Curse You Aeolus

In case you don't know who that is, he's the ruler of winds in Greek mythology.  Why am I cursing a dude that may or may not have ever really existed?  Well, I'll tell you.  Christmas Eve (and day for that matter), Daddy had to work at the fire station, so Nicky, Blitzer and Bailey and I piled into our SUV and drove down to Nana and Pop's for the holiday (Daddy flew in to join us on the 26th).  A winter storm blew in the night before we left, and it was super-cold outside and pouring down rain when we left the house at 6:15am.  Waaaay too early to be driving if you ask me, but I figured we better get out of town because the rain was supposed to turn into snow around 9am...and it did...Dallas had a white Christmas for the first time in 80 years!  Anywho, as we drove further south, the rain let up, however, the wind seemed to pick up as the morning went on.  As nice as it was to be driving our SUV so that everyone was comfortable and we had room for all our crap, I sure wished I had been driving my car.  I could barely drive faster than 50 mph at times, for fear we would fly off the road!  I white-knuckled it all the way to San Antonio, and by the time we got to Nana and Pop's, my arms felt like I had been arm-wrestling a tornado for 5 hours!  To put it mildly, it sucked.  Nicky sat in the backseat playing with his most annoying sounding ziploc bag toys, watching movies (thank goodness for portable dvd players...and bless you Uncle Brent - that's been the best Christmas present we've ever received!) blissfully unaware of what was going on around him.  I have to give the little guy some props - he was awesome in the car - only one minor incident...he tore a hole in his ziploc bag and wanted me to "tape it"!  If every long-distance car ride could go that well, we'd drive the little booger everywhere!

The drive home wasn't that bad either (no more wind thank goodness, and I didn't have to drive!).  That is, if we don't mention the fact that it took us about 8 hours to get home (not sure how...we did stop to shop at the outlets, and we had dinner, and there was a little bit of traffic...but still...that's a long time for what should be a 4-ish hour drive.).  We also somehow managed to forget to pick up my car from the airport.  Neither of us even remotely thought about having to get it all day, and to add to the hilarity, it wasn't until we drove into our driveway and opened the garage door that we realized we had forgotten it!  I'm blaming Aeolus for that one.