I’ve put away the Christmas decorations. That’s right, y’all — if I’ve gotten my days mixed up and today is actually December 20th or something, DON’T TELL ME because I’ve put away the Christmas decorations. (Insert video montage here of me twirling and dancing around the extra space in my living room. Ahhh….)

Christmas was a bit unusual this year. Wes and I are Texas-born, Texas-grown, so the closest we’ve gotten to “winter storms” have been those rare occasions when the roads have iced and collected about half an inch of powdery snow-like substance. We took the girls to Chickasha to see the Christmas lights on Monday night last week and even commented about how bearable the colder weather was since it was a DRY cold. Should have kept our mouths shut because on Christmas Eve, it started icing. Then, it started snowing. By that evening, we were under eleven inches of snow (!!!) and were in what the weather men on TV were calling a blizzard. A BLIZZARD, y’all! (And I know that those of you from up north are rolling your eyes over this since you go out and sunbathe in worse weather than this, but let me tell you — it was a BIG deal to us!) BC was appropriately horrified and stopped eating so as to avoid trips to the backyard. Smart dog.

Wes’s parents made it into town before the weather turned bad, then couldn’t even make it down the road to their hotel for the night. So, we had a full house (no guest room, since each of our girls has her own room) with limited groceries since I wasn’t planning on being snowed in and needing to feed six people for two days. I had bought food for a Christmas Day brunch, which meant that we ended up brunching morning, noon, and night for two days. Ha! The girls loved being snowed in, mainly because that gave them plenty of time to play with the hordes of princes and princesses and the gigantic castle that Wes’s grandmother got them. If we hadn’t taken them out to build a snowman, I’m not sure they even would have known it snowed. This is how preoccupied they were with the castle and its occupants. (Ana was also very exuberant about the “scratchy-book” that she got me for Christmas, asking every few minutes if I was going to need all of the princess stickers that came with the kit. Someone was looking to take back part of the gift that she gave!)

We made it through Oklahoma and down into Texas on Christmas evening, stopping by my parents’ house for the night and doing our Christmas with them. Em received a Belle Christmas dress, complete with shiny gold high heels, and twirled, twirled, twirled all through my parents’ house. So sweet! And so very stylish, especially when she put on a pirate hat with it.

We got in the car AGAIN the next day and drove down to San Antonio. Along the drive in Oklahoma, we had seen a dog lying on a couch out in the middle of the snow-covered road. Hmm. I had hoped to see something equally interesting on the drive into San Antonio, but believe it or not, there wasn’t ANY snow! Just increasingly hotter and hotter weather, until we were there and half of the winter clothing I had been wearing had been cast off somewhere in the middle of the state. Tundra to tropical in one day! God bless Texas.

The rest of the weekend was spent with Wes’s extended family. Wes and I were able to get away for an evening to do some shopping and eat at one of Wes’s favorite restaurants, which he tried to sell to me by saying, “This is the San Antonio equivalent of Waffle House.” Y’all, comparing something to the Waffle House is never a ringing endorsement. Surprisingly enough, though, it was good. And it was GREAT to get some time out and about with Wes after so many family gatherings and being holed up in our house. The girls, meanwhile, enjoyed the time with Coach and Nana, watching videos about Disney World and getting excited about seeing the sites. (For those who don’t remember, Wes’s parents gifted all six of us with a trip to WDW this Christmas. We leave at the end of January. Eeeeee!!!!! We’re so excited!)

We had our last Christmas celebration on Monday night in Fort Worth with my dad’s extended family, then raced back to Duncan yesterday morning before it started snowing late in the afternoon. Wes had been shoveling snow out of the church parking lot when he called me to tell me that it was snowing again and that we’d likely be stuck in the house again for a day or two. This morning, though, it was back up to 34 degrees, and the roads were clear enough for him to go into work. I’m sad that he’s not here but very glad that we can leave the house if we want to. Not that we will after all the travel we’ve been doing, but we could if we wanted to, which makes all the difference in the world.

And that? Was the most boring blog post ever. Here’s hoping for more interesting news in 2010…