Ice Day(s) 2013...

On Preston's birthday, December 4th, it looked like this...

Remote control cars & chalking w/Uncle Daniel

Fast forward a few days, to December 6th, and it looked like this...

WHAT IN THE WORLD?!?!

And that, my friends, is NOT snow, believe it or not.  It is pure ice.  Yep, tiny ice pellets that fell.  All day.  And then, that ice stayed... for days.  It was insane for this part of Texas.  Schools were called off for nearly a week, people didn't go in to work if they didn't have to, grocery stores were literally bare of essentials.  Ice-aggedon 2013.

The boys were excited to go play in it.  Of course, they thought it would be fun... like snow.  Oh well.  They enjoyed it anyway.  For a little while.

He really wanted to make a snow angel.

Look at Callen's face, so happy!

He did really like being out there in the freezing cold!

Ice Day 2013

Found ways to stay warm inside!

When it all finally started to melt, our metal roof gave us quite the show.  The heavy sheets of ice would inch over the edge of the roof, then suddenly slide forward, break off and crash down.  The first time I heard a huge crash, I opened the back yard to look around.  I saw the ice sheet danging above my head and quickly closed the door, which caused it come crashing down.  Our back porch was soon completely covered in thick, hard ice... couldn't open the door any more for a few days!  Callen and I went around the side and then out the back and stood out there a while watching all the ice sheets come crashing down one by one, until the end when a bunch of it gave at once and there was a huge ice-sheet-water-fountain type display.  It was unbelievable!  Callen loved it!

Climbing the ice 'mountains.'

Several days later that those ice sheets were still built up along the edge of the house despite everything else having melted away.  The boys played in it and tried to see who could lift the heaviest chunk.

An unfortunate side effect of the freak ice storm on a metal roof is that some of the water froze in certain places and expanded, bending some of the metal, and making a place for water to leak in.  One morning a week or so after the storm, it rained... and there was a puddle in our living room.  It also bent and nearly broke off an exhaust stack from the water heater.  Geez!