in Utah to spend time with my family. To say the least, the drive there was an adventure. We usually go I-80 and saw that the night before it was supposed to be sunny along our way. Sure enough after entering Wyoming we found out that I-80 was closed due to high winds with blowing snow. We quickly looked at our map and decided to take a back road in hopes that when we again met up with the interstate that it would be open. The back road was much trickier to find than we antipated and when we finally met back up with the interstate we did not see the flashing sign that it was closed. We cautiously entered I-80 only to find that we were the only ones on the freeway and that it must not really be opened. We faced the dilemma of what to do next, and decided that the only thing we could do was to keep driving. We also quickly realized why the freeway had been closed as we drove through some pretty deep snowbanks. We went several miles and exited the first rest stop area. After being stranded by ourselves at the rest stop Lamont realized that we were only about 7 miles from Laramie and that the freeway was open after that. So, it was back on the closed freeway hoping not to get a ticket ($500 fine). Once we reached Laramie I could see the policemen ushering people off the freeway that were going I-80 East. We quickly exited and got some lunch at Carl's Jr. I have never been so happy to see Laramie in all my life. We made it into Sandy just over 10 hours later (it should have been an 8 hr. drive). We felt lucky and blessed to have made it safely-and without a ticket.

The rest of the week was very relaxing and fun. We opened presents with my family and just enjoyed our time together playing lots of games and catching up.
We took the boys to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving point, watched lots of football, took in a movie, went bowling, did some shopping at the outlets, and went to a BYU basketball game.
We also rang in the New Year together after a tasty dinner at Tucano's Brazilian Grill and more game playing. Carter and McKay rang in the New Year a little early with some fireworks and cheesecake. It was a great way to start the new year off with family!