Crazy Christmas...

This Christmas was one of the craziest I have ever had. Anyone who has never gone on a 14 hour road trip with a toddler, a baby, and two dogs……I envy you ha ha.

So all this started off with the drive from here to New Mexico. Mapquest said it would take around 12 hours so we planned on taking something like 14 because of the kids and dogs. To our surprise we made it all the way through El Paso without any issues at all. No kid or dog emergencies, no frequent stops at the bathroom. Everything was going great….I should have known it was the calm before the storm.

Right about the time we get through El Paso and up toward Las Crusas Katie started crying and saying that she didn’t feel good and that she had a head ache.

Jesse and I talked about whether or not we should stop and when Kate heard us she said no and that she wanted to go to grandmas house. She didn’t care how bad she felt she just wanted to get there.

So we get through Crusas and by this point I think Sophie was crying too. I decided to pull Kadence up with eme and calm her down first. It did the trick. She settled down pretty good and was just chilling. About five minutes into her chill she leaned forward and threw up all over my pants.

Now I am not going to go into any detail or anything, all I will say is that it was absolutely nasty.

So we pulled over and I got a bumch of wipes and tried to clean my pants the best I could. Of course Kate now feels great and is just chatting away talking about how she puked on us. She thought it was pretty great.

After Jesse fed Sophie we headed off again. Before too long I got a call from my sister asking us how the weather was. I told her that up until this point it has been great. She told me that it was snowing really heavy at their house so we better watch out.

Apparently the storm was heading south because it didn’t take long for us to get into it. Heavy heavy snow.

As kids usually are, Kate was stoked to see all the snow. Jesse was excited but nervous because she was te one driving the truck. I was yelling out the window at the clouds to knock it off.

We drove around 30MPH for what felt like forever until we reached a place named Soccorro and we decided to call it a night. The storm was getting pretty bad and Jesse and I were both not comfortable going on.

We got a room in the first place we found which turned out to be a Motel 6. This will be the last time I ever stay at one of those by the way. As we pulled in to park we see that the place is filling up pretty fast and the cars that have been there for a while have something like 5 inches of snow on them. This is really bad for New Mexico. Try driving in any aount of snow with NM drivers and you will see what I mean. It’s like their brains freeze with everything else.

So we get out and get inside. We planned ahead and packed one of my backpacks with enough clothes for us all to stay one night somewhere and be ok. Unfortunately I planned on making my pants work two days in a row…and now they smell like kid puke. I thought about unpacking our other bags but they were all wrapped up in tarps, tied in place, then add the 6 inches of snow on top of it…I wasn’t going to try it.

We got everyone settled and by this time it was like 9Pm so we got to have the battle with the girls about bed time. Jesse and I are ready to pass out and the kids are still going strong. Happens every time. After a little while the girls calmed down and everyone fell asleep…finally.

The next morning almost first thing we did was to look up the road conditions only to discover that I-25 is shut down from Las Crusas to thirty mile north of where we were at.

Really? Thirty miles? That was all that separated us from freedom. I forgot to mention that our room had just enough space for the two twin beds, we only had two towels, two hand towels, and one cup. Bare minimums here.

So we spend all day sitting in this tiny room, with about 6 TV channels. Talk about difficult. If a person can survive an experience like that then Afghanistan will be no problem. I promise.

We got a call around 3 or 4 in the afternoon saying that they opened the road for just a little while to let some people get through and we were advised to hurry and get there. We scrambled….loading kids, dogs, bags, foog, toys…..and everything else that comes with a family. This was when I put my pants back on and almost threw up on them again. They have now had a full day to sit and stew…..I could smell them standing up strait. Awesome I know.

So we finally get to the truck and loaded and off we go. We get over to the interstate…..and get stopped. We are like the third car back…they had just closed the road again. We missed it by no more than ten minutes.

Now you can imagine the disappointment that everyone felt (Sophie not included). It was bad. So we turned around and headed back to our new home. Katie didn’t understand of course. She was so confused as to why we were going back to the hotel. She asked us about fifteen times why they wouldn’t let us get to Grandmas house.

The dogs were another story. They were also sick of being stuck in such small quarters.We all noticed that our socks started to go missing and didn’t find out until right before we left that our puppy Harley had been gathering them under one of the beds. Xxon was also sick of what was going on. He let us know by deciding to pee on one of my boots. No warning, no reason, but right in the middle of the room. I about lost it lol.

We finally get everything settled and ordered pizza for dinner. Luckily Dominos was still running through the storm.

By this point there is only one towel left. I don’t know where all the others went but we just had one now and it wasn’t a clean one. I called the front desk to discover that the hotel was completely booked and the guy said they would get us a towel when they could.. We never got one…

After a lot more of nothing but jokes about “The Shining” bed time finally arrived. We got the girls down…after a lot of yelling and crying. About thirty minutes after they all fell asleep I got a text from a friend saying that the roads were open….

I did my absolute best to talk my wife into waking the girls up and getting out of ther while we still could…I lost. Surprise.

I slept terrible both nights and was awake the next morning at 4am. I debated whether or not to wake Kate up first then act like she did it alone after she woke everyone else up….luckily for me she did it all on her own around 5. We got everyone loaded and got going. Finally.

We pulled in my parents driveway a little after 7am and I layed on the horn to announce our arrival to everyone.

We still had something like 8 inches of snow in the bed of the truck. We all smelled horrid, especially me with my puke pants on. But we were so happy just to be there.

Now that was just getting there….

Fortunately the rest of the trip was a lot better. It was the typical house with a ton of people in it. It reminded me of the first Home Alone movie when everyting was so crazy and packed. Seriously if someone went missing nobody else would have noticed for a few days at least. It was awesome though.

During this trip my bro in law and I also got to work on our scuba certifications. We spend a few hours at a time over 3 days up at the dive shop and the pool working on the basic skills. What a blast! I absolutely love it.

Camren took some video on his iPhone that I will somehow figure out how to post on here.. I did put it on YouTube though so if you don’t feel like waiting hjust search “Malarsie scuba” and a video called something like “Blind scuba diver” will come up.

I was told that whenever I was gone scuba diving my dog sat by the door waiting for me to come back.

So after lots of craziness at the house it came time to head home. You can imagine how Jesse and I were dreading the trip home.

This time I had my phone at the ready and video taped different events as we drove home. I compiled it all into a ten minute movie. It is pretty funny too.

We got lucky on this trip and nothing bad happened. Kate had us stop about every hour to use the bathroom but other than that it went smoothly. We left my parents place a little after 7am and rolled into our driveway just before 10:30. It was a long long long day. We had a great time though.

I still can’t figure out why crazy things happen to me all the time. I like fun and adventure but I like it when I get to choose what isgoing on….I don’t like it being left to fate ha ha.


In other news there is an adaptive sports clinic coming here to San Antonio in two weeks. They are going to have all sorts of cool sports and things to try out. I am very stoked about it.

As soon as I can find a place to turn some training materials into little handbooks the Mentorship program will be ready to rock and roll. I am hoping to start trainings this month. If not then it will for sure be next month. It is very very exciting!

That is about all I have at the moment everyone. Thank you all for reading and for all of the support. Good luck with the new year….which reminds me….

I have a friend in town here from my old unit in Kansas. He talked me into training to run a marathon in November this year…we went on a two mile run outside just a few days ago. It was the first time I have run outside in over two years. I miss it a lot and this was such a cool feeling. Running up and down hills again….that threw me for a loop. What fun. I will keep you all updated on the progress of the training.

Have a good one everyone and God bless!!