Perfect, fitting end to a crappy year

Molly and I had purchased plane tickets in November to fly to Atlanta for the Holidays to visit her brother, Mom, Step-Mom, sister and grandparents for the holidays.

As you may know, we've had the worst snowstorm in 40 years. It started on Sunday evening (yeah, LAST Sunday evening, the 14th) and has snowed or frozen-rained nearly every day since then. We personally have about 14 inches of snow in our back-yard.

Saturday and Sunday we got the house all cleaned up (well, Molly did, I was working) and got our bags packed up. The roads, at this point, are impossible to drive on with several inches of ice and snow... (they don't plow here) so without chains, you can't leave the house. Luckily, Lindsey and Josh have chains for their cars, so they picked us up and brought us over to their house so we could be just that much closer to the airport. Our plane was scheduled to leave on Monday morning at 8:30 am. We closely watched the news and airport and airline websites all night long... and just kept seeing flight after flight after flight get canceled. All but maybe 10 flights were canceled on Sunday but they had not canceled anything for Monday and the snow was still coming down. Finally, at 10pm, they posted that our flight was canceled. We frantically attempted to get another flight booked... but because everyone had done the same thing ALL DAY SUNDAY, there was nothing left in our price range, and the earliest that we could get booked was Friday. It didn't make a ton of sense to fly for 24 hours for 48 hours of visit, and some of our family would have already left by then anyway. We opted to cancel the trip, so we could save the money to have for a more worthwhile visit later. Molly is really upset about the whole thing, because it is this time of year that we first found out about Max's cancer, and she really wanted to spend this time with her family.

On a brighter note, here is the good side:

1. It is very beautiful outside
2. As nice as it is to visit family, traveling to get there is always sucky
3. Lindsey and Josh invited us to spend Christmas with them and their family (if they can get here)
4. We've saved a ton of money
5. We now have purchased chains for my car... so that is a unique experience
6. We may go snowshoeing
7. We will probably go skiing

All of those things together, obviously do not come close to making up for not spending the Holdays with Brian, Andrea, Cherie and Ed, Norma and Katie, Ted and Sarah, of course. But we're trying to remain positive.

Here are some pictures that we have been taking through the week:

Snow, Dec. 2008