Merry Christmas!

I had this Christmas eve off... my first in how many years I can't remember. Before Joe blew snow outside, we had an oven-baked pancake breakfast. 

We had no agenda, but to put finishing touches on gifts and such. Our main event was the dinner. Then Joe's brother Mark came to stay with us for the night. We had a relaxing evening, watching a non-Christmas movie.

We woke up to a beautiful clear morning today, after some funky fog and rain last night. Hope Santa had Rudolph's red nose guide his sleigh. Merry Christmas everyone!

Almost Christmas... But Not Quite

The last stretch of work days before Christmas... I think I'm ready. Today, though, we didn't receive any UPS shipment at work, so I took afternoon off, anticipating to work extra few hours to complete all holiday orders hopefully on Thursday not Friday. 

With my time I got to bake Kahlua cheesecake this afternoon. The house smelled wonderful, and Joe gave me his approval by licking the spatula clean. Now we have a special dessert for Christmas to look forward to. Maybe sharing a few slices with some friends.... 

10 Days Till Christmas!?

Honestly, I've had much more hectic holiday seasons mostly due to my retail work environment. It's been busy enough, but I have good helpers and the workplace is managing to stay in good spirit... mostly. Still, time seems to fly by even faster this time of the year. I finally printed our holiday cards last week. Now they are dry and ready to be mailed out!

So, our cards were printed, presents picked... and, of course, our first official snow storm of season happened last weekend.

With plenty of goofing off in-between (oh, we are out Christmas shopping in town, let's stop and grab something yummy to eat!), we are slowly checking off our list. 

P.S. Joe hunted till the last day of rifle deer season as much as he could. He saw deer every day he was out... but toward the end his bucks became very illusive. Joe decided not to hunt any further. Good thing he had a chance to pull out all his gear before the snowstorm. There's always next year!

Thanksgiving and Black Friday Weekend

Joe is still hunting.... It's almost 6pm and dark out, and I haven't heard from him. That means a buck bigger than 4 points hasn't walked in. Deer season continues. 

My Thanksgiving day hunting was a success. I got to watch a couple of does in addition to squirrels and birds and took a nap. A doe wouldn't leave when we wanted to leave for lunch, even though we made noise. 

Thanks to Joe's family we got to have a warm turkey meal after a whole day being outdoors. The only things I made the day before were date bars and cranberry bars to share with Joe's family and my workplace. And yes, I survived another Black Friday weekend at work!

Still Hunting...

This is the week 2 of deer season. Joe's been commuting to his deer blind most days, dawn till dusk, except for a couple of work days mid-week. Yesterday we both came home from work at 5 and felt like going out... a rare treat for someone normally working retail hours till 7pm. 

This big buck still shows regularly, though only at night, which is why Joe keeps going out to his deer blind even in wintery weather. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving day, I'll be going along, mostly hoping to catch some snooze. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

The weekend before the deer season opening day was snowy... which is perfectly normal. Still, when you wake up to a snow-covered Saturday morning, having fresh croissants and coffee at a cozy French bakery is the way to start a day! 

Snow also makes it feel more like deer season, though Joe and many other hunters wouldn't want too much of it. Hopefully it won't snow much more over night.  

Joe is all ready for tomorrow morning. He's really hoping to take a shot at one of the two bucks he missed last season. Good luck! 

What's New in November?!

November is almost halfway through... counting down the last few days till deer season. Totally unrelated, but our beloved red microwave of 10+ years started acting up last month. It still worked, but a few days at a time, when you opened the door, it turned on with its dish turning backwards. We decided it was now possessed and time to be replaced. I still miss our old one... but this new one is red and cute. I can live with it.

And last night we drove 50 miles to have ramen at a place we'd never been. A rather fancy establishment that just added Asian/Japanese street/bar food inspired items. Maybe not quite like flying to Japan... but it was definitely a fun adventure that we'll repeat.

Trick or Treat!!

Happy Halloween! This weekend Joe continued to get ready for deer season... now 2 weeks out. The corn he puts out has been mostly feeding a couple of young bucks with skinny points, a few does, and raccoons so far. Hopefully a bigger buck will show up soon.

Sunday was very gusty, so we went to check out the lakeshore for big waves. 

Too windy to skip rocks... but October-November gales bring out a bunch of surfers. The temperature was still around 45 degrees. There must have been 15 people in wet suits today!

