Owen wrapped up his Seahawk flag football season with a disappointing 1-6 record. A couple of the other teams (there were only 4 teams in the league) had already been playing together for a few seasons, so that's always a big advantage for them.However, the Seahawks definitely improved over the season, and they were really starting to click, so the last few games were closer than their record would have you believe. I think Owen even scored two touchdowns in one of the games!
We didn't get much of a break, actually any break, because on the morning of Owen's last football game, he had his first soccer practice. The first game followed the week after that. He's on a team with a couple of kids he knows, and practices are held at his school, so that's been very convenient. His coach seems pretty well organized, and has 2 2-hour practices a week, so it's been good exercise for O (far left below).
He's playing as the starting left defender, which was what he requested. He got to act as captain at the first game for the coin toss. So far they are 1-0, with a couple of weeks off for spring break. Go Dragons! (Goldenrod #9)
Not to be left out, we finally got Hadley enrolled in swim lessons. It wasn't quite what we were looking for (we were looking for a year-round swim team, but those were pretty limited this year), as they are just once a week for 30 minutes, and practice is 20 minutes away, but so far, she loves it! She's learning the breaststroke and butterfly before our neighborhood swim team season starts up in May. That's right! Our swim team is happening again this year! Both kids want to do that, so we signed up, and we'll see what changes they have to make to the meets, but hopefully that means that we'll be able to swim in our neighborhood pool again this summer, too. Hallelujah!
These little brainiacs were learning about how the brain works in their Challenge unit this winter. As the culmination of the study, they got to dissect sheep's brains! Hadley was less than enthused about that part. Ha!
But she was eager to volunteer to help me with a community service project for the Texas Exes. I'm the Philanthropy Chair for the local chapter this year, so I organized a socially-distanced landscape tidying project (lots of dead stuff to trim after the storm!) for a Ronald McDonald-type facility in town, along with a donation drive for a women's shelter. (Owen had his first soccer practice at the same time, so J had to attend that to learn about the coach's expectations for the season.)
The next weekend we celebrated Texas Independence Day with the alumni group and supported a local BBQ joint that burned down during the winter storm. They were fundraising with BBQ plates, concert, and raffles at the local distillery.
The kids wanted to explore under the old silos, and I was inspired to catch some photos with the industrial setting. I could picture some moody album covers being shot here.
Lastly, I thought this was a pretty cute picture. This cat loves quarantining! Multiple lap options most days, and she's come around to realize that when she's looking for love, the kids have a lot of love to give.
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...
The only thing that looked at home in the snow were the plethora of holly bushes in the front beds. These things are hearty through summer heat and winter freezes; I wish I liked them more, because I guess I'm stuck with them!
The power blissfully came back on in the late afternoon, so I made another hot soup for dinner, while we had light, thinking it might be part of the rolling blackouts. Shortly after dinner (2.5 hours later), it cut back off, so we gathered flashlights and went to bed pretty early with hopes that it would come back on soon, since it was going to be 10 degrees that night! We were also advised by our neighbors to cut our house water, since they'd had a pipe burst in their ceiling, so we did. But there was still no power the next morning, and our house water valve had frozen shut, so we were now without water and power with teen temperatures outside. The cat was constantly in search of human warmth in the 48* interior of our house.
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.
Thankfully, we had thawed and somewhat returned to some normalcy by the end of the week, despite school being cancelled. It was nice to have a birthday to celebrate and an excuse to make H's delicious chocolate cake again! This was definitely a lesson in gratitude!
Hadley had her art picked by the art teacher to go up in a district building for display this month! As an aspiring artist, she was over-the-moon excited!! Unfortunately, because of COVID, we can only see it on display digitally. It's a color study (primary, secondary, and analogous) in popsicles, and she says that she did not give it that title. The first is watermelon/sun/summer sky, second is a dog, third is a bird.
One last thing for January - a PTA Winter Dash, which is basically a photo scavenger hunt around town. We had to take pictures with our hawk at our favorite playground, local landmark, and school marquee, with our favorite food, and showing our school spirit. Too bad the sky, our shirts, grass, car interior, and fence are all pretty much the same grey color! Here's what we submitted:
However, we did have some fun in our search for a photo-worthy landmark. Did you know that Katy was named as a shortened version of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas rail line?
We also learned about the agricultural history of the area, and that they really like tractors.
All right. January has been kind of gray, but time seemed to move a little faster than the last year, at least! We finally got flag football to work out for Owen. We know someone with a big camera on the sidelines, so enjoy these sporty pics. :)
Apparently, there were so many teams and kids that played in the fall (there was a wait list and 10 10-player teams), that no one wanted to play in the winter league (they scrounged up 4 teams of 7 players). Anyway, we are on a team that obviously hasn't played together before, most of us met a few weeks ago, and we're off to a rough 0-3 start. He's on the Seahawks again, so he could actually even wear his old shirt from Fall 2019. It's been good to be back in a routine of practices and games at least.
Owen has gained a reputation for knowing the plays, and he's a reliable center snapper. There is no blocking or running allowed in this league, so it's a pass-happy, interception-prone game, and even the center is an eligible receiver! Owen's made a few catches, the one below was a long run until they got his flag just before the end zone.
He's still a pretty good flag grabber, too. He got this one, and has slapped a few passes out of the opposing receiver's hand. It might be an ugly season, but it's been good for him to get to be a kid in organized sports again.
On the home front, the mister needed a new project so we've been learning about insulating our free-standing garage. That's been consuming a lot of his free time on evenings and weekends. To give you an idea of before, it was pretty bare bones: just studs, weather-barrier, and the siding. This left little-to-no awkward places to hang things and the weather-barrier was damaged in several places. Not to mention that the garage is a hot box in summer. I had rubberized gardening gloves that basically melted together, because it got so hot in there!
Insulating the garage is a multi-step process, as you can imagine. The first step is to replace the weather-barrier, then add some spacers to allow any moisture to dry out, followed by a sheet of foam insulation (my specialty!) sealed with special tape, and finally the top layer of wood for the wall surface. Each of these has to be measured in multiple places as the stud spacing varies a lot, carefully cut, accurately placed, and securely attached. As a family (though mostly just J), we've been able to get six bays done in one weekend day.
And finally, lest our garage look like a '70s-era, fully wood-paneled man cave, we decided to take it step(s) further and paint the walls. This is also a multi-step process consisting of oil-based priming, dry wall mudding, and eventually painting (all J labor). A month in, and we're about 1/3 of the way done... When all finished, this should give us a 20-degree differential to the outside temperature, make the space more functional and clean, and of course, provide many more opportunities to upgrade other parts of the garage in the future. 😏
