Icicles

After the city was forecasted to get our 'wintry mix' on Friday, we ended up with some icy roads and bridges, but nothing too spectacular falling from the sky (well we were awake, anyway).  Due to the road conditions, the schools were all closed though.

By the early afternoon, the temperature had increased enough that the roads were safe to travel, so after having the kids inside all day, we were finally set free into the outside world for basketball practice in the evening.  When we got home, Roy and I both noticed that it felt really cold in the house.  And then Roy made the discovery that our furnace wasn't working.  That's a fun thing to find out on one of the only nights that the temperature was actually going to be freezing in Houston!!  Thanks to the ability to gain information about anything and everything on the internet, he was able to do some investigation into the problem, but nothing he tried got the furnace back to working order.  We spent the rest of the evening in the TV room because that side of the house is heated with a separate (and in working order!) furnace).  And on our way to bed, we snuck into the kids' rooms to make sure they had extra covers on.     When we woke up the next morning, we were cold, but the kids didn't seem to notice.  My feet felt like icicles no matter how many pairs of socks and slippers I had on!  Roy got our little electric heaters out of Leighton's closet and warmed up the spaces we were playing in.  Smart guy!  By Sunday it was so warm outside (we sat out there playing and drinking beer and frozen, slushy drinks in the sun!) that we didn't need the heaters inside anymore.  And I am happy to report that we had our furnace replaced yesterday in time for the latest arctic blast that came through over night.

The forecast for today was pretty dismal for road conditions, so the city made the decision fairly early last night to suspend all city services for today.  Most (if not all??) schools, including Leighton's, also made the call to cancel school again.  We were to expect a 70% chance of sleet and ice from 8am to 2pm.

Well …. that didn't really end up happening.  The system shifted slightly and we ended up with not so much precipitation.  The roads were very much suitable for driving, but it's better that everyone played it safe because if the weather would have been as predicted, it would have been a mess on the roads, I'm sure.

We did get some frozen precipitation though!  I noticed some rather large pieces of ice falling onto the pool cover at one point.

And any colder surfaces looked like this:

And not too long after, we all got to witness so actual snowflakes falling.  The kids were pretty excited.  I think it was Riley who started mentioning making a snowman.  It was kind of sad to explain to her that we wouldn't be getting enough snow for that.

There were some icicles on the house though.  Not quite what I had coming off our roof growing up (the giant daggers than my Dad would break off to use as ice in his drink!), but they were still technically icicles (in my books, at least!!!)!

And there was some pretty ice on the plants outside too.

The kids LOVED seeing all the miniature icicles on the street signs and the garbage cans when we were driving this afternoon, too.  They insisted on running to Pauline's neighbor's to break some off and feel them.  They both even tried to keep one in their pocket, but once again I had to break it to them that it would melt in less than a minute in Pauline's house since they were so teeny tiny!

In the end, there wasn't the big messy winter 'storm' that was predicted, but there was enough to keep the kids excited and me entertained!  It is supposed to be a 'hard freeze' tonight (die mosquito eggs!  DIE!) and then the temperatures will quickly return to 'normal'.  It should be in the low 70s and sunny for Leighton's jog-a-thon on Friday.  No more icicles in Houston!