While the cats away the mice will play.

Last week I went to Utah for my grandma's funeral. She was 96; fiercely independent, loyal, generous and a wee bit irreverent. Just my kind of woman. I ended up staying six days and on the last day I went skiing with my friend Tara. While in Utah we ate (a lot), cooked, hiked up the mountain at my aunts, played basketball with my brothers and cousins, and enjoyed talking about grandma.

Chad was very anxious for me to get home. One conversation went a little like this, "yeah I'm pretty frazzled, Lily is super destructo baby. They just don't ever seem to slow down."

. . .you don't say?

Even baby was at the end of her rope.

And the kitchen, well, it missed me too. Even though this is the morning after I returned with some groceries. The kitchen upon my return was "Chad clean", and I am very grateful for that!

So did the laundry.

Bless their little hearts though. They did try to pick up. They just stuffed everything into baskets meant for books, garbage, dirty clothing, my shoes, suckers, valentines. . .you get the picture.

Owen gives me a heart attack.

Not literally, but figuratively. On Valentines day we woke up to hearts all over the kitchen with statements of love and "you're cool". My sweet boy.

Snow day. Most snow in Texas ever recorded. Now we are officially famous.

Snow day in Texas, time to call friends over for a rip roaring good time. School was let out Thursday due to the constant pouring down of snow and then canceled Friday from that accumulation. MOST SNOW IN RECORDED HISTORY IN TEXAS. Great, now we have some fascinating stories to tell our great-grandchildren.

Notice in Texas we do not have boots. We have cowboy boots! Ya'all.

If you look closely, you will see the Pam cooking spray in hand. Used to propel small children.

Look at the native out of his element.

Showing these children how it's done.

No waterproof coats. But plenty of trash bags.

The process of fun-making.

The snow may not look like tons to you northerners but the city is officially on high alert. No stores are open and everyone is hyper aware of any type of danger. Thank goodness this is Texas and we all own multiple automatic weapons. And no, I'm not exaggerating.

We all decided that Harrison looked similar to a Transformer.

Snow inside the barrier leads to tears. Little brothers are always such easy targets.

A great time was had by all. We are recovering from our various exploits and the local vegetation is on strike. We lost a couple of large branches but no trees, not the case for many of our neighbors. Approximately one out of two homes lost a large tree from the storm. Mother nature, one point.

I tried being resonable, I didn't like it.

Meet, Mr. native Texan. He is charming, smooth talking, wildly strong and brave. But he has enemies you know. A foe that is so formidable that even the strongest bravest native cowers in fear inside his mothers automobile.

So, here we find ourselves. Pondering tactics for defeating our enemy. He is a new foe for me(my blood has officially thinned) and an unimaginable enemy of the native. Slowly building power over us these past eight years of living here in Texas. I try to encourage my native Texan to have strength. Share stories of my many experiences with the enemy in my previous life.

Game plan. Run. It is our only hope against what is our form of kryptonite.

Snow. The mortal enemy of the native Texan. And my original plan for these pictures and this post title was, "Texas schools finally grow a pair and holds school." But. At eleven in the morning they held an emergency release due to snow. Then about two hours later news came that there wouldn't be any school the next day either. So. The enemy remains in power.


. . .In our defense you will see in the snow day post that this is the most snow Texas has ever had on record. Did you comprehend that?, yes I said EVER.

Yes, I am ripped. Well not ripped at all but able to carry a very large handbag.

Large enough for all of my important items.

Like this precious cargo. And the bonus? I know that while I'm carrying around my cargo other precious household items are safe.

No matter how long you carry them around it's just never enough.