Texas Blizzard

Sounds like a joke of a title, but we actually had about 8 inches of snow in Dallas on Feb 12th. It broke all kinds of records for snowfall in our area--and also made for some beautiful winter scenes--so uncommon in Texas.






Oak Tree


Redbud



Crepe Myrtle


Potato Boxes


Hackberry





cottonwood



We lost power for more than 24 hours and got to practice our 'emergency prepardness'... and we did pretty darn good--with help.

Good Points:
1) had flashlights and candles ready within seconds of power failure
2) hot water and range top stove run on gas and were functional without electricity
3) doubled up on PJ's for kids and eventually all piled into our bed for warmth
4) open blinds allowed for plenty of light during the day
5) did fun activities like making homemade pasta to keep from getting bored during the day
6) both of our jobs were flexible to allow us time for this local emergency
7) we have GREAT friends, who loaned us a generator to hook up the blower to the gas heater so we had heat.
8) house only dropped by about 10 degrees overnight

Bad Points:
1) had to borrow a generator
2) Had no alternative heat source w/o electricity
3) Had no safe, long term light source, only candles and flashlights
4) Sandra did not have enough warm clothes to really bundle up
5) got kind of bored during the day, and would have gone nuts during the evening before bed
6) had no means of baking (very minor point)


It was kind of a fun experience, almost like camping at home. It really opened our eyes to what we need to work on and what seemed to work well for us.