Expect the Unexpected

You never know what life will throw you!  Yesterday and old friend from my rodeo world tried to stop and see us.  He got stuck on the mountain (wish I would have had my camera), we tried to pull him out, it got worse, ended up 4 hours later with a tow truck to get him out, What a wreck.  He stayed at the bunkhouse last night and we got to catch up which was wonderful.  He was on his way home from a job where he has been stationed in Texas and trying to get back to Wall, SD but he had to fly to Billings, MT because that is where his home base is.  Check out this great song that some gentleman did in the Dallas airport where they were stuck because of flight delays!  Gotta love a capella music!

Expect the unexpected in every situation and in everyday!  And make the best of it, like the gentleman on the video said….when life gives you lemons….SING!  Well I’m no singer but you get the idea!  We are so thankful that our friend wasn’t hurt while his car was doing a 360 on the mountain where either side would have been a terrible situation if he would have went off!   We all made the best of the nasty situation (of which, it is STILL SNOWING on the mountain, its truly beautiful).

This morning my daughter pointed out to me this:

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Got Ice?  We do!  This icicle is perfect and is over 4 foot long!  You have to walk around it.  We should probably take it down for safety factors!

Share with us your favorite Christmas song!  

Just a short trip to town

Good Morning World!  Let me tell you a little bit about our day yesterday. We decided to take a casual, easy trip to town.  Granted its 15 miles by mountain, snow packed road but hey we have been here three weeks, we are old pros right? So we load up the kids, grab the 10 bags that we need (ok its only the diaper bag, the Princess’s picnic basket and book bag – afterall we can’t go ANYWHERE without those, and my purse….feels like 10 bags at least) and we head out on the road.  Our innocent trip to town took a bad turn about 6 miles into the journey.  I call it a journey because it is one.  Well, as it turns out on this road if you go too far to the right, there is a big rut you can get stuck in.  See below.

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Our RUT on the left side…Jeepers, its actually about 1.5 feet deep and after all the snow, its mud down there.

Ahh yes, some days the challenges may outweigh the joys but we won’t let this get us down.  So as the kids and I sit in the pickup, The Rancher who is always prepared begins to shovel, then we try it again, shovel more, try again, shovel more, try again….this is where the cussing begins (meanwhile we are listening and jamming to Christmas tunes in the car), shovel, try, shovel try, The Rancher jumps back in the pickup – let me take a moment to describe this – He is now down to just his long sleeve shirt, no gloves, no hat, sweating, his hair is actually frozen standing up, so I say “Hey, you could totally work for GQ with your hair like that”….absolutely no response, just a little smirk and then the phrase “F***ing A.”  We are going on an hour now.  He heads back out, Shovel, try, shovel try.  Meanwhile Nora is now telling me about this “Damn Rut” – her dad’s words, and we have hit Cody’s naptime, crisis mode.  I’m trying to keep everyone including The Rancher at ease with a smile even though I’m thinking, How in the hell will we get out of this mess.  No one to call that is not at least 30 minutes from here, we know only one family so far on this side of the mountain, what a wreck.  But The Rancher reassures me we will get out.  After about three more attempts and going on an hour and a half, we make the call, and our friends The Dosson’s from the West are going to head up the mountain to help us.  Not even kidding, William goes out and shovels a bunch more, try again and low and behold with a whole lotta praying, we get out of that rut.

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Nora thought maybe she should drive by now, Cody was pooped and crashed on us.

Ok smooth sailing from there right?  I mean we honestly have went 6 miles in about two hours.  Ok, lets just get to town, get the mail and pick up a few things at the store.  So down the mountain we head, about 5 miles later we come across this mess.

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No getting around that!  So we wait, meet and visit with the gentlemen working on getting the bus out.  It was backing up to turn around last night and went into the ditch (must have backed a little too far).  Thank gosh all the kids were safely delivered home!  This took about another 30 minutes and I was pretty sure the axel on the bus had broken when they were done, but no they drove it out of there.  There was an extra pickup on the road from one of the guys, so I jumped in it (no idea who these people are, but they needed a hand so they didn’t have to waste another hour getting that back to town) and took my first spin solo on the west road down the mountain.  We all made it to town after this extravaganza!   Got the mail (lots of fun Christmas cards, so to me it was totally worth the trip), grabbed a few groceries and headed back up to the Ranch.  3.5 hours later we were home.

Holy Buckets, I hope every trip is not this eventful.

This evening we went out to a Community Christmas Party (on the other side of the mountain…not the same road thank gosh!).  Met a ton of neighbors, had some great food….now if only to remember their names!

Tell me about a time when you got stuck in the snow and how you got out?!