Snow, Ice, and Up

Yesterday, Sunday, I happened to have a day off. The weather was pretty nice, temps in the 20s, slightly overcast. We decided to check out the ice caves again. For once, the wind was not as fierce as usual.

Up ahead was the main attraction of ice caves. Yes, we did need to climb up to take a better view of the ice caves. 

A snapshot of ourselves inside the cave.

Now, it was time to challenge the climbing rope to have a different view point.

We walked back a slightly less traveled way. The sun peaked a bit and made the snowy woods look even more magical.

Brrrrrr...

It was only a couple of weeks ago that you heard the general public complaining, "We need some snow." It was not quite cold enough to snow then, pushing 40s. I'm sure all those people have completely forgotten what they were wishing for. First, we got some snow! Nice, fluffy snow. Then, progressively it got COLD. Almost too cold to even snow. Above was our thermometer yesterday morning reading 10 below zero. Poor Joe went out to snowblow the bottom of our driveway in it. Our local TV crew spotted him and filmed for a while. The frigid weather is our top news around here.
Now, this morning we woke up to even colder temperature (below). The good news is that today should be the coldest with negative temp highs.  

The crazy thing is that this still beats the damp high-humidity cold in Japan, where I don't think the temps hardly went below the freezing point while I grew up. Still, I do miss the Japanese style hot bath on cold days like this.

White Blah Witer Party!

 It's a lazy Sunday and staying that way. It's past noon, and the temperature is barely above ZERO. A perfect day for staying in and maybe watching some movies on Netflix and recover from yesterday. It was our hometown winter celebration. It has become our tradition to invite Joe's extended family over for Spam musubi and watch fireworks from our front porch. We busied all day yesterday to get things ready.

Earlier in the day we walked over to Teal Lake (inland lake) to check out the ongoing ice fishing derby in that white blah. 

To Joe's surprise there were some nice fish caught. Joe might just have to go a few blocks to fish his neighborhood lake soon.

Joe was in charge of making the Spam musubi. Once again, it was quite a hit.

I made some sushi rolls. A perfect plate for a party!

On the side (Spam musubi was really the main dish!) was Kaluha style pulled pork.

 And Thai style coleslaw and potato salad.

Still everyone managed to save room for some dessert. To fit the Hawaiian theme, I baked pineapple upside down cakes. Joe's mom baked cherry pies, too. A perfect ending to another good party. Oh, we all got to watch the firework display, standing in the blowng cold. The wind just started to pick up then, but the temperature held up in the 20's. Thank goodness. Happy Witer to all!! 

Sukiyaki & New Year Cleaning

It just doesn't feel right in the new year without sukiyaki. Some day Joe has to have real sukiyaki in Japan....

This weekend, besides taking some nice walks on snow-covered trails, which we have no pictures of, we spent some time cleaning and organizing our basement. It has been much much needed since I got my etching press and more art supplies. Hopefully this summer we can paint the walls in the basement.

New Year!

Happy New Year!

Everything is pretty much back to normal. After coming home from Ironwood on New Year's Day, we really didn't need to eat much for dinner. (Thanks to Judy for feeding us good!!) Still, I wanted to cook something Japanese to toast our New Year sake with. Needless to say, we had enough leftover for the next day.

The below photo shows our Christmas Eve dinner. Steak and salad, and not sure what was in the little bowls anymore. But we remember we very much enjoyed that special bottle of red bubbly wine!  

Like I said, things are back to normal. I have this weekend off, Saturday and Sunday! Looking forward to relaxing, ...getting some laundry and cooking done, going for a walk, but mostly doing nothing.