Treacherous Date

On this snowy wintry 5th we ventured out to go back to the ice caves. Once again we wondered why we walked across the snow blowing field and yet further hiked up and down the treacherous icy trails. Thank goodness this time we had our cleats on. We still slid, but not to a death defining level. Once we saw what awesome nature's ice sculpture ahead of us, we eagerly climbed that last uphill... only to get closer and to explore inside.
Pictures just can't justify!
Trust us, we took such a nice shot of ourselves only when we could. As you can only imagine, we had to go back the way we came. But what fun can we have in life, if you don't take a slightly treacherous path, once in a while? Well, we certainly did today.
Back in town we went out to have authentic Thai food for dinner. What better food after our frigid outing! Then, to top it off, Joe took me out to a movie to celebrate the 5th. We went to see "Rango!" Very cute, actually a lot more serious than we were led to believe, with very good music and visuals. Our treacherous date turned out to have a very good balance of cold, heat (Thai chilies), good exercise, yummy food, fun....!!

Cream Puffs

I just love tiny little dessert. The other day I mumbled that I used to make home-made cream puffs and found out that Joe's dad loves them, or eclairs. So I found a recipe and made a small batch. I melted some chocolate for the eclair tops. Why not put the chocolate sauce over regular cream puffs, too!? Yum.... Guess I could have made them a little bigger, but then we just have two!
Right after I assembled my slightly clumsy looking eclairs below, we made a special delivery to Joe's family.

Happy Valentine's Day

Joe brought me home a bouquet of ORANGE (my favorite color) roses last Thursday. A little surprise when I got home from work.
Yesterday on Valentine's Day, I wanted to make our dinner just a bit more special... so I put those big fancy wine glasses! Obviously I didn't let Joe pour the wine to fill up the huge glasses.
For dinner we had steak on the grill and poor man's lobster (aka northern pike that we caught the other day) with crispy potato wedges (as close as I can make to French fries Joe requested) and broccoli. As mean looking as a northern pike, its white flesh is quite delicate to taste, resembling lobster meat, when dipped in butter and lemon juice. Except you really have to watch for sharp bones.
To finish off such nice dinner, I hadn't forgotten to make dessert... it's just a little small. Joe really wanted to emphasize how tiny his dessert was, compared to his bear paw holding a cup of white chocolate rare cheesecake. Since we don't have pretty flowers blooming in the middle of February, I cut out paper to make my flowers to decorate our special dessert on this special day. Happy Valentine's Day to all!!

Winter Fun: Part II

Yesterday was another day off... and again we got up earlier than our usual work days to have fun. We took our first ice fishing trip this winter. It was a beautiful day at Lake Independence, and they were having a fishing derby. (Note all those little people, trucks, shacks in distance.)
Below was our ice shack, in which we drove right onto the frozen lake.
We didn't actually participate in the derby, which I'm sure was the key to our success. In my short ice fishing history, I had never seen a keeper fish caught, so I really didn't expect much action. But first, Joe pulled this respectful Northern Pike.
He measured 24" and just as mean looking as a Northern comes. Our fist keeper!
The sun was pretty warm until the wind started to pick up. Then we sat in the truck, aka shack, for a while, and another flag went up. This time Joe's dad pulled this second Northern Pike, 24" also but heavier. We wouldn't have won the derby anyway, but it was very good fishing for us.
Even better for me, we came home with the both fish... Joe's dad is smart not to deal with the fish to fillet. My poor loving husband Joe spent a good hour cleaning, boning, skinning, fighting the fish, only so I can enjoy eating it. In the picture below Joe is actually holding down the second one, which had thawed back alive and almost jumped off the counter!!
This is another crazy way to have fun in winter up north. I gotta tell you, we work hard to have fun! But it's all worth it.

Winter Fun: Part I

It's that time again for Michigan Tech's Winter Carnival. Yesterday we drove up to meet with Phil & Judy (plus Ginger, of course) to brave the cold and to view the grand ice sculptures created by students. Once again we got to see Snoopy sleeping on his bigger house, which this time was an actual smoking booth outside a Saloon.
You must also know how cold it really was outside. Though the temperature by afternoon was around 20, we had woken up to our outdoor thermometer pointing 12 BELOW zero. Brrrrrrrrr. The sun felt nice and warm, but the wind surely was cold. Still, plenty of wonderful sculptures were well worth the cold. Here are a handful of images completely created with snow and ice. This year's theme was pages from literature and books, like Moby Dick...
Three Little Pigs
Alice in Wonderland (my favorite)
... to Bible. Very impressive!
So this is why we love winter up here.... brrrrrr.

Joe the Mechanic

Even after buying a new TV, Joe hasn't had much time to sit around to enjoy it. This weekend our Honda SUV started acting up.... And yesterday he came home early from work and worked on the car all afternoon, for almost 7 hours in our frigged garage. He took the entire top of the engine apart to replace the intake gasket.
There are so many tubes and things in the way... but all come apart!! Amazing.
More amazing is that Joe pieced them back together and the engine ran again, though he had to get a new O-ring when gas spewed out from one of the fuel injectors. There never be an easy project.
In fact, tonight after I drove home from work, Joe checked on the engine... only to find another leaky fuel injector. As I type, he's finishing up his project after going through a couple more new O-rings in the process. You plug a hole, and two more holes appear... that is life.
Big thanks to my mechanic Joe!

Joe's New TV

We finally joined the rest of the world with flat-screen TV's... not as we planned however. Two nights ago I decided to call my mom instead of watching something on Netflix. So Joe played his game on PS3 while I chatted away. Only moments after I said good-night to mom, all of a sudden our TV died. Completely.
After a short but intense research on flat-screen TV's online, we went TV shopping. I would have settled on a smaller TV... but Joe had to get this 46" Panasonic. Well, the price was right, and it does look impressive in our living room now. It's just so.... thin.
My only hope is for it to last us a long time.....