Twas the Day Before Christmas

I woke up to the wind slamming little tiny ice pellets into our bedroom windows, which face north.  And not a gentle "tap-tap-tap."  It was machine gunfire.  Daisy and I stretch and got up.  I went to let her out back and when I opened up that door, which faces north, that dog door just blew straight up and didn't go back down.

The dog was not amused.  I ended up having to take her to the front where the wind wasn't a direct blast.

That should have been a sign of weather to come.  But this is Oklahoma and the weather doesn't follow signage or directions of any kind. 

But the ice pellets turned to flakes and for the whole of Christmas Eve, it got whiter and whiter. 

The dog thoroughly enjoyed the snow.  As you can see...

Little black dog with white spots!

Paul enjoyed it for moments at a time.  He kept running back to the front porch where the wind gusts wouldn't slam the snow/ice into his face.

It wasn't so much that there was snow/ice falling...in fact, there was NO snow/ice falling.  Snow/ice was blowing horizontal at 40 miles per hour.  It made for some good face making.

I included this picture to point out something.  It was cold.  24 degrees is nothing if the sun is out and the wind isn't blowing snow/ice into your face at 40 miles per hour.  It may appear that my daughter isn't suitably dressed here, but let me explain.  She had 2 pair of pajama flannels under her yellow jeans (which is why they're not buttoned, because they are skinny jeans to begin with and not meant to be stuffed with extra layers - I encouraged her to layer up with my bigger size jeans in the future), three shirts under that hoodie, gloves and her lumberjack hat on.  She was probably fairly warm for a bit.

The joy of snowballs.  Paul was being trained in the art.

Now this picture made the cut because it was taken in sequence with the one above and the ones below.  In the other pics, you can see the car in the background.  But for a moment when those 40 mph winds actually gust up a bit more and stir up the snow, it was a true whiteout.

I like the shades.  That's my boy.

The kids went in and out several times that day, braving the weather.  Uncle Jason drove over and didn't get to leave until late the next morning.  Highways were closed, people were stranded and our favorite line out of the evening news (aside from how quickly they dubbed this "Christmas Blizzard '09") was "if you get stranded, just go befriend someone and get out of the cold...knock on doors, befriend people."  Okay, I know it's Oklahoma and we are a fairly friendly bunch (ask anyone), but I doubt very many people are opening up their homes to perfect strangers on Christmas Eve.  That's just asking to be on Dateline's Unsolved Crimes.