We hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season... no matter where you may be. My work schedule is finally back to normal. I am ready for celebration now!
This week when I didn't know what to cook for dinner, I was saved by the care package from Hawaii. We had spicy ramen noodle. I also found a bag of pot stickers that I had made and forgotten, so it was a complete meal of ramen noodle, pot stickers, and fried rice. (That's how you order at a ramen shop in Japan.) We enjoyed slurping away our noodles.
Last night we were invited to a Japanese hot pot dinner party. I didn't have much time, but really wanted to bring something. So I made a dish my mom usually cooks for New Year: spicy shrimp and cucumber stir fry. She had sent me her tiered lunch box set earlier this year, and I finally got to use it.
Lastly, Joe butchered portions of his deer today. The picture below was from this morning before I went to work. As you might have guessed, inside the mysterious black bag was the deer meat. Joe put some of the meat through his meat grinder, so we can cook venison chili, meatballs, and such. Still, lots of work to get a several pounds of good cuts of meat!
We are planning on leaving for Ironwood after work tomorrow to celebrate Christmas and New Year. Have a safe and wonderful New Year, everyone!
We wanted to wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day one day early. Tomorrow evening we are going to see a hockey game with Joe's cousin and the family. It should be a fun outing for our Valentine's Day date.
Since we seem to have lost the month of January to the cold and sickness, we are now trying to actually enjoy the cold whether. You can only be cooped up inside for so long. Anyway, on this lazy Sunday we decided to put a Christmas present from Santa with a great sense of humor (aka Joe) in to use. Ever since we bought our house with a hill in our back yard, Joe had been wanting to go sledding on the hill. We finally own a large and strong enough sled!
It has become our winter tradition to go up to see snow sculptures at MTU with Phil and Judy. We knew it was going to be cold enough this year. We just hoped and prayed that it won't be blowing and snowing like arctic weather. Yesterday our prayers were answered by the sunny sky with little wind, though it was still around 15 degrees.
We kept our smiles while walking around and viewing the sculptures. Students had plenty of snow to work with this year, in fact they asked the school to remove some snow for them to have room to make sculptures. That was the first time, we heard. The only other thing was they had to work in zero temperature weather. Brrrr. We were all so glad to go into a warm restaurant for lunch afterward. 
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