Holofrost 2010

...I had to steal that name from a Facebook friend. It describes last weekend so well.

It snowed. SNOWED! Do you know I live in Texas and that most often our "snow" is really ice that gets maybe a few centimeters thick? But this year we had real snow. Buford woke me up Thursday morning about 3 am to let him out and I thought I would be kind and wonderful and let him stay out of his crate till I got up at 5:30. But, he must have known the weather was changing. When he went out there was no snowy, no rain, nothing. The ground was crunchy but that was more like dead grass with morning frost under my feet. Long story short, Buford ended back in his crate before I had to get up so he again had to be put outside at 5:30 when my alarm screamed at me.

I threw open the door and just stood there. I was frozen, in a trance. Our backyard was covered in snow and it was still coming down. It hadn't been like that two hours ago. It was already more snow than we had received on Christmas Eve. Of course, I know my district isn't going to close, but a girl can hope and Buford and I watched the news until I had no choice but to shower and get ready for the day.

Snow days at school are crazy. The kids don't want to learn/pay attention/use any form of academic rigor because it is SNOWING and neither did I. I was more into the snow than my students. After breakfast I bundled them all up and we went into the snow.

I have 8 students, but that day I only had 5. My TA had been sick the day before and spread it around the room. As one student was leaving he kept saying "Good-bye. I go to the doctor. I need doctor." Needless to say, he wasn't at school on the snow day. By the end of the day my class had dwindle down to 3 students because of parents picking up early. One mom told me her daughter would not be there the next day because it was unsafe. My reply was that hopefully we would all be at home, but she and I both know the district and gave hearty laughs at that thought.

The drive home with my carpool buddy was surprisingly easy. The traffic was better than some of the other days with perfect condition. I made it home in 45 minutes. Not bad. I had only been home an hour when I got the phone call. The district was closing for Friday! I couldn't believe they had made a decision so early. Poor El Hombre, he still had to go to work.

I spent my snow day lounging on the couch and playing in the backyard with Ellie and Buford.

Our house on Friday morning. Those are El Hombre's tracks out.


Our street.
The night before I heard and saw a transformer blow but didn't worry, we still had electricity. The houses across the street did not.


Buford showing how deep the snow was. We had 6" in both yards.


I made a snow angel and then Buford sat in it.


Buford sniffs a snowball.


I made it snow on Buford's face.


I whacked him in the face with a snowball.


Ellie patrols the yard. You can see she wasted no time in getting her paths back in shape.