Winter Weather Event 2011

You may not have heard, but a storm is a-sweeping across the country.

It may have been on the news once or twice.

And though our little neck of the woods was not hit with any snow or ice, it is pretty chilly for Houston. Sunny, but very chilly. And just for kicks, perhaps so we would not feel left out of the "winter storm experience", our electricity has been cutting out periodically. An entire local school district closed 3 hours after opening today because of "probability of intermittent power outages". Indoor school events have been rescheduled because it's "too cold outside". When we're rescheduling basketball games because of cold air, it's safe to say that we officially have Snow Envy. We long for the days of icy roads and snowmen, days off of school to be made up for in June, the mad rush to the WalMart to stock up on necessities before the big storm hits. You would think Hurricane Ike cured this town of its obvious desire for inclement weather. Nope.

Monday, a day before Winter-pocalypse was scheduled to arrive, I shoved the kids outside to play in the backyard for what may be the last time this week.

The kids played on the swing set,

and Harper found herself in front of the camera.

Heaven forbid they both look at the camera and smile AT THE SAME TIME.

And yes, we have re-purposed a couple of old baby bottles into dirt diggers.

This masterpiece was started last summer, and continues today.

The little contemplative artist at work...

I'm going to need to borrow someone's power washer.

But I may want to wait till next week, so I don't end up with a sheet of ice on the back of house courtesy of a frozen power washer.

P.S. Someone googled "mean Chinese old man" last week and got to my blog. 1. I don't think I was what they were looking for. 2. What were they looking for?