Fun (or madness) with family

Well we have survived another Christmas with all the THINGS that try to pull us away from the true meaning of Christmas: Jesus!  I am always thankful when I think about an awesome God that robed Himself in flesh, was born into the world that He created, was tortured and crucified for ME!  Wow, that is true love.

While we take time to thank our great God, we also enjoy time with our families.  As this year has gone, our trip up north started out as quite an adventure!  Once again, it would not be the Aslesen's life without some more adventure.  On Tuesday morning with the heat flowing warm and freely in the car, we packed up and headed out into the middle of a snow storm!!!  Yes, I know, we are a crazy bunch here, but if you did not know that already, stay tuned :-) !!  Well it only took us 1 hour 15 minutes to get onto the interstate, which normally would only take about 35 minutes.  This should have been the first sign for me to just turn around and go home.  As we got on the interstate, things were moving along a speedy 45 mph. In the first 15 mile stretch, we only saw 5 cars in the ditch.  One of those was a full size pick up that had freshly landed in the ditch turned over.  Most sane people would have gotten off at the next exit and gone home.  Well we stopped at a road side 'Oasis' that has a gas station and a bunch of fast food restaurants.  After an quick lunch, we decided to keep going to see if the roads would improve.  We finally made it to the north side of Rockford, IL, which only took us about 3 hours or so.  Normally, this would only take about 1 to 1.5 hours.  I saw that the roads were full of slush, had not seen a plow in a very long time and the temps were headed south of freezing soon.  Eventually even I could see that it was time to turn around, which we did.  On our return adventure, the snow falling increased and we managed a whopping 25 mph on most of the interstate.  We got off the highway and decided to take some back roads.  By this time, the 'rush hour' traffic was out in full Chicago force and turned the commute home into a 'rush 3 hours' of driving.  At one point, we came to an overpass that was arched.  From the base to the peak, was about 30-40 feet up.  It was a somewhat steep drive up.  As we slowly headed up, a big pickup in front of us that only had 2 wheel drive was spinning its wheels on a solid sheet of ice that covered the road.  Tammy was driving and we were inching our way up, she started to honk at a semi-trailer next to us that had started to inch its way towards us.  I told her that the semi was spinning and slowly slipping also! With a few calls to Jesus, we finally made it home in one piece after a round trip of 7 hours and 30 minutes.  About the time it would take to drive all the way to Minnesota!  Then the next day we decided to try it again this time with clear roads and even a few spots of blue sky.  This trip was made without incident!