We had a magical weekend of gingerbread houses and candlelight dinner thanks to my parents.

And then we left our home early this morning to go "home for Christmas."

Olivia left this note on our table this morning:

Dear Santa,

I'm hoping this doesn't cause too much trouble, but we are not here. We are in Michigan.

Love,

Olivia

P.S. There will be cookies there for you.

We hope those cookies will be significant enough motivation for Santa to back-track.

We left early

and drove 17 hours and played the Wii,

saw the world's largest cross,

saw our share of silos and red barns (if I see one covered in snow tomorrow I'm going to be all mush and drool),

and tucked in tonight in Joplin, Missouri.

If the weather continues to hold, we will be in Michigan by tomorrow night. We ate breakfast in Gallup where a man asked us where we were headed. When we told him we were headed east to Michigan he was all eyebrows and amazement.

Apparently we will go out of our way for a white Christmas.