Snowmageddon 2015

As Sarah had mentioned in a previous post, Lubbock, Texas is a location of the "not so much snow" variety.  A fact that brings me no end of joy.  I HATE snow.  With a raging passion that dwarfs the fire of 10,000 suns.  Now, even in Lubbock, we get SOME snow.  Usually, what this means is that the ground is covered in a quarter- to a half-inch of "white stuff", then the temperature goes up to something like 60 degrees Farenheit, and it is all melted by 12:00 PM that same day.  I can't tell you how gratifying that is to me.

Now you might ask what happened during my childhood that scarred me for life and made me hate winter so much?  The answer: absolutely nothing.  As a kid, I loved snow.  The problem came when I grew older and, well, bigger.  My circulation got worse, and it became ridiculously easy for my fingers and toes to get cold regardless of how many layers or the kind of protection I put over them.  Once cold, it takes an inordinate amount of time for them to warm up again, so I tend to avoid them getting cold in the first place.  That means, when winter comes, I figuratively get out the wooden stakes, crosses, and garlic and hide behind a rushing river.

This past winter we had planned to take a vacation to a slightly different climate over the break between Christmas and New Year.  For the first time since we have been in Lubbock, I did not need to be physically present during year-end inventory at work, so some friends of ours invited us to head north to visit a resort property they had a time-share at in Oklahoma.  We had planned to leave yesterday.  As usual, the best-laid plans of mice and men...

We were greeted with this:

This morning, the sight that welcomed me as I opened my front door was an extremely ominous one:

The views down either direction of our street.  And yes, that IS our van parked next to that snow bank.

Yes, that snow bank gets up to half the height of our front window...

...and the one in the back is every bit as big.

If you're looking for sizes for reference, we parked our kids in the highest part of the drift and told them to find the ground.

Then there's poor Shadow's house...

But like most kids, Meagan and Jacob were excited at the prospect of playing in the snow, and got their gear on to head outside.

Jacob can be seen making the obligatory snow angel.

The kids had a great time playing outside and I was glad for them from inside my warm house.  As for me and my body, however, we will dread the clearing of the snow from the driveway because we still need to get on the road to the afore-mentioned vacation - two days late.

- Josh