Days 5 - 7: Family Chaos

On the road yesterday we were playing the Personalogy Game. One of the cards gave options for naming the reality show best describing your life. One of the choices was "Family Mayhem" which was chosen with good humor by some ... well Mayhem may be a strong word but Family Chaos does seem to apply ...

Day 5 – A White Out Christmas

Christmas stockings among the ski coats and pants ... 

We started the morning with Stockings that Santa hung from Ski Hooks – where else? We ate our last hot breakfast served up by Commuter Husband. And we were out the door to a very snowy ski day.

I have long accepted that as a Texas Skier, we ski no matter what the conditions. It was cold, windy and very close to a white out but we were not discouraged. We skied all day and most of our crew were taking their last run down after 4pm having caught the last lift of the day up the mountain.

Throughout the week, we did a superb job serving all meals out of the condo with Commuter Husband in charge of the kitchen. However, we had also planned to eat dinner out on our last night in Taos as a final hurrah. What we did NOT consider was that our last night was Christmas Day and NO restaurants were open on the evening of December 25th. At 4:15pm, we were desperately brainstorming options for feeding our group dinner. Finally, Commuter Husband trudged through the snow to Taos Ski Village, he found a ski base restaurant that was about to close but agreed to restart the grill and package up eight hamburgers and fries. Thus with bags tied together with twine, Commuter Husband returned with Christmas dinner! And no one seemed to miss the usual turkey and fixings.

Youngest Son and I did take the teenage roller coaster down but we were able to recover and go back up. Thus, the rest of the evening we busied ourselves will packing for the next destination of TexMex Road Trip 2015.

Eggs, fruit, biscuits, turkey sausage, OJ, milk ... fueling up for the slopes!

A different kind of fuel for the end of the ski day!

Youngest Son in his Chanukah PJs as we play Apples to Apples and The Logo Board Game.

Youngest Niece with her stocking and Christmas footie PJs.

Stockings revealed ...

Day 6 – Taos to Artesia, NM

Brother navigated the Creepy White Van off of the Taos mountain and we headed south. We made two stops: one in Taos for T-shirts and the other at the International UFO Museum & Research center in Roswell. We thought it interesting that it was snowing when we exited the museum (foreshadowing here. ) We arrived in Artesia, NM at the La Quinta by 5pm and went across the street to the Pizza Hut for an easy dinner.

Youngest Niece is not convinced that a UFO REALLY landed in Roswell.

Nephew is part of the UFO Museum scenery.

Merry Christmas UFO Style!

We dropped Youngest Son and Oldest Niece at hotel while Brother, Nephew and Youngest Niece made dash on foot to the hotel. Commuter Husband, Oldest Son and I then headed to the the Carmike Cinema to see Star Wars at 7pm. It was snowing pretty hard now (more foreshadowing.) When we exited the theater, we were shocked to see several inches of snow on the road. Fortunately, we were only one mile from hotel so we nervously made our way back and parked with no mishaps, thank goodness.

Day 7 – Snowstorm and Not Going Anywhere!

This morning we woke up to blizzard conditions with accumulations of 14-18 inches. Crazy as this sounds we were surprised! Brother, Commuter Husband and I had not bothered to listen or check weather forecasts before embarking on the next leg of our journey. We were supposed to head to Eldorado, Texas this morning ... uhmmmm ... not happening! Fortunately, Caverns of Sonora where we planned to do a 4 hour adventure caving excursion and X-Bar Ranch accepted our cancellations. Apparently, Southwest Texas is not much better than New Mexico right now.

So here we sit, stranded in Artesia, NM. We are not quite sure when we will be leaving. Family Chaos for sure ... 

Commuter Husband and Brother looking at map of closed highways ... we are not going anywhere :(

Clearing the snow in front of hotel ... it has not stopped snowing since last night! Wind is blowing off cars so accumulation not obvious.

After hotel provided breakfast, 42 (dominoes) it is; Oldest Son and Youngest Son versus Brother and Oldest Niece. The brightness is from white wonderland out the hotel window.

Youngest Son and Brother take an opportunity to work out. Both nieces join them too.

Commuter Husband, Oldest Son and Youngest Son pretty content to watch football today. Oldest Niece snacking on the left over food we brought with us ... not exactly sure where dinner coming from tonight!

It is 3:30pm and the blizzard is back in full force ... oh my ...