And Then There Were Five!!: Snowmageddon '09

It's a rare event here in Southeast Texas when it snows*. In fact it has only snowed 34 times total in Houston since 1895. It had never snowed two years in a row.....until this year!

*When I say snow I mean snowflakes. For friends and family in the Midwest, the amount of snow we actually received was laughable by your (formally my) standards. But here in the South, this is a big deal. This doesn't happen very often, and for a city that doesn't have the equipment or experience to deal with such weather occurrences, when a flake falls from the sky chaos will ensue.

Last Thursday "Winter Storm" watches and warnings were issued. There was talk of anywhere from 1-5 inches of snow, depending on what news channel you were watching and what time of day it was. Thursday night at least one college had closed the campus for Friday and a few local school districts had scheduled early release times. Reporters were stationed at Home Depot's across the city interviewing customers that were making preparations**. I heard that Jim Cantore from The Weather Channel was in Houston***.

** I swear to God I am not making any of this up. This was honest to goodness stuff streaming at us from the TV via our local news.

*** When Jim Cantore shows up for a weather event you know it's going to be huge. He's the Giraldo Rivera of weather. Nobody really knows what his job is, but when he shows up you know you're screwed.

Friday morning came and.... pretty much nothing until around 9 am. That was whent it started snowing (I'm real smart and left my video camera in the bag, safely tucked in the corner of our office). By noon the grass was mostly white and it was snowing huge wet flakes. At 1030 Gary called to tell me that his office was closing at 11. Shortly after my friend Andrea (mommy to Claire, the little girl I babysit) emailed me to let me know that her office was closing at 1230. Andrea is from Michigan too, so we all had a good laugh at the fact that everyone was being sent home due to "inclimate weather", when we had all lived in Michigan our entire lives and had never been sent home.

Also, since Grayden was born in Texas (and it never snows here), I discovered we lack proper winter gear for him. I did the next best thing. I put two pairs of pants on him, a t-shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a fleece sweatshirt and a newly purchased hat and mittens and we went out into the front yard to play in the snow!

** Warning this is going to be a picture intensive post! **