We had a pleasant walk through the woods away from the off-shore wind before treating ourselves with a pint of beer. We came home in time to hand out candies to the neighborhood trick-or-treaters. They were happy that it didn't snow! All in all, this October turned to be milder than usual for us.

Kayo's Birthday Weekend

Sadly my birthday weekend is coming to an end,  but I got to enjoy many things we love around town. Even better we got to share with a few friends. And for mid October the weather was mild, which means no snow and we could still sit outdoors to have beer. We squeezed in a little exploration along the lake shore as well. It still amazes us to find new spots that we had never been to not far from our usual spots.

There was also an off road rally event this weekend. We didn't put as much effort in taking part as spectators, but it was still fun to see and hear all these cars drive away.

Pretty sure Joe and his brother Mark had more fun than me though. I better be careful not to speed driving my Subaru to work tomorrow! 

 

Fall Colors and Grape Jelly

Our October has been warmer but wet. The fall colors are disappearing fast now. Also switching our gear from fishing to hunting... although the warm weather can keep the bears out and around.

We certainly got enough grapes this year. We canned twice as much jelly as shown here, plus extra juice... in case we run out of our jelly... or more like just because I was done jelly making for now. 

End of Trout Season

Today was the last day of trout season. I planned the last two days of the season off from work to catch some salmon... but Joe had to work most of the days. Still, we went out to fish Apple Creek last evening with our pasties and beer, which turned out to be the highlight, and this morning again. Fish really didn't cooperate both days, though we loved just being out there, especially to catch some fall color. 

Thanks to the cell phone coverage, Joe could be on the river and still take care of a few business tasks this morning. Maybe it is a curse, but Apple Creek sure makes the best office ever.

Fall Salmon Season!

This weekend we got up like work days to go fishing... and it paid off! Saturday started out slow, but Joe was surprised by catching our fist salmon of the season at the end of our trip when we were giving up. Sunday was another beautiful morning... first I landed this 20" coho salmon right away.  

Then soon after, Joe caught this 23" fish... we assumed was another coho, but with closer inspection it turned out to be a steelhead (aka rainbow trout). This one displayed quite a show, jumping and dancing, which warned all other fish to stay put. The rest of the trip was rather quiet, though we enjoyed checking out extra stretches with Joe's cousin, who must have been our lucky charm!

We couldn't waste what's left of summer-like weather this weekend, either. We explored some more of the lake shore, following narrow paths past where we were 2 weekends ago.

Truly, Nature makes us feel small... and to think our fish were swimming in this Big Lake before running up their birth river.

Fall Harvest Season

This was already over a week ago, but we came home with a bag full of wild apples. I had to make a wild apple pie last week. We enjoyed it in many pieces over a few days, for dessert, for breakfast, of course, with ice cream! 

And now, it's grape picking time. Tonight after work Joe picked 16 pounds of grapes in a half hour. There are a lot more of them to be picked. Definitely making up for the last year. As I type this, Joe is sitting and watching "The Fifth Element," while taking the stems off grapes. I should probably help!

Labor Day Weekend

We took a long Labor Day weekend. We traveled westward and picked some rocks. Also pleasantly surprised to find and check out some new good eats plus fall harvest. Visited a pumpkin patch and picked wild apples. The air definitely feels and smells like autumn now.

Back at home, Apple Creek was beautiful, but fish still didn't cooperate. 

Then we explored a new cove along the lake shore. 

The trail continued on past this spot, so we saved it for another adventure next time. 

Weekend Fun, and Then Some

As expected, my long weekend disappeared quickly. We had beautiful summer weather and enjoyed our usual things we love close to home. Even better, we remembered to fill our growler with tasty beer to take along for our beach walk.

The Sunday was less windy, so we went out to fish Apple Creek, though fish didn't cooperate. 

And yet again, we played hard and procrastinated work. Been meaning to paint the concrete foundation of our house basically ever since we bought it. Finally later this Sunday we managed to make it happen. We just wondered why we can't do the work before having all the fun!

This Friday in this Old House...

Today I took a spontaneous vacation day...  though my first alcoholic drink didn't happen till way past 5. The day was far from how I envisioned, but everything worked out. Just yesterday I noticed some water around our water heater.

We started out not even knowing who to call, but by this afternoon our new water heater was professionally installed by a couple of nice young men. Thankfully it took 10 plus years before we needed a plumber. Cheers to home ownership!!