I never knew that leaving would be so hard

Well Christmas has come and gone, the presents have been opened with only one trip to the ER. No joke, heat sealed plastic boxes are dangerous.  My father was trying to open his very fancy new pen that he got for Christmas. When trying to use his scissors on his mini Letterman, it slipped,  punching his hand, hitting a never which caused him to jerk his hand away and flinging blood all over himself, my Mom and the floor.  He ended up going to the ER but no necessary stitches, just a tetanus shot, and he may or may not get the feeling back in his finger. The family thinks that, that finger wants to commit suicide. 7 years ago that same finger was ran though a table saw blade, it's really just a matter of time before its chopped off completely. But other then that no serous injures were incurred this Christmas season.  

The day after Christmas I needed to leave to get up to Portland for my flight to LA and then to Taiwan. But the trouble was the 4 inches of snow that we got the night before and and the sheet of ice that the roads became.  We actually got out of the driveway after a

bout 20 min of shoveling and my father saying that the front tires needed more weight on them and then jumping on the hood of the car as my bother-in-law backed out. Yes, this is the same father that went to the ER the previous day.  And we all wonder why he gets injured so often.  Even after all the shoveling and jumping on cars we didn't make it far until we realized that we rather wait until the hill wasn't a sheet of ice before venturing on.  But about an hour later we were on our way to Portland, where we arrived with out harm or accident. All in all I only had to say goodbye to my family 3 times before I actually got more then a mile away from the house.