Guest Blogger Micaela

I was going to post a blog about our CRAZY Christmas bu Micaela said it all in a Facebook entry, so I'll let her explain the madness.

So I'm finally sitting at home after probably the craziest Christmas that our family has had to date (and that is saying a lot with some of the crazy family stories that we have). It's about 2:50 in the morning here in Tennessee and for some reason, I've decided that I need to right this now. Our trip started off rough to say the least. Tuesday morning we left our house at about 7:30 to set out on the 9.5 hour trip to Des Moines. We quickly realized that 9.5 hours was going to take a lot longer since the roads were like glass. For those of you that don't know, in Tennessee and Kentucky, when it snows or ices, the state shuts down. Sliding and fishtailing all over, our first obstacle was a semi and a car that slid off the road on a bridge. The next obstacle involved another semi that was off the road at the top of a hill. As we slowed to try and go around the semi, we got stuck with our only option to back down the glass hill and get a bigger run at it. You may be asking yourself "Where are all of the salt trucks at this point?" and the answer to that is in ditches. Every one of the county salt trucks had slid off the road and were waiting to be towed out. Your net question may have been "Why did you not turn around and go home?!". Answer: because we are CRAZY! The rest of the way was no less nerve racking. Our 9.5 hour trip turned into 13 long tense hours just to get to Des Moines. Once we were in Des Moines, we met some friends for dinner and my brother who in the mean time was suffering with an intense eye infection (which he is still not over so please be praying) in which the doctor thought that he would loose some vision permanently. As we were sitting in the good ol' Walgreen's parking lot after dinner waiting for my mom and brother to get his prescriptions, my dad and I had a rude run in. Someone not paying attention backed into our van and left a nice size dent in the back hatch door. Merry Christmas Eilers!! It only gets better. The next day, Christmas Eve, we met a bunch of friends for breakfast and then we were supposed to be heading to Sioux City to be with the rest of our family for Christmas. Then comes another kink in the plans! My grandma called all worried telling us that there was supposed to be really bad weather up there on Christmas day. We were going to be traveling back to Des Moines by then because my bro had another eye appointment on Friday so we couldn't risk getting stuck out there. On the advice of my grandma, we cancelled our hotel in Sioux City and made arrangements to have Christmas dinner with some friends in town. After the plans were all changed, grandma calls back and says that she was wrong about the weather. Too late! We spent our first Christmas ever in Des Moines (even though we had lived in the area for 19 years) and we don't even live there now! Christmas Eve night in the hotel was fun! We ate chili, watched Man vs. Wild, and played Apples to Apples. We laughed A LOT (which always seems to happen when Keaton is around)!! Christmas morning we opened our stockings like always. I got mints, a whoopee cushion, Rook, and Kung Fu Panda!! After breakfast we opened our actual Christmas gifts. I got money cause all of the "Wii"s in the Tennessee and Kentucky area were sold out so that's what I'll be using my money for. We ate Christmas dinner at the Lively house and played Mad Gab and then decided to held back to TN at around 3. About halfway home, my mom gets sick! Once again, our 9.5 hour trip took much longer. This time about 11.5 hours. Please pray for her though, she is REALLY sick. So anyway, that's what happened for my Christmas! I didn't want to have to tell the story over and over again so there it is so you can all read it! It's about 3:20 now and I really need to go to bed. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a great New Year!!

Side note...it's now late Saturday morning and I'm feeling a little better but am still experiencing some of the incredibly annoying symptoms that come with the flu. You get the idea. I have now been able to eat a few saltines, a little jello and sip some 7up.