happy birthday to me (early)

look what lana can do now!

drew picked lana up from daycare today. when i got home, they had this surprise for me! i guess she took about 2 steps at daycare today (something she's done with us, but not on a regular basis, and definitely only when she feels like it!). next thing we knew, she was pulling up on everything so she could walk! without holding on to anything! YAY! our little lana is getting so BIG!

oh gosh

i just found all these snow pictures i hadn't uploaded yet. it shows a LOT more snow. i haven't rechecked the forecast since friday, so i'm not sure if we're still planned for winter precip on tuesday. we'll keep you posted!

this was our front yard...notice how you can't see the street

neither drew nor i went to work thursday or friday. too stressful to drive in.

the tree in our front yard at night. so beautiful. i wouldn't mind framing this one

same tree, but daytime. clearly i couldn't get over the amount of snow on each branch. it was so beautiful. i can't come up with another word besides beautiful. where's my thesaurus??

backyard

catching up

so a week ago today we were starting the thaw out process of nearly a foot of snow in flower mound. i'm just now getting around to posting pictures. i figured our family in oregon and elsewhere would LOVE to see how crazy texas has been this winter.

here's a pic of lana holding snow...not sure what to make of it

mom and lana enjoying the wonderland

diving in

beautiful!

a view from the front of our house. we still got about 6 more inches of snow on top of this picture.

it was all so beautiful. i wish it'd come back! oh wait. it will. tuesday night. more snow in the forecast. amazing.

pictures

so here's a quick update on altus.

we got up sunday morning and drove up there to take my grandparents a generator. we drove through freezing fog, and it really only took until decatur for us to hit ice/snow on the ground. not a lot, but i could see it!

the closer we got to altus, the crazier the scene became. it was nothing i'd ever seen before in my life. the trees looked like they had white branches--there was so much ice on them! and as we drove out to my grandparent's house from town, it felt like we were driving into a desolate area. something out of a war movie....there was no one on the road, no one leaving their homes. it was so weird.

we got there and pulled up to see this:

notice the large pole that is leaning on the tree:

these are the trees in between the house and the barn.

the house was a cool 60 degrees inside, but manageable. they had a fire going and that's how they were keeping warm.

after we got the generator hooked up, we got the space heaters going to warm up the house. i was the only one in the living room and i was working to keep the fire going as well. within 2 minutes one of the space heaters caught on fire. it was pretty stinkin scary. it ruined a good chunk of the carpet and there was ash and smoke all over the house. luckily, my grandma got it out of the house before anything else happened. of course all i could do was scream. clearly i'm not so great in emergency situations. :(

UPDATE:

right now my grandparents are staying at a friends house further in town. they got the power restored there, so they have heat and warm showers. what a blessing! now if only they could get the power back on at their own house!

keep praying for them. its tough having your life disrupted...especially when you're 80+ years old.