What Could've Been

So this week has been crazy. In typical Texas fashion, the weather went from 80 degrees and sunshine to freezing and snow, in the span of 5 days. Thursday we couldn't watch anything on t.v. because there was nothing but "Winter Storm" coverage. In fact, we were told about the treacherous conditions repeatedly and had to endure endless hours of watching news anchors on location as they picked up handfuls of snow off the ground in front of them.

As if we needed proof. There was no way we we could believe it was snowing in Texas until we saw our local news guy physically hold the snow up to the camera. Good television.

Anyway, I was thrilled because Lauryn is definitely old enough to have fun in the snow. And Allison is too little to remember her last snow, so I figured she'd get a kick of out it.

I bundled up the girls while listening to the weatherman in the background telling us that cities to our north were reporting 7 inches of snow. 7 inches!! I couldn't wait to document the first snow of the season, so of course I took the camera outside with us.

It had been sleeting for the better part of an hour. It was collecting on the top of our bushes and flowerpots. I could start to see flakes of snow mixed in with the sleet, so I knew it wouldn't be long before it was our turn to see snow piling up on the ground. I could already picture the snowman the girls would build in the front yard!

We wandered around outside, squatting down to examine the small traces of white material accumulated here and there around the yard. Poor Lauryn was thrilled to be eating "snow" off the bushes as she scraped off as much sleet as she could from the leaves.


We kept waiting, and still no snow. Here's Allison walking back inside after about 3 minutes, looking almost as disappointed as I felt.



We went back inside and waited for another hour, finally coming to terms with the fact that we had been overlooked and ignored. Cheated, even. While families in surrounding cities all around the metroplex looked out their windows to find a glorious winter wonderland, we looked out our window to find this:


Could've been so beautiful.

And if you just thought of Tiffany after reading that line, you have excellent taste in music.

At first I was sad because we missed our last opportunity for snow this year. But then I remembered that it snowed in April last year, so all hope is not lost. I just hope next time my kids can eat real snow instead of resorting to nibbling ice off the leaves with their teeth.