It was an interesting day around here yesterday...

Omaha is typically a pretty snowy place in the winter time, but this year, Mother Nature waited until yesterday to send us our first significant snow fall. This was the view out my back door at about 1:00 in the afternoon:



So pretty don't you think! I was loving the snow (since we had the day off from school and I didn't have to drive in it) until we had to go out and shovel it. It was a very wet and heavy snow, and at about 7 inches at our house, it took me quite awhile. The upside was that Evan is starting to put some muscle on him, and for the first time he was a huge help in the snow removal process. Charlie really enjoyed taking his small, child sized shovel and flinging everything I had just moved back onto the driveway with alarming speed. I watched our neighbor's three teenage boys clearing their driveway, and thought "SOMEDAY!!!"


And unfortunately, this picture shows what used to be the end of my cat Ray's tail:



Evan was trying to shoo him out of his room, and thought he was all the way out the door. Apparently his tail hadn't quite made it. Luckily, most of it is fluff, but there was a tiny bit of the end of the tail skin that was taken off by the bedroom door when it shut on his tail. Strangely, Ray didn't make a peep when it happened. Evan made the horrific discovery on the floor, so we hunted up the cat, and it was bleeding a bit, but nothing terrible. Evan has always had a tremendous guilt complex about everything, so he bawled for the rest of the day, prayed to God for forgiveness, and begged of Ray to have mercy on him. I thought this was punishment enough, as it is apparent he will never forgive himself for hurting his favorite companion. And it wasn't a purposeful act either. Amazingly, the cat still seems to like us, even after his horrible day.

Maybe there is some truth to the whole Friday the 13th thing after all!