More ice fun ~ Ice fishing

The lake is still frozen over so it was an opportunity for Charlie to finally go ice fishing.  I'm glad Graham (middle) tagged along too, with one of the neighbor's kid:

Brrr... it's so cold!  Today's high was only 19F/-7C.

That auger is as big as Charlie!

Patiently waiting...

Unfortunately, no fish today.  But at least we got them out of the house for a bit.

Maybe we should set a trap for the deer instead?? The tracks are all the way up to our garage door!

Supposedly there was a sighting of a deer hunter in our neighborhood a few months ago, the same one from the year before.  Crazy!  

The temperature is going to change up a bit this week - up into the mid and high 30s, with a combination of snow, or rain, or both!  And I just got my car washed yesterday.  Boooo...! 

There's definitely a lot more variance here with the weather compared to when we were living in California.  I think as of right now, we are still not minding it so much.  Ask me again next year. LOL!!

Cousins meeting up ~ Ice Hockey

This past weekend, we had the opportunity to meet up with a family member that we had never met before.  My cousin in Australia texted and said that his son is playing hockey in the Chicago area.  How about that!  

Julian is only 14 years old but look as the size difference compared to Graham, who turns 14 this May.  We need to get our kids to start working out more!

Chocolate M&Ms and vanilla wafers from the vending machine as 2nd breakfast while we wait for the game to start:

By the way, did I mention how cold it is in this arena?!?

And of course, it's always phone time at every opportunity - including while the Zamboni is cleaning the ice:

There he is during warm-up - Lucky #8!

Julian's team is holding up after half-time.  I thought this was rather weird, they actually stopped the clock right in the middle of the 2nd Period:

I've told the boys "No phones" and so this is what they are doing.  Squats while playing Rock, Paper, Scissors???

And looks like Charlie is trying to cheat... again:

Julian's team lost 0-2 today but they did their best playing Defense. I thought the other team looked a lot bigger than the kids on his team:

And Julian looks even bigger than my boys in his uniform.  Ha!  So glad we could meet up with him today and hopefully we'll get a chance to see him more often.  I was shocked when he said his team took the bus over here from Canada.  I didn't realize parts of Canada were so close to us!

At some point, we will need to make a better effort getting all the cousins together.  Maybe some sort of Zoom meeting would be fun.  We'll just have to figure out all the different time zones - between us in the United States, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, and England!

Random photos

Just a few recent random photos.  To start, yup - Daddy approved the purchase of a BB gun during one of my (4) trips back to Malaysia last year.  And no one actually asked for permission prior!

I've been craving for Asian food again.  It's been about a month since I've been back from Malaysia and I even dreamt about getting noodles with my late Dad's wife, my aunt, and my sister back home!  Here's some Mapo tofu with ground turkey that I dumped in with some instant noodles:

I was also craving for half-boiled eggs with soy sos.  I totally overcooked the eggs, so I ended up making an egg salad sandwich instead.  Ha!

What else can we do during a cold wintry day?? Move some heavy furniture, of course!  Except this one was really heavy and it needed to go out of the boys' bedroom and down the stairs into the basement:

Yeaaah, this looks bad doesn't it?

Well, I figured it was best to slide the furniture down the stairs vs carrying it.  I wrapped one side of it with cardboard and also a blankie.  Worked like a charm!  Just glad no one broke any bones falling down the stairs.  Bobby was down the stairs first while I was sort of holding on and straddling on each step.  Good thing the boys weren't recording the whole thing.  And thinking back, this whole thing probably wasn't the best idea.  LOL!

I found the elf pajamas while organizing the boys' bedroom and it didn't take Charlie long to dig up his Christmas ugly sweater too.  Let me remind you that we are already a few weeks past Christmas:

Charlie was sneaking some ice cream and not long after that, he's passed out - fast asleep on the floor.  Must be the sugar crash.  Ha ha!

In the meantime, Graham and I are wandering around Costco one day and...:

I managed to talk him out of this one. He really wanted it!  But they already have soooo many stuffed animals. He did say he was going to sacrifice one of his big fluffy animal pillows but I'm partial to him getting rid of that one because I had bought "Snowy" for him.  He has been reminding us that there's only 4 more months to his birthday, so maybe... just maybe!

That's all for now, folks!

Snow AND Ice!

10 days ago, after getting back from our winter holiday break, it starts to snow.  Here comes the winter storm!!

So beautiful, especially in slow motion :-)  

It's a white-out!

Graham is so happy trying to build his snowman outside:

Not too shabby!

So pretty with the light in the back deck. And there goes Graham on his sled :-)

The next morning...

I'd say there's about 8" of snow!

Time to get that snow-blower out:

Seems like it took us forever to get this driveway cleaned up:

The boys and I had the shovels as well.  I'd say at least a couple of hours, although I'm not sure how much help the boys actually contributed. They may have spent more time with snowball fights!

There's ice down the rain-chain:

Ya, never mind the snow, we also have below freezing temperatures.  So I'm wrapping up some plants in the front:

More sledding for the boys - they went over to a friend's home.  And on the way back, oops - Charlie has fallen over:

Charlie is like a professional soccer player, totally exaggerating his fall.  Ha ha!

Big brother Graham to the rescue!

Awww, so sweet to see.  If Charlie only knew how much his big brother loves him!!

Looks like we better get used to this "whiteness" for a while:

Time for the boys to clear up the back deck:

At least they are not complaining.  Actually, I think Charlie was but no getting out of this one!

They did say that they wanted to move to a place that snows.  Ha!

Icicles along the roofline:

It is still so very pretty though:

Luckily, the roads are nicely cleaned up:

I think at this point, the thermostat in our car says it's 19F outside:

And a few more days later, with days and nights below freezing, the lake has now totally frozen!

Bobby and I are out on the frozen lake, for a nice walk:

We don't look cold, do we?? LOL!!

It's only about 10F, but hey... it's sunny out, with shadows on the "lake":

Lots of animal tracks.  Racoon??

No idea what this could be:

These tracks are ours for sure.  Ha ha!

We do love where we live:

And now we know what these tracks are too:

Squirrels, digging for their food!

Shouldn't they be hibernating right now though?? It's literally freezing outside still!  I may have to read up on this one.

Well, the boys' ski trips have been canceled 2 Fridays in a row now.  It's run by the Park District and it's crazy to think that it's actually been TOO cold to even go skiing/snowboarding.  Charlie will probably want to go ice fishing this weekend though.  Will post some photos if we do!  In the meantime, I'm still going to try and embrace this cold.  I did get out back on the frozen lake again with a neighbor for another nice walk a couple of days ago.  We'll be back in the 30s by next week but forecasted to rain.  So I guess enjoy the snow and ice while it last!