let it snow!

The hubs and I chuckled when the weather report predicted snow for Thursday night.  Sure, snow in Texas, right.  When we moved from Pennsylvania to Texas, one of the hardest things to admit to myself was that in moving, I was giving up having snow in winter.  Even after years of living in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, shoveling snow and navigating slick roads, I still think snow is downright magical.  The first flakes floating through the night sky, shining in street lights, giving promise to a late-rise morning with school cancellations and snowball fights - snow is easy to remember in a good light.  I knew I wouldn't see it in Texas, and I rightly mourned it our first year here.  

Turns out, I was wrong.  In fact, it does snow in Texas!  Sure, we didn't get a blizzard, and it didn't stick around for long.  But when the hubs saw the radar showing snow over our house late Thursday night, we went outside, and there it was, floating through the air.  Knowing Britton needed to see this (Barrett isn't as attached to snow because he has less memories of it), I got her out of bed and dragged her outside to see the snow against the streetlights.  She was absolutely delighted, in a way that proves to me that Britton thinks snow is just as magical as I do.

Barrett woke up early Friday from a nightmare, and after going back to sleep, the hubs woke me up.  Grumpy and tired, I had no idea why he'd be so cruel as to wake me up so early on my day off!  And then I saw it - snow on the ground!  We knew we'd never get back to sleep, so we waited until about 6:45 am, and woke up the kids, so they could play in it before school.

Before dawn, the snow's on the ground

I pulled down the "hats, gloves, and scarves" basket from the hall closet - the basket we've not touched since moving here - and pulled out what might still fit.  Barrett got Britton's old gloves, Britton wore mine, and they both put on coats that are a couple sizes too small!

I've never seen so many of my neighbors at 7:00 am!  Everyone was out, making snowmen and taking pictures.  Because we have four large trees in our front yard, we didn't have any snow - but our neighbors did, so we hopped across the street for a little snowball fight and snowman-making!

Snow on palm trees?!?  Even though the snow most likely killed my flowers, I'm ok - it most likely killed off all the mosquitoes too!

On Thursday night, after the excitement of snow died down and the hubs and I gave up and went to bed, I found these pages on my nightstand.  Britton had captured the moment so well, and shared it with me.

She wrote down about getting out of bed to see the snow, and drew herself seeing the snow in the streetlights!

And left us with some beautiful words about snow (recounted, removing third grade spelling and grammar) - "Snow is always in the air at wintertime.  It snows everywhere, including Texas.  I saw the snowflakes falling gracefully, as they dance in the sky.  I wonder why it always snows."  Always the teacher, she also added a quiz!