Better blog before I forget

 Well, Texas.  What can I say?  Other than my sister and her beautiful family, the weather really was the highlight of the trip.  No, it was not 20 degrees; but there was no snow.  Did you hear that?  NO SNOW!!!!  There is a lot of snow here.  The piles are so high that one needs to pause while exiting the driveway in order to crane one's neck around the snowbanks to check for oncoming vehicles.  Such behaviour is entirely unnecessary in Texas.  The mornings started somewhere around zero degrees but quickly warmed up as the strength of the sun increased.

 Just in case you didn't believe me - a real live Texas license plate.  Well, not technically alive, more of a live-inanimate license plate.  Anyway, I was there;  if you look closely enough you can see Sarah and I distorted on the trunk of the card.  Sort of like one of those unapproved apparitions of Our Lady.

Pansies!  They can plant flowers in January!  Next to real live grass.  Notice how many things are alive in Texas?

 Including the camellia.  The particular area where my sister lives is known for its roses and azaleas.  We were too early for the azalea blooms but the camellia were just starting to brighten the bushes.

 A mere thirty minutes into our morning walk and Sarah had already discarded her winter hat.

 I found this especially funny and actually wondered if there had been a sale on bright green spray paint.  I asked my brother-in-law, whose first degree was in horticulture, and he told me that the grass on the left is the sort of dead stuff that lies under our banks of snow while the stuff on the right is called winter rye and is planted when the winter comes.  The only downside is that one still has to mow the lawn.  Is there even a toss-up between mowing the lawn and shoveling the drive?

 The brick roads in the Azalea District.  Can you imagine these in the North?  Am I making you depressed?  Or perhaps hopeful that somewhere outside of our wintry world exists a place paved in red bricks.

 And on an entirely different note:  aren't the grocery-store cakes in Texas different than ours?  I've never seen colours so vivid on Canadian cakes.  Nor have I seen an animal-print cake.  Now I am hungry; this doesn't change either side of the Canadian border.

 Tinfoil-wrapped palm trees.  Palm trees are not native to this part of Texas and thus have to be protected against the winter.  I am looking forward to the week before Easter.

 One morning my mother and I brought Sarah to the local zoo.  Don't let the word local deceive you into thinking mediocre (especially those of you from Barry's Bay - there are no camo-clad locals in sight); this zoo was a work of art and filled with exotic animals.  Unfortunately the rhino, hippo, giraffe and elephant wouldn't emerge from their warmer shelters.

This made me laugh because any black bears around here are asleep.

 The white tiger was extraordinarily beautiful and completely nonplussed by Sarah (who was wearing socks on her hand because I had forgotten her mittens).

 Lest you think that socks can stop one of my children from eating chips, think again.  The ability to eat chips in any and all circumstances is completely inherited from their mother.

Unfortunately this cougar was interested in 19-month old girls and not chips.  His frantic pacing and desperation to get out of the enclosure and eat Sarah was terrifying.  My blood pressure rose and I couldn't stop looking behind me even after we had fled the scene.  Yikes.  That's all for now, photos of family in the next post.