A little white to add to that red outfit.

St. Valentine's Day in Austin this year brought a little unexpected weather condition, snow.

That's right, snow in central Texas. It was a wonderous day. Of course, you had to be up at 7 to see it, because by 10am it was all gone. The snow started out as sleet and small hail the day before, then some rain in the evening, then about 1am it started snowing. At our place we accumulated about 1 1/2" of snow, a good portion was already starting to melt when I woke the family up at 7:30 to check it out.

So we bundled up and headed outside for a little frolicking. Being in Texas we don't own snow pants, snow boots (or moon boots) or gloves designed to repell moisture, and this wasn't the packing kind of snow. Still, we had a good time throwing snowballs at each other and making snow angels. There was probably enough for a snow man, but that would have required some effort. As it was we took a walk around to the end of the street, which turned into a walk to Starbucks, which turned into me running back to get the car, which turned into a trip to the mall to buy clothes and stuff.

After we got back from the mall, Mrs. Austin and I got ready for our big V-Day date. We were going to Phantom of the Opera, then a romantic dinner at Caramelo's, a highly rated Italian eatery downtown. Phantom was outstanding. Mrs. Austin has never seen it, this will have been my 3rd or 4th time. She was overwhelmed. A few parts of the show surprised her and I have the bruises to show for it. After the show we had about 4 hours to kill until our reservation time, so we bought some bread and feed the ducks on Town Lake. Yeah it was cold but we were dressed very much like a Mamas and Papas song.

We also dropped by Book People and actually got a few things. This whole time Lil Miss Austin was playing with the baby sitter. Yes, I got tickets to Phantom AND dinner at a great restaurant AND secured a baby sitter. I'm a thoughtful bastard and you know it. The day was awesome, it was the best Valentine's Day I've ever had, Mrs. Austin agrees and thanks to the snow, one of the better days we've had altogether.

This was icing on the cake.

So, here's some pictures of the snow, it's a lot so if this page takes 15 mins to load, I apologize, I tried to keep them small this time. Plus, in a week we'll have faster upload time.

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