Braces Off!

After 28 months and countless appointments, the braces came off today!!!

 It was all worth it for this BEAUTIFUL SMILE!!!

The Week in Headlines

 

Historic Winter Invasion Day 3

 By 8:30 this morning, our power was fully restored.  We kept waiting, thinking it would shut off at any moment, but it never did.  Thank the Lord!  We know that around the state and within our own friends and family, there are still so many power outages, lack of clean treated water, busted pipes, ceilings coming down, and flooded floors.  

There was another snowfall overnight and I marveled at the massive icicle hanging from our wreath.

I'm not sure we will ever see our home blanketed in snow quite like this again.

  Another visit to our neighborhood lakes.  This time you can't even see the outline of the water.

We are so relieved that the worst is over for us.  Tim will soon begin  drywall and restoration repairs for family and clients who have damage in their homes.  We hope everyone will be able to put this behind them very soon.

Historic Winter Invasion Day 2

 I left off with 7 degree weather at midnight and our power being off since 5:35 PM yesterday, a 6.5 hour stretch.  The girls and I were so tired and cold.  Lana had taken full responsibility for tending the fire and they stayed in front of it on pallets.  I was on the couch but I don't even think the heat from the fire reached me.  The power came on at midnight, the fire was at a point we could let it die down safely.  We all ran to the bed to see if we could sleep.  We did fall asleep with the covers pulled over our heads in all the blanket layers.  I don't know exactly when the power went off again (probably an hour), but by 4AM, I woke up and it was the coldest it had ever been in the house.  49.2 degrees.  We built up a new fire again and I was kicking myself that we let it go in the first place.  But, we were just so tired!  Anyway, we got it going and it was 1 degree outside with a wind chill of 12 below zero.  Tim safely returned home to us and I have never been so happy to see him.  I realized how much it eased my mind mentally.  The power came back on at 7:30AM for 1.5 hours.  It went off again for 3 hours.  Came back on for 2 hours.  Went off for 1.5 hours.  Came back on for 3 hours.  Went off for 1.5 hours.  Came back on for 2 hours.  Went off for 45 minutes.  It went on like this overnight into Wednesday morning.   It was improving!!  The outages were not as long and the hours of power were getting longer.  We were so relieved that things were getting better!

Tim took the girls to our neighborhood lake.

Major fish casualties.  Frozen in ice.

Thought it would be fun to compare and contrast this with May 2020

Tim tended the fire overnight, but realized the power was beginning to stay on longer and the outages were shorter.  He had not had sleep in almost 48 hours, so he was able to go to the bed.  We knew the most dangerous temperatures were over, it was holding at 19 degrees overnight into Wednesday.  We were glad that our family and friends were all safe, but we were to learn that busted pipes, property damage and lack of water faced many of them as the next phase of this dangerous weather.

 

Historic Winter Invasion Day 1

 Overnight starting around 2 AM, we experienced power outages.  The first one lasted about 45 minutes.  Tim left for work at 4 AM to drive into Pleasant Grove.  We had a few more 45 minute rotations of power being out.  Then at 9:00 AM when the temperature was 10 degrees with a negative wind chill, we lost power for 7 1/2 hours until 4:30 PM.  It came back on for only 1 hour and remained off again from 5:30 PM - 11:45 PM when the temperature was between 12 and 7 degrees with negative wind chills of 12 below zero.  We will continue in this 7 hour power-off/1 hour power-on rotation into tomorrow, but that will be continued on my next post.

These pictures are taken from the window, there was no way we were going outside and getting even more cold when we couldn't come in to warm up!

There was never a time that the house returned to any semblance of warm with only 1 hour of power.  We were being mindful of keeping phone usage to a minimum to save battery power, but realized that some of our friends in our community were not experiencing outages.  We surmised that because of not having a major infrastructure on our specific power grid, we were cut for long periods of time.  This was all a controlled method by ERCOT/Oncor to save the whole state's power system!  Can you believe that we were minutes away from the whole power source in Texas crashing and going out?!

  We kept our wood burning in the fireplace and huddled in the living room.  We made sure we didn't all fall asleep at the same time, so we could keep the fire going.  All the credit goes to Lana, she put every single log on the fire and kept it built up for 24 hours. 

We kept sink cabinets open and faucets dripping.  My bathroom faucet faces a northeast wall, both the cold and hot side froze up when it first got cold last night.  During our hour of power, I ran the hair dryer under the sink and it worked.  After that I kept the faucets at a steady trickle and constantly checked the hot side too. 

   We kept two gas burners going on our stove with pots of water, so we could cook during the outage, but we ended up getting creative with dinner.  Lydia wanted to make toasted grilled cheese sandwiches in the fire.  We wrapped them in foil and put them on the embers at the bottom.  It worked and we enjoyed a tasty, warm sandwich!

Meanwhile, Tim was having a record shift at work.  His station responded to 3 working fires.  The department usually has a typical day of 800 calls.  Today they had 1,900. 

Can you spot Baker?

Once water hits their gear, it instantly freezes.  I pictured him as a human popsicle.  

We checked on neighbors and they checked on us.  It was nerve wracking worrying about Tim at work, he was worrying about us and we were just bone chilled cold in our house.  

To be continued...

Valentine's Day / Beginning of Historic Winter Invasion

 Our Valentine's pizza dinner began last night since we knew the weather would be bad tonight.  Our favorite "everything" pizza for Tim and I.  Pepperoni and black olives in the smaller box for the girls.

This morning the girls enjoyed little chocolate boxes and pink milk.  The same tradition since they were toddlers!

The start of the snowfall...

Roasting marshmallows...

Snowfall accumulation by nightfall!

Tim prepared his truck with snow chains to be able to get to work in the morning.

A different kind of Valentine's Day for sure!  

Roomers

 Introducing Lydia as Gilley in Roomers

For Lydia's Advanced Theatre class, they have been rehearsing their one-act play for weeks and placed 3rd at the UIL competition last weekend!  They will be competing for the next round of UIL competition in a few weeks.  We wish them all the best.  Tonight we were treated to a live parent performance!  

Roomers is about a small space filled with an alarming number of mostly alarming people ... Roomers is a play in which madness rules with no hint of underlying black comedy or horror. In short, Roomers is fun. The people of this comedy are fresh, creative and unpredictable. From the avaricious landlady who rents the pantry as a bedroom—so what if the bed has to be leaned against the wall—to the man on the roof trying to develop homing vultures, this is a rooming house filled with a wild assortment of characters. Each has his own problems, most of them weird and unsolvable, and the plot is involved with trying to solve them.

Lydia played Gilley, a private investigator hired to find Holly Anders at this wacky rooming house.

It was very entertaining and everyone delivered their lines flawlessly.  We are so proud of Lydia and enjoyed watching her shine!  

Happy Birthday Tim

 Happy Birthday to Daddy!  He was showered with lots of love!  We celebrated with dinner and cake at home!  He had a great birthday with his 'three girls' !