The day after Christmas we planned to drive about 2.5 hours to where my Grandaddy lives in Casper to visit he and Lil. We packed our stuff to stay overnight, Mom cooked a bunch of food for lunch when we got there, and we loaded everyone into the van (quite a feat...). We got 15 minutes into the trip and came to a place where the highway was closed because the drifts were too high for the plows to keep cleared in that high of wind....so we had to go back home to try again the next day. We didn't end up getting to spend the night (since we were flying out the next day we couldn't risk getting weathered in there in Casper and missing our flight), but we went over for the day. We ate at a really cool restaurant with statues outside and all sorts of crazy stuff inside!
Which, of course, my children had to summit.
Grandaddy and Lil gave the kids some sweet (and perfect!!!) gifts.
Then they opened the things we had brought for them.
With Beck's assistance. (Don't you like their matching shirts? My grandaddy (and dad) are probably responsible for my love of plaid flannel....)
Beck had recently been gifted a book light, so he was an expert in how to use it and happy to share his knowledge with Grandma Lil.
Playing with Chip. Chip is the dog we brought to my Grandaddy many years ago when he was just a puppy and we drove down from Houston, so Chip is Texas born, but a Wyoming dog now!
My Grandaddy lives literally at the base of the mountains and this is what the area behind his house looks like. It is amazingly beautiful at his house. Matt took the kids out for a loooong walk in the field. And typically this field is covered in snow after such a big storm, but the wind had blown 80+mph the previous days and the majority of the snow had blown away. Crazy!!
My kids were obsessed with eating snow.
I walked out to find them at one point. Of course I had to pick myself a bouquet!!
We are planning a Yellowstone trip this summer for Matt and my summer NPS adventure. My grandaddy is an expert at the park--he lived in Jackson and has been visiting for years, so he was showing Matt where we should camp and all the spots we should go.
See--look how much snow there was in Casper after the blizzard! They had plowed it into a row down the middle of the road, with traffic flowing on both sides of the plowed snow. Grandaddy said he hadn't seen that before--they had too much snow to haul it all off, so they had to plow it like that. Look how high it was against our rental van....
I was modeling how high the snow was. :)
It was so good to see Grandaddy and Lil and we enjoyed a beautiful day in Casper! Thankful my dad drove us there and back so we could spend some time with them.
