STOP IT!

Not. Cool.

Ice Road SUV-ers

Dan and I occasionally stumble on an Ice Road Truckers marathon on the History channel and when we do, we usually end up watching. No clue why the show is so fascinating, but it is. However, in the future, I think I would prefer to see such driving conditions limited to television screen viewing. Not windshield viewing.

Because this is what we woke up to on Christmas eve.

So it started then and never really stopped. Even on our drive to my parents' later that afternoon. In fact, these were some of the better driving conditions we experienced.

Yay! We can see the road again!

Fortunately, Dan's an experienced snow driver so we were able to make it where others... just weren't so lucky. In fact, we passed a stopped line of about eight cars to tackle this monster hill.

On the way up and over, we passed two vehicles that had someone pushing. And see the headlights in that picture? Those were from a duley driving in reverse up the hill, towing a little Ford. That guy was having way too much fun doing that.

About the time we got to my parents' town, though, the snow had finally stopped.

But it managed to dump between four and seven inches of that stupid white stuff everywhere (depending on what news reports you listened to). My parents' house ended up closer to the four side of the equation and that was plenty, thank you. In fact, it guaranteed that we had plenty of the white stuff left over on Christmas day - my first white Christmas since moving to Texas in 1989 (we've had a white Christmas eve before but it had all melted by the next day). The wind had also been blowing during all the snowing so we were left with some pretty big drifts, too. This one was hanging off of the roof of my parents' porch.

All of this is something I might have enjoyed ten years ago, but now I just feel like I'm ready for summer. And the fact that there is still snow in my backyard's more shady areas? Is simply not cool.

Oh yeah. And Christmas happened.

St. Louis-ness-es

Last week, Dan and I were in St. Louis vising family and I'm just now getting around to editing the pictures and posting - but at least it only took me one week, right? The purpose of the trip was, of course, to visit family. But we also got some more tourist-y activities in there.

First off, Leah had found The London Tea Room so we went there for some goodies. Sadly, I was more into "ooo, tea!" than picture-taking, so this is pretty much all I've got.

My Cuppa

I got a pot of English Breakfast Blend, Dan got a pot of (really yummy) Earl Grey and Leah got a pot of Monk's Blend. I also brought home almost a pound dry tea. Yay!

Another fun event: Blues hockey!

This was Leah's first game, but she got all decked out, too, to support the home team.

We had really good seats, too. This picture was taken with no zoom or cropping!

Seven Rows Away!

And lookie there! Who's that? That's right, number 27 is former Duck Dustin Penner!

Hi Penner!

The game was pretty good - Leah even saw her first live hockey fight.

Fighting? Or Hugging?

Though ultimately the Blues decided that they were enough in the lead that they didn't need to actually play the third period so the Oilers came back and beat them. With a stick.

Oh well, a good time was still had by all! (Except for maybe the Blues).

And then Dan got to do something he's wanted to do for a while now...

Tour the Schlafly Brewery.

Where They Make Beer

The brewery wasn't big but it was pretty neat. And Dan restrained from trying to convince them to tap into one of their holding tanks, so good for him. But maybe that was because there was a small tasting after the tour.

Ah, Beer

Dan and Leah got more enjoyment out of the five beers we sampled, but I tried my darnedest!

Oh well. If I had actually liked one of the beers, we might have had to get some for me and I'm not sure if we could have fit much more than the case and a half we came home with anyway.

Because I am Insane...

I've been tempted to post this for a bit because I recognize the insanity.

My (Ever-Expanding) Tea Shelf

And I love it.

Sadness into Squee

Earlier this week, I broke my teapot.

Please take a moment with me to be sad. *sob*

The strap of Dan's lunch cooler managed to get wrapped around the lid so when I grabbed the cooler off the counter to put it up, CRASH. Little pieces of teapot lid everywhere.

I was very sad (and still am a bit). I've enjoyed that teapot for quite a while now. Since my first glass teapot was broken (due to an unfortunate encounter with a Pyrex measuring cup)... Glass teapots just don't last very long around here. But I love watching the tea steep in them so I will continue to buy them. Hopefully at some point though I will stop continuing to break them.

Anyway, so I bought another teapot and it just arrived in the mail.

Cutest. Teapot. Ever.

Okay, okay. Maybe there are cuter teapots out there. But I really am in love with this. More so than I thought I'd be. It's a Teaposy Daydream Teapot (purchased from Amazon) and it has one of the most serious in-spout filters I've seen.

It's not just a single metal loop, stretched to fill the spout. This puppy has two layers of looped wires - one to stretch up the spout and one to stay flat across the spout opening. And it's got little loops around the edge of the flat section to prevent leaf from slipping between the spout opening and the strainer.

Yeah, this might not be a big deal to the non-tea people out there. But color me impressed.

Of course, right now I'm going through panic mode where every time I touch the pot, I think I'm going to shatter it into a million pieces. It takes a few days for that feeling to go away. Until then, I will be very very careful when brewing tea and perhaps a little tense. And I will spend some time thinking of how to make this one last longer.

Yay for new teapots! Squee!

Ba Ba Big Girl

It's that time of year again. The time when the Big Girl gets decked out in her winter wear.

This year, she's sporting a stylish navy fleece (no sheep were hurt in the making of this jacket). Notice the high collar (reflective on the back for those midnight meanderings around a dark house) and the sleek fitted design.

The Cutting Edge of Winter Fashion

Yes, technically it is a doggie jacket. But Ashes doesn't know that and we have no plans to tell her. She's very happy in her little fleece and has been spending lots of time in Dan's chair. If she knew she was wearing dog clothes, she might hide in shame and we don't want that.

Welcome to winter, Big Girl!

I Wasn't Prepared For This

Confession: I fear the cold.

It scares me. It makes me want to curl up under a blanket while wearing a sweater and fleece pants and not come out until Spring. It gets cold enough and I have the desire to start crying at the unjustness of it all. No. Really.

So when winter attacks us with its evil, I can't just jump right into it. I have to build up to the cold. Prepare myself mentally over the course of weeks so I don't just start crying the moment I am faced with weather below 55 degrees.

Needless to say, with weather in the mid-70s until just a week or so ago, I had not had time to prepare for seeing something like this out of my window:

There are no words to express my horror.