These Are The Days: ICEmaggedon 2013

Here is the post on this crazy ice storm! Earlier this week, my favorite local weather guy started getting really giddy about the unavoidable ice storm we were certain to get and that the DFW area would be "entombed in ice." He was not kidding! This storm has been everything they promised with 1-4 inches of ice covering every surface of the metroplex. Many trees have lost limbs b/c they can't stand the weight of the ice, EVERY school district, church, city building has been closed and Christmas events canceled. Usually you'll get spots of cities who have delayed starts and don't cancel anything but not this time. The entire city has been shut down since Friday and because our temps haven't gotten above freezing, things will melt slightly during the day and then re-freeze at night making things more dangerous than the day before and putting cities in difficult situations not being able to keep up with the sanding/de-icing demands. Almost 200,000 homes have been without power - I can't even imagine! Oh, and we have learned about things like "freezing fog", "angel ice" and "thunder sleet." Amazing, really.

I'm going to focus mostly on how fun this has been for us and what we've been up to but my heart is very heavy this morning with the images of hundreds of stranded 18-wheelers, some who have been there for days and one who called into the news b/c he is desperate. He has his 2 year old son with him, is running out of supplies and can't get a response from police or emergency systems. They just can't get to him when 35 is a parking lot of big rigs. We all joke about being stir crazy in our warm, roomy homes with young kids but I can't imagine being out of food and diapers and possibly gas and trying to keep a toddler happy in the tiny cab of a truck. Prayers go out to everyone!

So now that I've covered the severity of it all, I'll tell you what's going on in this house. Since we've known since about Wednesday, we knew we probably wouldn't close on our house and had time to go to the store and stock up with groceries for my parents' house! I also got some Christmas crafts from the Target $1 shelf! They have AWESOME crafts for a 3 y.o. and I don't care what happens to them since they're so cheap :)

Heavy sleet fell all night Thursday - the creation of inches of ice on the ground. It was loud
and kept us up through the night. Grayson was fascinated. :)

We awoke to this! This crape myrtle used to stand straight and tall. While it's beautiful, I'm not sure what it will look like after
days of weighted ice!

We've been keeping busy with crafts, playing soldiers, building things, iPad time and relaxing. Also….

Mere seconds in the ice ;)

bath time. It works!

Mimi made us hot cocoa from scratch.

Lots of cooking. This was turkey chili...

Plenty of dressing up as Batman. And then taking off the costume. And then putting it back on. Repeat...

TV watching in PJs. Just happy that the cable stayed on!

Wrestling and horse play. Hey, they slept like babies. No complaints here!

A lot of baby brother getting in the way of Grayson's new duck hunt game. (Mimi and Pop brought out a Christmas present we were so desperate!)

Lots of play time with Pop.

And baking snickerdoodles with Mimi.

We have been out of the house twice. Once to see the new house and Friday night for Annie's 32nd birthday. Both times were pretty scary but manageable since we stayed on some well-traveled roads. We saw may broken trees, cars that had slid into each other or things and a lot of dumb drivers. I am so, so lucky to be married to a man who just seems to be so GOOD in these situations. He stays calm and knows how to manage his 4-wheel drive! I didn't stress a bit with him at the wheel!