Life Falling Together: Why did I say I would do this?

I set out on a road trip today. Yes I, whom passionately despises driving, chose to take an eight hour drive down to Houston. There are very few things in life that would, in my mind, warrant getting behind the wheel of an automobile for a trek of this magnitude. Those few things are:

A family member that is sick,

A dear friend that is sick, or

A precious gal turning three.

It is the third scenario that took me on a journey of all journeys today. My best friend’s daughter Hope is turning 3 on Monday which means there is a birthday party this weekend that Aunt Jennifer just can’t miss.

When I prepared for this adventure last night I thought my largest challenge was going to be trying to stay awake on such a long trip. That was before I heard north Texas got hammered with a record setting snow storm. Over 11” of snow fell in parts of northeast Texas and because Texas (east of Lubbock) never gets snow they were not prepared. The Dallas Metroplex only has 4 plow trucks available to deploy in the case of snow or ice, yes, 4!!! There was no way around this mess; I was going to be driving right through it. Let the journey begin………………

At 9am I strapped in, turned on my seat warmers (because it was 30 degrees outside), and I headed out to face the open road before me.

All went great for the most part; I hit snow 45 miles out of Tulsa and traveled through it until about an hour North of Houston. Being Oklahoma and Texas do not have the most eye appealing scenery during the winter months the snow certainly made for a beautiful drive. Here are a few images through the eye of a driver traveling down Hwy 75 and 19.

I arrived in Houston around 5pm, and quickly realized why I said I would do this……………….

As I began to bake for the party tomorrow, Hope pulled her little step stool over to me and said “I want to help you Jennifer, because you are my best friend”. She simply melts my heart!!! I am a perfectionist when I do just about anything, baking is no exception. However, one must put their perfection tendency behind them when baking with a 3 year old. I did just that, put those tendencies in a little heart box, and could not have been happier.