Surviving the Frigid January

It's been very cold outside, temperatures dipping down to 10 below zero... perfect weather for hibernation. 2 weeks ago both of us came down with Covid and stayed home for 5 days. Luckily it was more like a flu/head cold, except I lost my sense of smell for a few days. We felt well enough to go back to work on the 6th day. Now, for a little over a week, we are still taking it easy, but mostly back to normal. Well rested, and most definitely all caught up on the Mandalorian episodes! 

This weekend we enjoyed staying home and making pizza.

To complete our Italian theme, I made tiramisu for dessert. My best batch so far. Maybe next time we can share it with friends.

The cold and wintery weather continues... a couple of nights ago when I came home from work, my car said it was - 3. It was good to have a hearty meal of meatloaf and scalloped potatoes. Here's a toast to your health!!

Winter Weekend Fun

Saturday afternoon we went for a walk on our beach, which was frozen solid. The wind direction was in our favor, we didn't need our arctic expedition suits for once. 

Then we had a dinner and college hockey combo date night with Joe's cousin and wife. It had been many years since our last hockey game, but it's a crazy and exciting sport to watch.

Sunday was a colder and windier day, a good day for a movie, then a pint or two at our favorite brewery. We got to check out their new building additions to the pub, more room indoors now hopefully we won't have to sit outside in the cold!

Got Snow?!

It's hard to believe there wasn't much snow before Wednesday. They were predicting for 1-2 feet of snow from this storm, and we sure got it. It really didn't snow like this last winter, so we were about due. The below pictures were from last evening during a little break with snow, but then we got another 5-6" over night. 

We gave up on a movie date night after work, so Joe could get some weight of snow off our roof. There's always just as much snow on the ground as on the roof. Thank goodness it was nice and fluffy snow.

Happy New Year!

This New Year's holiday fell on my working weekend, so the only festivities happened at our dinner table. Sukiyaki for the new year's eve, just like my family in Japan, with Japanese beer and sake. We didn't even try to stay up till midnight. 

On New Year's day we had cheese fondue. It's just a fun meal option for a special occasion, though we aren't sure if we are doing it right. We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend!

 

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!