Family and holidays

When winter rolls around, it's harder for me to go see my family and I try to get in one last, big, visit before I get stuck here in the snow up to my armpits. Don't misunderstand, I adore the snow. I grew up without it unless we went to Mt Ashland and I hated fighting skiers and tourists just to play in the snow. Now we have it all winter long and I have been here 5 years, 2 in Bend, 3 in La Pine and I still love it. It's got a couple of negatives though, like being crazy cold (30 below and frozen pipes) and keeping us a bit more housebound than the Rogue Valley's rainy winters.
This time around we had more incentive to go on a 'last big trip' for the season. Normally it starts getting deep in the end of December, but this year it started snowing in early November and stuck. A lot. We're afraid this will be a hard winter and I don't want to miss out on seeing everyone before we hibernate, especially since my uncle Rob just got remarried after moving to Wisconsin. I missed the wedding, but I really didn't want to miss my chance to meet his new wife and see my uncle. i don't get to see him much but we're close and I missed him.
It was also a good chance to see my younger sister. She's a single mom to 4 kids and works nearly constantly to provide for them. She got to take them to school and then she saw them again for an hour before her night job started and there was no way she could come see us. The roads are bad and her car is too, her kids are in school, she has no free time or spending money... you get the picture.
I have a huge family and I miss each and every one of them, I wish I could spend a month so that I could see each of them for a day or two. Now my brother and his family have mentioned they will be up this way in a month and so has one of my little sisters. Well, both little sisters have mentioned coming up, but I think the younger one is too worried about the welfare of her pets and plants to leave them for too long, so it probably won't happen this year.
It's amazing how difficult and convoluted plans can get when it starts out so simple. I just missed them, I wanted to see them before the worst of winter kept us home. Everyone has time off over Thanksgiving and it was a good time for us too, so we came then. Then one person couldn't get the day after Thanksgiving off and she was upset (can't blame her) and there was a difficult time with religious beliefs and misconceptions about my intentions, then there couldn't be a visit without some sort of bad attitude and/or grumpiness.
Thankfully the good far outweighed the bad this time around as it often does and I got to spend time with my favorite people. I even got to see my reclusive hermit uncle! (I have a surfeit of reclusive uncles. This one stands out as he actually hides when I come over, the others are surly, antisocial, or both.)
I got news of 2 more pregnancies and managed to end a conversation about my lack of pregnancies only seconds before bursting into tears. I can't seem to come to grips. Every single month it hurts when AF comes and even more when it happens skip me without the usual happy reason. I love my children and I always will. I was blessed every time I had one of them and I am still grateful every day they are in my life, they're bright, handsome, funny, happy, loving little boys. Right at this time in my life I hope to have another one of those blessings in my life and the very real possibility that it will not happen is daunting and saddens me.
Wow, that got depressing. Good news, let's see.... I'm getting over my cold. The house is warm and comfortable enough that I forget how cold it is outside - til I want to air out the house. It's in desperate need of it, the smells of cooking, trash, little kids and wet dog are lingering. I plan to give it a good deep cleaning this weekend. The youngest and my husband got sick and are already getting better, the two oldest missed it completely!
More positives, we have great neighbors. One of them plowed our drive and the other came and checked on our cats. Sure, she was just looking for a game to play and had to come into our dirty house to get it, but she stopped to pet them and make them feel less abandoned. December 7th is my last dental work of 2010, how cool is that? it marks the end of the first third of my work and the 12 month countdown til I am finished with it allllllll. I do need to get an appointment for my glasses before the end of the year, I need them so badly.