Craziest Christmas Yet

It's really odd (but wasn't at the time) that Big Brother asked me in the comments two posts down, "You get snow in Texas?" Because what happened was. WE GOT SNOW IN TEXAS. And it WAS BIG. As usual I was sleeping the morning away on Christmas eve when My Sweetie called as he was leaving work around noon and said, "You should get up and look at the snow. It's really coming down and it's not supposed to last very long." So I got up and sure enough it was snowing. It wasn't a big snow. It looked like the typical Texas snow: tiny little flakes fluffing around.
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I got up and started doing all the things I had planned to do to prepare for going to My Sweetie's Mom's house and having Christmas with his family. We gathered all of our stuff together and as we headed out we stopped by Carole's house. All was well and good. And it was still snowing. I took this picture just down the road after we took off because I thought it was neat and snowy:
As we continued to venture west, it became even more snowy, but it was still fun and Christmasy and all good even though the words "White Out" came into my head a few times. This picture does not tell the tale of how the snow was blowing sideways and all over the place:

The roads started to get worse and then we had to come to a complete stop on the highway. At this point traffic was a total crawl. After creeping across a bridge for what seemed like ages, my cell phone rang. My sister-in-law, who was at my MIL's house, called to tell us that they were leaving. She said the roads over there were terrible and icy. That convinced us to cancel the trip and turn around and THAT'S when we realized that we were halfway on what was normally a 35 to 40 minute ride and a WHOLE HOUR had passed. This is a picture of the service road that we turned round on:

If you are reading this and you live somewhere that this is normal and you are rolling your eyes, then I need to explain the weather where I live. Usually, mid April through mid October is either very warm or insanely hot. Mid october through mid April is always a crazy mixed bag of anything. As a matter of fact, it was in the low 70's on December 23rd. So when the snow started on the 24th, Christmas eve, everyone assumed it would snow for a few hours and stop. And by everyone I mean the weather people as well as regular folk. But everyone was wrong. It snowed like crazy for 7 straight hours. It was HISTORICAL. It has never snowed like that here in the history of Christmas or Texas or possibly both of them combined.

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So back to our "trip." After we turned around, it took us another hour to get home. I spent the first 20 minutes thinking, "What the hell? Now I have to make dinner. I was expecting to get fed, dammit." We actually ended up fishtailing into our grocery store parking lot on the way home to pick up some easy food. The brightest spot was knowing I could see Mort again. I'll get to Mort** in a minute.

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When we finally got home, I thought our yard was the most gorgeous it has ever been. I learned the hard way that taking a picture at night while it is snowing is nearly impossible. The snowflakes reflect the flash:

Way later when the snow let up some, Carole got a good picture of us (I'm on the right):

Christmas day was bright and sunny but still very cold for quite a while. I took a few pictures in the backyard:

So, Big Brother, yes, it does snow in Texas. And I can't even begin to say how odd and crazy it was for us to have a white Christmas. But all's well that ends well. And here's a pic of Kate and Me that was taken tonight:

**(And now I just want to see Mort again. Carole's son and his wife are here from Princeton and they brought their dog Mort. I have fallen madly in love with this dog and I am NOT a dog person. I am a cat person. I don't even like dogs. I'm afraid of dogs. But I am trying to figure out a way to steal Mort. I love him. He's awesome.)