(A White) Christmas in Kansas

The entire Slaven family was there for Christmas this year. Including a couple people I had never met before....Jonathan, Ronnie's brother who just returned from a 2 year mission in Russia AND baby Emma, Stephanie and James 1st born, who is a super cutie.

The festivities included...putting up the traditional
massive tree. (literally)

Opening gifts....


























Spending Christmas Eve night with Grandma Pettigrew during a "blizzard". There were some issues getting out of her long driveway.

and spending time with this lil' one. Being an aunt is fun and Ronnie is definitely liking the new title.

And you probably guessed....snow. This was taken ON Christmas...Ronnie wanted to make sure I had a picture of a white Christmas...since I've never had one, well that I can remember. (See previous post to see how I really feel about that...)

Not a Fan

Well I'm here sitting in Kansas, a couple days ago I thought we would never get here. We left Chesapeake at 4pm on Friday and started traveling...a couple hours later we encountered snow. Yes, lots of snow. I was driving at first but then the snow became a little to much for me to handle. Ronnie drove for the next 40+ hours. The snow became more intense and highways 64 and 81 were closed at certain points on Friday night. Thankfully, Ronnie has some mad skills with driving and my little Hyundai accent is somehow amazing in snow. After seeing thousands of cars off the road, truckers jack-knifed and tipped over, helping a trans am out of the snow, making new friends, sitting for hours upon end in traffic, almost having a heart attack (Me, Heather, that is), hiking up to our hotel in more than a foot of snow, sleeping only a few hours, eating lots of junkfood (basically nothing was open), seeing more snow than I ever wanted to...we got out of West Virginia. It took us until Sunday morning to make our way out of the snow. After that it was smooth sailing. We ended up getting to Kansas in about 50 hours....and its usually a 22 hour drive. I'm pretty sure if I go my whole life and never see another flake of snow, I will be perfectly happy. But, don't worry...it's supposed to snow here on Christmas. Am I a scrooge for NOT wanting a white Christmas. Maybe...but Christmas is still Christmas in Belize.

Fall Happenings

Fall was so warm and pretty this year. Lots of nice, sunny days (with a noreaster mixed in). Below is a picture of Ronnie by the soybean field at the end of my street

Thanksgiving was spent with my parents and our good friends Lila and Garrett Watts. We had such a good time eating and playing games!

Soon Ronnie will begin studying for the bar exam...I couldn't believe all the study materials he has...he takes it in February 2010!

We've been to a lot of Christmas parties and gatherings so far and I'll have to post about them later...including a very interesting Dutch tradition...Zwarte Piet.