Christmas - Part 1

We finally headed out to Idaho. We were originally going to try to take it easy and take two days to get there, camping along the way. However, a storm was supposedly moving in and we didn't want the camping equipment to get soaked before we even arrived to the frigid temperatures of Idaho. We hoped to stay with the girls because of the snow and because all the roommates were supposed to be gone but we didn't know if it was really going to work out. 

One new roommate moved in a few days ago and the worst roommate was supposed to move out but her stuff was still there. She was supposed to get married and move away but towards the end of the semester, she postponed the wedding. She also got a contract supposedly at another complex but they were also saying that she was moving upstairs for the winter break so nothing was definitive.

We got there without running into much weather. There was actually a lot less snow than we anticipated and less than there had been in years prior at the same time. The new roommate was supposedly on her flight home for the holidays. The dreaded roommate that was left had not been seen for two days and so we thought we were in the clear.

Caitlyn made us dinner and it was waiting for us when we finally arrived. After we settled down to relax, the new roommate returns from the airport because her flight was delayed because of fog. Emily talked to her and told her we were there and she was totally fine with that, although we were still a little uncomfortable with the situation as they didn't know her that well yet. We stayed up chatting kind of late and when we were talking about calling it a night, the dreaded roommate returned to move her crap. It was 11:00 pm! She spent the next couple of hours thumping around, going in and out of the apartment and making all kinds of racket. I think she was a little ticked that some of her stuff was moved to make room for the new roommate. But here's the thing, the new roommate payed to be there and she was supposed to be out four days ago! We just stayed in the kids' room until she stopped stomping around. It's not like anyone could sleep through all that noise anyway. We could not even start to try to sleep until well after 1:am and we did not know when she was going to come back as she left a handful of things behind, probably just so that she can keep coming back in, even though it was no longer her appointment. Emily is super ticked and e-mailed the apartment manager that they need to just get the rest of her stuff out and get the key back for the apartment from her because she didn't want her coming back in to her apartment when she no longer lives there at any time of the day or night as she wished and that if she didn't do it, she was just going to leave her stuff outside in the hall for her to collect because she is not allowed back in the apartment.

The next morning, Emily had to get up for work (now with very little sleep, by the way). The new roommate heads out shortly after to head back to the airport, but then the dreaded roommate comes back in to retrieve the remnants of her stuff and is looking for other furniture that she stashed in the other empty room (not her previous room). She makes all kinds of more noise and now Caitlyn is extra ticked and e-mails the apartment manager to get the key back from her. We found the desk she stowed away in the empty bedroom and I helped her move it out to the hallway with some other furniture that was stuck out there for the manager to retrieve. The dreaded roommate was just supposed to be upstairs for ten days and then she supposedly was supposed to move to her new apartment complex but her moving the stock apartment furniture out of her new room for her own is not something someone who is leaving is going to do...especially since she has to carry it down the stairs! At least she is not staying in Emily's apartment but the girls had so much trouble with her that they will not be happy that she may be staying in the same building. It is not that big of a complex.

So, everything was not going well. Everyone was tired and disgruntled. While Emily was at work, we went shopping for some groceries for our stay. Marian arranged with Caitlyn to buy everyone steaks and stuff for our Christmas dinner. Afterwards, Christian went out to just work on Caitlyn's XJ. She needed an oil change and Caitlyn had not been keeping track of how many miles she had driven since the last one. I didn't think she should have had that many miles on it already but had forgotten that she got her oil changed when she got home for the summer. Since then, we had take the big camping trip in the Sierras and she and Ty had been driving back and forth visiting with each other every week during the break...then she had driven over 800 miles to get back to Rexburg, so yeah, there were quite a few miles logged in since her last oil change! 

After Emily got back from work, we had lunch and we tried to relax and settle down again...and what do you know, the dreaded roommate returns once again to get the rest of her stuff because the manager contacted her and basically yelled at her to get her shit together because it was "inconveniencing" her old roommates. Emily went out and talked to her and tried to be nice an not confrontational. The girl tried to make excuses about why she had not taken care of all this stuff before. She was looking for the desk again and wanted to finish cleaning her room so that she didn't get penalized for leaving it dirty. Emily told her not to bother because the manager had already started cleaning it (and besides, she didn't pass one single clean check the entire semester, the likelihood of her actually doing any real cleaning was nil). Emily told her the manager already retrieved the missing desk so the dreaded roommate supposedly went to turn in her key to the manager.

We hoped that that would be the last we would hear from her but we were not holding our breath. We tried to salvage our visit with the kids and decided to celebrate Christmas. Marian got us a prime rib steak dinner. We prepared and had that. Then we had the kids open up their presents on Christmas Eve.

Much to our relief, we had no more interruptions from former roommates.

On Christmas morning, everyone slept in a bit as no one has gotten a whole lot of sleep thus far. We eventually had to get the kids up if we wanted to do anything. It was Emily's only day off from work and we would likely be leaving soon, so we would not have a ton of more time together. 

Eventually, we decided to go for a drive to investigate an area in Idaho. With such a late start, we knew we would not be able to get too far down our trail but we wanted to at least make sure we can find the area we were aiming for. It isn't that close though so it would take some time to get there but the predicted weather was supposed to be nice Christmas day, but they hadn't been that accurate about the weather thus far.

The view from the Middle Butte area was stunning with clouds that would flow over the mountain ranges. There was mostly blue sky early on, but the clouds increased as the day went on. We stopped in the Cedar Butte area. Since the kids got up late and we didn't know what we were going to do, I didn't make and pack the sandwiches that I had planned for the day. We had water, but basically didn't bring any food for the trip. All our portable food was in our truck and we decided to take Emily's JK.

So since the days are short, combined with the fact that we started late and everyone was starting to get hungry and we had no food, we decided to call it a day and go back to have dinner.