The RockinRRanch

Jared here, Kimmy left the computer logged into blogspot so I thought I’d do some damage. Our plan was to leave early in the morning on Christmas day to head to Indianapolis hopefully on the road by 8am. I wasn’t feeling well with a head cold raging so I slept on the couch so I could sleep in a more upright position to keep my head draining. No I didn’t get into trouble I really had a head cold. So I woke up and it was starting to get gray outside and I still haven’t gotten use to the sun coming up at a later hour. I stumbled off the couch and walked over to the clock and it was 8:05 am. Opps. I woke Kimmy up and then went to check on the weather. Ice was expected up to a fifth of an inch. It was icy out and the radar showed a huge mess moving north but it appeared that the rain was arriving in Lansing so it hopefully melt quickly. We eventually hit the road at 9:15am and found some lovely icy conditions. I started down a route that would take us down mostly back roads…they weren’t too bad basically a two track of slush and Ice on both sides of that. I decided to opt for a more heavily traveled road not more than about 10 miles into our trip. That road was worse than the back road but figured once I got to the highway it would be better. The highway was worse yet. But we continued. Kimmy made some interesting panic sounds from the passenger seat. There were actually two instances where I thought I was going to put the van in the ditch, but thanks to the extra traction the rumble strip provided the van stayed on the road. I slowed it down a bit more. And once we were just north of Lansing the roads were much better. Quite the adventurous start. We made it to Indy and had a wonderful time with family. Opened presents on Saturday when Eric, Kat, Andrew and Noah arrived. We had a lot of fun. Mom certainly outdid herself with the sewing machine this year. Lots of wonderful items. Jacob and I found a show called “how it’s made” on cable and he really loves it. I do to actually, and a few times he wanted me to watch it with him and I had to tell Kimmy some what sarcastically that I just had to watch it with him. Supervisory sort of thing. Adam and Andrew seemed to like the balloons I blew up more than any of the toys so we had fun batting those things around. Demonstrating static electricity and sticking their balloons to the ceiling. Jacob has found a love of Lego’s and he played with the little set I got. He built some amazing cars using all the lego’s in the small kit. Very symmetrical. I’ll have Kimmy post them when she get’s a chance. A good time was had by all. We loaded up the van on Sunday and began the trip home. Now it started to snow earlier on that afternoon and by the time we hit the road at just after 2pm it was falling and accumulating somewhat. Then as I hit the highway I realized that IN hasn’t a clue when it comes to keeping up on clearing snow. So traffic wasn’t great and moving slowly then all of a sudden at about 51 miles into the trip it came to a stop. Ok so maybe an accident and we’ll be down to one lane and moving forward….so we waited. Then waited some more….then waited… and then waited some more. People got out of cars to let dogs use the bathrooms, we let the kids out of the car seats to stretch… and so we waited. Almost 2 hours later we started to move…but now the roads were even worse. We then went 45 to 55mph until we hit the MI boarder. Then all of a sudden the roads were clear, GO MI. and now we were able to hit 70 mph…it’s amazing how much better the roads were, still snowing. So anyway we stopped for dinner and then hit the road again. When we left Indy the GPS said we’d arrive home at 7:30pm… as we arrived home and pulled into the driveway the time was about 11:15pm. The boys were really wired to be home and didn’t fall asleep till sometime after Midnight. I was still wired from the drive as well. Funny thing was that previous week at work I was mentioning to a co worker how the drives to Indy the last few years had been wonderful during the Christmas season with no bad snow storms. We even had 46 inches of snow last December. How I use to count the cars in the ditch as I’d drive down and give my dad the grand total when I’d arrive, and so forth and so on. I think I’ll keep my mouth shut from now on.

Merry Christmas

Jared, Kimmy, Jacob, Adam and Thaddeus Joel Enoch Algernon Russell


12-25-09





12-26-09















12-27-09