Traveling with Joe's Mom

We spent a busy but wonderful weekend in Chicago/Milwaukee for Joe's youngest sister Catherine's graduation. She is now a Doctor! It was also quite an adventure: Surviving the Big City with Joe's mom and family!
Just imagine all six of us going places in the Big City, driving and parking a huge Chevy Avalanche. Joe was so glad that he didn't have to be the driver in the city. None of us would have survived.
We visited the Bean... as well as the Art Institute.
Next day before heading for Milwaukee, we got to enjoy the Botanical Garden, through English garden to Japanese garden, desert plants to tropical.
Every place we visited, we couldn't possibly have enough time. Still, we wouldn't have traded this very adventure for anything else. It was priceless to be there for Catherine's graduation, knowing that she will make a wonderful doctor.

Our First Fishing Trip

Finally! We got to go out fishing Apple Creek this Sunday. The water has started to warm up, as the air temps climbed up. In fact, it reached almost 90 this weekend. A mosquito weather! The trout stream was even more lovelier than I remembered... after the long cold winter.
And Joe caught a very nice 21" steelhead, weighed 3 lb. That was exciting!
Of course, it was super fresh and tasty. A perfect way to start our "real" trout season (5 weeks after the season actually opened). Cheers to fishing!

Fresh Snow!?

Yes, you are looking at the pictures of our back hill, currently covered with some fresh wet snow. Our weather guys were predicting snow this week, specifically for Friday. It started snowing this afternoon... and kept on coming. Trees and grounds turned white. I was glad that I still had my snow brush in my car. I had to use it when I was leaving work. Only yesterday I enjoyed hanging bed sheets outside in the sun.
So far we had picked ONE morel mushroom this season. It was last Saturday when we were out and about, we checked Joe's usual spots. Now it's even more doubtful that mushrooms are up this weekend.

Ramen Bowls & Smelts

Finally yesterday I got my ramen noodle bowls that I had ordered from Japan. I'm excited to have other noodle dishes in these perfect bowls.
Also yesterday Joe came home with some freshly caught smelts. He cleaned them and fried up for our (mostly for me) after-dinner snack.
They were nice and crispy, good to the tails. A taste of spring!  

Trout Season Opens, Almost

This Saturday was the opening day of trout season... as expected, it was impossible to access the trout stream, as well as the water temps too cold for any kind of fish activities. The harbor also seemed to have gotten jammed with ice, impossible to fish from the break walls. So, Sunday morning we treated ourselves to homemade pancake breakfast, completed with whipped cream and strawberries.
To cure his trout fever, Joe insisted on grilling his BBQ ribs for dinner, which I didn't mind a bit! He even grilled the asparagus, oh so perfectly. Though he did not open the garage door to grill (to keep the upper 30s chilly air out), the taste of grilled food was like tasting spring/summer.
Earlier when we drove into town for some shopping, we took a closer look at the harbor and noted that the inside the break wall was indeed open water, free of ice chunks. We had our early BBQ rib dinner and went fishing.
The east side of the break wall was jammed pack with ice piles. To our surprise, it was very calm and pleasant.
But not to our surprise, there was no fish. The most fun we had was trying to catch ice pieces like in the below picture. Oh, and stopping at Blackrocks to have local brew beer to make this Sunday complete. We savored the fact that this IS spring in the UP. We can't wait till all the ice goes to enjoy spring/summer, 'cause we'll never get to.
In fact, we were expecting some rain today... and LOOK what we are getting!

Easter Sunday

This was Monday when we had about a foot of snow. One last snow day.
On this Easter Sunday we actually got to enjoy a nice walk in the warm sun. After our ham dinner with Joe's family we strolled down to the harbor to check out the ice.
Unfortunately the break walls were still surrounded by ice, preventing us from fishing for spring run salmon. Joe figured maybe next weekend if the temperatures stay in the 40s. 
Lastly we wish you all a Happy Easter.... I baked a buttermilk pie for the first time. Light creamy sweet goodness. Yum.

Last Snow Storm

This was Friday (yesterday) morning. The weather people were warning us all week of this snow storm. Actually the storm was a bit late coming. At least Joe didn't have to blow snow in the morning.... Lucky me, I got a ride in to work! A warm car waiting for me to get in.
The snow didn't stop all day. Whiteout conditions at times. It was definitely WINDY with blowing snow. As expected, after work and a dinner outing, we came home to piles of snow and drifts. Joe had to run his snowblower then.
I had to get a picture taken of me standing by our snow bank. This snow storm pretty much replaced the amount of snow bank that had melted. It might be hard to imagine that spring is, should be, coming soon. Still, this morning, Saturday, we woke up to the warm bright sun, which kept on shining to melt snow. The temperature even went up above 40. Now that's a promise of spring coming.
We just pray that this is the last snow storm of the season!