winter wonderland

i woke last night to the sound of howling winds and the flap-flapping of the flap on our bathroom vent pipe, flapping in the wind.  so i moved to the living room, where the new sound of a ticking clock forced me to pile a few pillows on my head to finally get back to sleep – around midnight.  around 3am, i was jolted awake by the sound of the electricity coming back on in the house.  the oven and microwave beeped, and the decorative string lights on the back patio were blinking red, green, blue, white, red, green….i tried to use the remote to turn off the blinking but it seems the battery was dead, so daddy had more luck after i woke him up and asked that he handle it.  a quick check of the hoa page on social media confirmed that our whole neighborhood was out, probably the result of rolling brown outs being initiated to conserve on the high demand for power.

the snow had really come down overnight, and you could hardly tell where our concrete patio ended and the lawn began....(6:30am)

it was a bristling 4 degrees, with temps expected to keep falling.  the power proceeded to turn off again only 3 times, and by noon the brown outs had ended for us.  many of the people around us outside our neighborhood were not as lucky.

around 8:00am, i talked little sister into going outside for me to explore and take some photos. 

little sister later walked down to a friend’s house and they explored the trails and streets a bit.  but they were really cold too and by the time she came home she had rosy cheeks and was winded from breathing in the sharply cold air.