Ice-pocalypse 2013

We all know that Texans aren't the most reliable source of opinions as far as "bad" weather goes.  In the "winter," an afternoon high of 40 degrees usually means no outside recess.  God forbid the temp drops into the thirties - in which case, according to the news, everyone needs to remember to cover their outside plants (huh?), keep their faucets dripping all night, and of course, go stock up on groceries... just in case.  Now, none of this even begins to compare to what Texans do if a drop of frozen rain, sleet, or snowflake fall from the sky... (Sensing my sarcastic tone here?)

We've lived in Texas almost 12 years now, but I still roll my eyes when the weathermen interupt every show to bring us the latest in the "possibility" of there being some sort of "inclement" weather.  So last week, when the warnings were being said and people were filling up on gas and groceries, I didn't give it much thought.  Oh please, Y'ALL, this is Texas for goodness sake. 

Well...

Wednesday's high was pushing 80, which just reconfirmed my thoughts that this "winter blast" was just another Texas overexaggeration.  Thursday started off brisk and the rain began to fall.  Brad was supposed to fly to Iowa on Friday to go deer hunting for a week, and he called me Thursday at school to say he was going to drive because his flight was going to be canceled the following day.  Huh?  Really?  The temps Thursday evening plummetted into the low thirties and Plano called off school for Friday.  Surely, they were just being overcautious.

I woke up surprised to see that we actually did have some accumuation in our yard.  But upon further inspection, realized it was only an inch or two of ice.  How bad could that be? 

Bad.  All school districts in North Texas were closed.  They even shut down the two main interstates that lead to Texas from Oklahoma.  They weren't letting people in (we are our own country, you know).  The roads were literally empty. 

 Ice covered EVERYTHING. 

 Baseball bats are hard to swing like this.

 TONS of fallen trees.

 

 Knox in action - boogers and all!

 Love Brady's hodgepodge winter get up.

By Saturday, most of the precip was done falling, but the temps dropped to the twenties and everything just stayed super icy.  By Sunday, the high got around 36, but stayed cloudy, so any melting that did occur iced right back up a few hours later... Hence, no school on Monday. 

Relaxing with her "special juice..." I needed my own form of this by Monday evening.

"Mom, let's play football. Us versus you."

Pulling out the sleeper (aka getting desperate)

I think she ran out of other things to do.

 

This morning temps were only in the teens, but are expected to rise to almost 40 I think, so things should begin melting more and more.  There are still dozens of districts closed today because of the icy roads, but all the big ones seem to be open. 

So I guess what I'm saying is, I'm sorry to all the weathermen that were accurate in saying we were getting inclement weather and that this storm would reak havok on travel and commutes.  I admit it, they were right.  I shouldn't have laughed at them last week when they gave all their warnings.  I apologize.

The kids and I fended for ourselves the best we could.  A lot of "together" time, that's for sure.  My mom and dad came over a couple times to ease the boredom.  But overall, the kids coped pretty well.  Me?  Well this single mom gig is tough!  I just about became a heavy drinker... So glad Brad gets back tomorrow night!

Love to y'all,
Tracy