Snow!

While Amber's parents were visiting we started getting dire warnings about snow on Tuesday. It was looking bad enough that I convinced them to reschedule their Tuesday flight to a few days later. As predicted, we awoke Tuesday morning to a Houston blizzard.

It was covering the ground, and still coming down as we went out to play in it.

This was the most snow we've ever gotten here, and we enjoyed every minute of it.

I was supposed to be working, but I took an extended lunch break to walk over by the elementary school to do some sledding with the sleds we'd kept in the attic since sledding at White Sands nine years ago. It wasn't big, but it was the only hill we could think of.

As expected, the grandparents' flight was canceled. Grandpa Roper said nobody would believe him if he said he was snowed in in Houston. But he was supposed to be working, too, so we let him borrow my Hades cloak to use as judge's robes as he adjudicated virtually.

It was a really fun day, and one we won't soon forget.

Total solar eclipse

We had a once in a lifetime chance to go see a total solar eclipse, so we loaded up the van and drove to Boerne, which amazingly is the intersection of this eclipse and the annular eclipse we saw last year. We stayed with Crystal and Regis, who were also hosting Jake and his kids who drove from Utah.

We went to the same park as last time, but unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate this time.

We knew it was going to be cloudy, but we figured we'd try anyway, and even if we couldn't see the eclipse, it would get darker.

We spent a lot of time eating circular foods and just looking at clouds, but the sun would occasionally peek through enough to see the eclipse happening.

We couldn't see the total eclipse, unfortunately, but it did get very dark for the few minutes it lasted.

The pictures don't do it justice, because my phone was making it lighter than it actually was. It was really cool.

It was worth the trip, even with the cloud cover.

And now I can throw away the eclipse glasses I kept since the last partial eclipse in 2017.

Annular solar eclipse

During our partial solar eclipse in 2017, we bought eclipse glasses for the family. Afterwards, I looked up when the next eclipse would be near us and remember thinking that 2023/2024, when two eclipse paths both pass near San Antonio, was a long time away. I saved the eclipse glasses all these years and we were able to put them to use on a quick trip to Boerne to see an annular "ring of fire" eclipse.

We drove there on Friday night, then went to a local park with the Leflers on Saturday morning to watch.

Over the course of a couple hours we watched as the moon blocked the sun, and it got significantly darker.

We also brought our obsidian disk that we bought in Mexico, and it was great for taking pictures through.

We also got to see some of the other effects of the eclipse, like the crescent shadows.

After the ring of fire, everyone relaxed and watched as the moon slowly exited the scene, or played in the fields.

I had to be back for the Primary program the next day, so we drove back that night.

Rainstorms

We've been getting a lot of rain lately, and it makes me glad that Carmen and Damon and Miles are not too old to enjoy playing in it. They saved lots of worms from drowning.

Lunar eclipse

There was a lunar eclipse last night. Unlike last time, it was warm, but also unlike last time, the kids had school the next day, so they took a quick look at the partial eclipse before going to bed, and I sat out in the front yard by myself to get a few pictures.

The Great Freeze of 2021

The cold weather that drove us out of Big Bend and brought snow on Amber's and Carmen's birthday ended up being a major winter weather event and national news.

After the snow on the Monday the 15th, we had probably our coldest night ever here, with temperatures into the teens. We had wrapped up our pipes, but even still, we woke up to no water when the pipe leading into the house froze. Thankfully we were able to thaw it using the heat gun, but during the whole process something got clogged in the kitchen sink, so it only has hot water, not cold.

That night was when people all over Texas started losing electricity. The power plants were not winterized enough and started shutting down and lots of people spent days in freezing weather without electricity. This led to many people having pipes burst and flood their homes. Our electricity stayed on for the first, coldest days, but we put the thermostat down low to help conserve and spent several chilly days in the house.

School was changed to online at first, then canceled the whole week because people either couldn't get to school or had no electricity for online school. I was able to work from home, but there were very few people online as many were dealing with power outages and burst pipes. The kids found various ways to entertain themselves. Roblox was a favorite.

On Wednesday night, right after dinner, our power went out in what we assume was a rolling blackout. It had gotten slightly warmer by then, with overnight lows just below freezing, so we were able to turn on the gas fireplace and play some candlelight cards.

The fireplace kept the house reasonably warm all night, but it was still chilly enough that Amber slept in the living room. The power came back on late Thursday morning, then went back out again for a few hours again that evening, so we got to have a candlelight dinner.

Things eventually thawed out, and we were happy to find that besides the clogged kitchen sink, and a few plants in the new front garden that look dead, we came through the great freeze better than many.

Hurricane Laura clean up

A category 4 hurricane hit Louisiana on Thursday, and on Saturday I went with a church crew to Lake Charles to see what we could do to help. Unlike the flooding hurricanes of past years that I've helped with, this one caused massive wind damage.

We tried to drive through the town, only to encounter destroyed buildings and downed power lines everywhere.

When we finally got to the neighborhood we were going to help in, we found lots of destroyed houses.

We got to work, mostly cleaning up tree branches and debris, and putting tarps on holes in the roofs.

We saw some caravans of utility vehicles coming into the area, but it's going to be a long time before power is restored and some sense of normalcy returns to this area. I like hurricanes, but I'm glad Houston was spared a hit from this one.

Imelda Cleanup

The stake did a cleanup in Vidor last weekend, but I didn't go because of my choir director calling. This week there were some opportunities to help out locally, so I went to the Hinds house on Sunday morning to help rip out some drywall.

They had flooded during Harvey too, so they were pretty bummed to have to do it all over again. I was only there for a couple of hours, but I knew what I was doing this time and got a lot done. We got most of it ripped out before I headed back to get ready for church.

Tropical Storm Imelda

Just two years after Harvey, we got another huge rain event in our area with Tropical Storm Imelda. Thankfully our house was spared again, but our neighborhood was hit harder this time than during Harvey.

School was cancelled on Thursday, which I initially thought was cautious, because the storm had just recently developed. I went to work and watched as just got hammered by rain. It was soon apparent that the school cancellation was warranted as I started getting reports that our neighborhood was flooding.

This was just a few streets away from us, but our street was fine. Our backyard got very wet, however.

Once I realized how serious it was, it was too late to go back home, so I stayed at work until the rain subsided a little. In the late afternoon it looked like a good time to head out so I had Amber go check the flooded areas in the neighborhood to make sure I could get to the house.

The drive home was a little treacherous, with stoplights out, flooding on 1960, and many abandoned cars, but I made it home without incident.

Only later did I learn that I had an easy time of it. Many people were stuck on highways for hours waiting for water levels to go down.

We're now convinced we can't move anywhere else in the Houston area, since our house is apparently flood-proof (knock on wet wood). Many homes did get flooded (again), so I imagine we'll be mucking out some houses in the next few weeks.