Christmas in Ohio, Part 1

~Saturday, December 21~

Saturday morning dawned bright and early at our house! It was time for our annual Christmas trip to see family. We crammed all our things in the minivan and headed northeast.

Due to some bad winter weather in St. Louis, we had to take a different route than we normally do. This time, we drove up through Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and then Ohio (we usually do Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.) We kids were kind of excited to see some new states!

Unfortunately, we ended up tracking a huge storm front. The ENTIRE day. L

Due to the torrential rain (which never let up), and tons of construction and flooding, it took us 13 hours to get to our hotel in Dickson, Tennessee. Somewhere in Arkansas, we actually drove within 10 miles of a tornado. We are so thankful that the Lord protected us, and that He gave Dad the strength to drive that long (it should have only taken us 8-10 hours.)

Needless to say, we were very relieved to finally arrive at our hotel. It was pretty late, so we went straight to bed!

~Sunday, December 22~

Sunday morning we all woke up pretty tired from our grueling day of travel before. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we continued our drive.

We got to go through a lot of big cities on this trip! On our first day, we saw Little Rock, AR, and Memphis, TN.

We also got to drive through Nashville, TN! As you can see, the weather was MUCH better the second day. We also drove through Louisville, KY.

For lunch, we stopped in Florence, KY and had some Cincinnati style chili! Basically, it’s chili served over spaghetti noodles and topped with lots of onions and cheese. It was good!

Then we drove through Cincinnati, OH! A Bengals game was going on when we drove past the stadium. We also got to drive through Columbus, OH.

FINALLY, we made it to my Abuela and Abuelo’s house! It was so good to finally arrive, unpack, and settle in for the week.

Abuela had prepared one of our favorites for dinner: pastelillos! They were so delicious and comforting after such a difficult two days of traveling.

That evening we relaxed and caught up with my grandparents. It was so good to know we had the whole week ahead of us to spend with them!

To be continued . . .