Joe's Birthday Week

The month of March is slipping away... while the weather is swinging back and forth, between winter and spring. A few days before Joe's birthday we woke up to find our vehicles covered in 1/4" thick ice. Fortunately the temperatures stayed around 30 degrees, so the ground didn't get too slippery. Then the rain/ice mix switched to wet snow. Pretty... but we are ready for spring!!

Unfortunately I had to work this weekend... so we couldn't have as much fun celebrating Joe's birthday. He did get to have a candle lit cheesecake slice. We'll definitely make up next weekend!

Joe's New Truck aka Rado II

Joe's been looking for a replacement truck for about a year... because his red truck just had too much rust. Very trusty mechanically, but the body and frame as rusty as expected for any 15+ year old vehicles up this north where road salt coats our cars all winter long. This truck served us well for fishing and hunting, and we definitely got money's worth, but Joe had to say good-bye.

Meet this 2016 Chevy Colorado Joe bought yesterday. We were able to drive on the edge of this wintery mix/ice storm to Green Bay (3 hours south) and back. 

Joe has been working hard since he took the manager position, and his work place is still nowhere near perfect, but I know he earned this newer shinier truck. Well, this morning the truck is covered in snow... a proper way to welcome Joe's new truck to our home in the UP. 

New Rug & Snow Storm

Our upstairs bathroom got a new zebra design rug. It certainly completes the room.

And currently we are in the middle of winter storm, which started yesterday morning. As of this morning we probably had gotten about a foot of snow... and it continued snowing all day today.

The weather guys were right about this evening with the heaviest snow fall. When I came home from work and walked only from my car to the back door, the snow in our driveway came up past my knees! We'll have a lot of digging to do tomorrow morning.

A Weekend Project!!

Well, our upstairs bathroom updates happened a lot sooner than anticipated... it seems that we made up for our quiet January all on one weekend. We came home with new flooring and  working men's beer Saturday afternoon. The flooring tiles went in pretty well, even with the claw foot tub and its pipes, until we had to undo what our plumber did to install our new toilet! A bit of setback Saturday night, but we came up with a plan by the time we went to bed. Thank goodness for YouTube videos.  

Sunday we finished the toilet part of this puzzle and a few end pieces. A big win without a water leak! Here are the pictures of "Before" and "After."

The floor turned out much better than we expected. Now we definitely need a new smaller zebra design rug in front of the sink. Joe even kept on going and installed a new faucet, not a simple job when dealing with 40 plus year old valves and fixtures. This bathroom project was yet again an impromptu one... a brand new toilet led to a trip to a store to check out flooring options, and then the transformation happened. Joe the plumber was a super trooper to go along with my ideas/plans. He knew he couldn't stop me :)  

The New Throne

Yesterday we got a new toilet installed in our upstairs bathroom. Finally to replace the old one that didn't flush well. It's nice and shiny! The only problem is that now we really need to put flooring in. The painted subfloor just doesn't look good anymore.... so stay tuned for further updates.

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!