Ice Weekend 2013

We are in the middle of the biggest ice storm I have ever experienced in my life!  It's funny, because when Hattie was only 5 months old, we had a HUGE snow storm...now Georgia is 5 months old, and we're experiencing this!  The weather nerd (I prefer to think of it as "Pete Delkus fan" )inside of me really found it interesting that this phenomenon has been named a McFarland Signature.  Pete (our Channel 8 meteorologist) says this:

A McFarland Signature is a pattern in the upper-level winds which effectively relocates the North Pole to the state of Kansas, and we will see temperatures dropping to levels we have not experienced in years by early next week.

Pete literally said the city of Dallas would be "entombed" with ice...and he was right!  It started Thursday night and we don't expect temps to go above freezing until tomorrow (Sunday)!  Over 200,000 people have lost power, but thankfully our house has been just fine.  Every school and workplace was closed on Friday, and FBD has even cancelled all Sunday School and childcare for the entire church tomorrow morning.  We will have one worship service at 10:50, but I expect it to be very sparsely attended (especially when there is no childcare).  The children's choir program planned for Sunday night was also cancelled.  So crazy!

We have been watching a lot of news, and things are really extremely dangerous!  Even in our little neighborhood!  Our house is in the middle of the block, but it also sits on the top of a hill, so no matter which way we go (right or left) we are forced to go downhill.  We saw a van drive down the block today, and it ended up sliding and slamming into the curb of our neighbor's yard.  They lost a bumper and were stuck for over an hour!

Hattie and I ventured outside for a few minutes today, just to do some fun slipping and sliding and picture-taking!  Then we had a good excuse to come inside and drink another cup of hot chocolate!

All the white you see is ICE!  Not snow...slick, thick, ICE!

The big branch you see touching our roof is actually snapped (sniff, sniff!).  We loved our house for its big, beautiful live oak trees, and it's sad to see them this way...but we're thankful it wasn't worse!

Another big casualty

Here's another smaller branch that broke on our roof, too.

Nice and warm inside now!

It sure has been nice to be iced in with this group!