A Very White Christmas

I've been away for a while, so let's get caught up. I had a very white Christmas and traveled over 1,200 miles! Let me start from the beginning of the trip...We stayed our first night in Visalia at Aunt Debbie and Uncle Chuck's home. Mom called Debbie as we were leaving Costa Mesa (great planning Mom!), giving Debbie a whopping 5 hours notice. In the morning I woke up to a Larissa's little dog who's just my size!The highlight was getting to brush the dog's teeth. His toothbrush looks just like mine! Don't worry, I didn't get them mixed up.In the morning we continued on to Mt. Grandpa and Grandma's house. It was covered in what I called "ice". Here's a rare picture of me with gloves on- they just didn't understand that I do NOT like wearing gloves. How am I supposed to pick up the snow with gloves on?We borrowed the neighbor's sled. We stayed one night and then decided to head to Truckee a day early before the storm hit.
We didn't exactly bet the storm- it started raining a little South of Sacramento, but it was better than any of the other days that week. Lucky for us we rented an AWD SUV so we didn't have to get out in the 5 degree weather and put chains on. We stayed Sunday night at Uncle Sy's house. Here's a picture from right outside Sy's place on Donner Lake. Sylas let me open my Christmas present from him a little early- it was this great sled!

"Papa" pulled me around outside until everyone but me was freezing and begging to come inside.

The next day we checked into our rental house. Here's a view from the deck.

And here's the house from the top road. Everyday Dad and Papa had to shovel- the cars, the drive ways, and the deck. It snowed every day. Each morning we woke up to 12-16 inches of new snow.

Here's Papa shoveling the stairs up to the cars.

And here's the partially shovelled deck with a view of Donner Lake. I loved going outside, despite the cold. Here I am intently watching the snow plow (more on this later- it deserves it's own blog).But when they did make me come inside, I found fun things to do. Here I am showing grandma how to make chocolate chip cookies.

And they finally let me open the pile of presents that was laying out, tempting me all week! This too will need it's own blog. Stay tuned!