We went to bed on Valentine's night expecting to wake up to some white stuff, and we did! The kids didn't believe it - snow in Houston! It's extremely rare! Obviously, this doesn't hold a candle to our Idaho snows of yore, but it was exciting to break out the ol' snow gear (most of which we had outgrown - O handed his down to H, and had to wear some of mine that were too small for me). And we assumed that our power would come back on at some point during the day, having cut off suddenly at 5:30am that morning. Little did we know...
There were so many things to check out in the snow. It was pretty cold, well below freezing, so we were almost the only ones checking out the morning snow in the neighborhood.
Happy President's Day!
Our neighbor kids were out, trying out some cardboard on their driveway. Owen showed them how it was done, although this is NOT how we sledded in Idaho.
We spent most of the day back inside trying to warm up without heat or power. Thankfully, we have a gas stove, so we could reheat some soup for lunch and make some hot cocoa the old-fashioned way. The kids went back out in the afternoon when the neighbor was assembling a fort with some snow chunks from someone's driveway.
It was a little bizarre to see our tropical plants covered in snow and icicles. Time will tell if they'll make a comeback or if they are goners. Add landscaping to the house list...
We played family games, we read, and the kids and I went for a walk when the sun came out. It was still chilly, but direct sunlight had started some things melting a little, and it felt good to get out of the house for a bit. We did not get power back at all that day, though we were able to get some water back to the house by late afternoon.
By the following day, staring down our third frigid day with no power, we decided to venture across town to Uncky Dan's house, where they never lost power. It was a slow drive on surface roads, since highways were closed, and we were low on gas, but hardly any gas stations were open (no power), and those that were had lines of cars out on the street waiting for gas. Sure enough, 20 minutes after we got there, a neighbor let us know our power had returned! Then another neighbor informed us that we probably had a leak somewhere because our water meter was spinning pretty fast, so they had to cut our water off again. The visit was cut short, and we eventually made it back home to heat, light, spoiled food, and a leak somewhere in the sprinkler system. It could have been so much worse! Our poor neighbors all over town had busted interior pipes, had to remove drywall, fix pool piping, boil water, buy an expensive generator to warm their FFA show chickens, etc. Somehow, our neighborhood escaped the boil water notice.
