A Christmas to Remember, Anything is Possible, and That is What Families DO!

(Warning long post ahead)

These 3 sayings are what my Dad has been saying quite a bit lately. But they all came together on Christmas Day! Unfortunately, my Brother in-law Chris had to work at the oil rig in Wyoming on Christmas Day! Of course he and my sister Cedar were heart broken for him to miss Christmas and being gone for a long time. So we as a family came up with a game plan. Dad contacted the Bishop of the ward up there in Wyoming and arranged for the Bishop to open up the church for us to use. We decided that we were going to drive up Christmas Morning (literally we were going to leave at 3am) and surprise him when he got off work at 6am. Well then the weather forecast was that we (those of us in Utah) were suppose to just get this huge snow storm on Christmas Eve night. So then the plan was off because we would be driving through the mountains in a huge snow storm. Of course we were sad that we weren't going to go and be all together on Christmas morning but we had to be safe. Then remember though that "anything is possible." Well the snow storm started to slow down and so it wasn't forecasted to start hitting us hard until Christmas Night, so again at the last minute, we decided (8pm on Christmas Eve) that we would go. So again off we went to start packing up the cars and getting everything ready. We packed as though we expected to get stuck or snowed in. But we brought most of the Christmas presents and got all ready to go. We had decided now though to leave a little earlier (2am) to give us some extra time just in case.
When we woke up at 2am though we realized that it had already snowed about 3 inches at our house and we were of course nervous. We started checking weather reports online and all started saying prayers to see how we felt about it. As we looked online we realized that the storm was just mainly in Utah and that we could probably make it. So off we went and what an adventure it was. We drove in a snow storm clear up to the Wyoming border and nearly stopped and turned around a couple of times. But we kept pushing onward. The last hour of our 5 hour drive again was on a little country road driving in the snow. We got to the church the sweet bishop had shoveled the walks and had the church open and warm. My Sister had called Chris and told him that she had surprised him and that just her and my Dad had come and that he was suppose to meet her at the church. When he got there he realized that his little girl, and the whole Hatch family was there to meet him. It was such a learning experience to me because the look on his face was priceless. I realized and was taught right then and there that this is really what Families do and that anything really is possible and this is why this will be the Christmas to Remember! The drive home was actually a little worse than the drive there, but well we survived and nobody got hurt or in an accident. It was a really long day, the babies were so good that we knew that we had been blessed. The drive was horrible, but I would do it again. It may not have been the "best" decision logically that we had ever made but well I would do it all over again just so that we would have this "Christmas to remember."
Dad took a bunch of pictures but I will have to get them from him later.