More Winter ... the groundhog was right! Feb 16 - 28th

Tuesday turned into a lovely sunny day. Great to see some sunshine and melt the snow. Wednesday was another awesome day with sun.

Kat sent me some pictures and short videos of Stella who is now 9 months old. Wow.

No longer laying down for her "monthly" pictures. lol

I can stand!

Wednesday, Amelia had her trip to Victoria again for her cast change. Nice that it was a sunny day for her adventure. She now weighs 8 1/2 pounds, and she is now 40 weeks so she is finally a "full term" baby. :)

Time for lunch. :)

Nice enough for a walk in between appointments as she had one in the morning for a cast change and one in the afternoon for imaging.

Thursday was another cold "chunky rain" day. No accumulation of snow though. I made a turkey dinner with roasted thighs and fixing's . Yummy. Ray spent some time in his shop making his wooden Vancouver Island piece and I just played in my kitchen prepping for dinner. Now that we signed up for Disney Plus, we have been re-watching the Star Wars movies including the Mandalorian Series that we had not seen before. We are enjoying actually watching the movies in order of a timeline and picking out stuff we never actually paid attention to before with the timeline.  Bonus... two of them we hadn't seen.

Friday -1C. Still quite cold outside. Forecast for showers today. We won't see the sun again until maybe Tuesday if we are lucky. I ordered myself a new winter coat, originally from Amazon and sent 2 of them back as they did not fit as per the sizing. Finally ordered from Hudson's Bay and got it yesterday. I have only been waiting a month. Maybe it's a good thing winter is still here. lol NOT!

Ray headed to town this morning to pick up some shop supplies and it's laundry day for me. :)  Spent the afternoon watching another Star Wars movie.

Saturday woke to clearing skies, not for long though as there is another "Atmospheric River" heading our way apparently. While Ray worked in his workshop, I had a "kitchen day". Ray has been busy making an art piece of a wooden Vancouver Island cut out. It's coming along well.

Since I still had enough apples that we were given by our neighbours in September to make a pie, that's what I also made and a Dutch Baby Pancake for breakfast. Next up was cabbage rolls.

Finally sat down at 2pm after the cleanup was completed. Dinner is done. Another enjoyable day.

Sunday another cloudy/rainy day. Managed to get out for two walks with the dog though in between showers ... Freya insisted I go too, much to Ray's delight. Bark, bark, bark ....right at my feet. You are coming momma! I watched a show on Food Network and promptly made one of the recipes for lunch. Pantry Orecchiette. Had bacon in it so very yummy. I bought a pasta strainer pot that I wanted to try out. :)

Monday morning it looks like the clouds are clearing. It sure poured overnight, we definitely were in the path of that "atmospheric river" the weather forecasters talked about. lol I made a run to the Duncan Walmart to get a bunch of pantry items on my list. I put this trip off for several weeks so that it was not snowing or freezing, time to get it done. Superstore had their 3rd outbreak of a Covid exposure so I crossed that place off my list for now.

The sun did not manage to come out as we had hoped today so going shopping was a good choice.

Tuesday woke to clouds and a few sprinkles but it cleared up somewhat for the rest of the day. Had some shopping to do so Ray and I headed up to Nanaimo for a quick trip.

Someone is not happy having her bath!

Stella is over 9 months and keeping her parents busy.

Wednesday, sunny skies ... yeah, but apparently we will get some snow this evening. Hopefully this is the last gasp of winter. They say it will be gone tomorrow as it will go up to 8C and melt everything. Fingers crossed this is the truth. :) Yup the storm's a commin!

Thursday morning woke up to a couple of inches of snow but by 7 am it was sprinkling with rain and melting the snow already. Road to town already bare and wet according to our local Facebook page. Sun is supposed to come out this afternoon so it could turn into a nice day. By noon it was evident it was going to be a blustery wet day with intermittent showers. Turned into a laundry and cooking day instead. :) Ray spent the morning in his shop with his current project, the wooden Vancouver Island Map. Picture to follow once it is complete. :)

First up Monkey Bread ... too bad Dave McMechan, Dave Roche and Steve Colibaba you could not be here. :) Some of our favourite friends that love my baking.

Cooked up a batch of eggs and cream for the ice cream machine for Ray tomorrow. It has to chill overnight before you can churn it. The ice cream attachment for my mix master was his Christmas present from me. :)

Tonight's dinner is huge Yorkshire Puddings topped with beef short ribs done in my InstantPot. with honey orange carrots. Yumm. I picked up the short ribs as they were on special at our little Country Grocer a couple of days ago, so it will make enough for 2 nights meals. The huge Yorkies rose extremely tall.

Ray is struggling with all of the "grey days", so I feed him to help make him feel happier. I will be glad when Covid is over so we can do some travelling again, and have some warm sunny days during winter times.

Hardly see the Yorkshire Pudding under the beef ribs. lol

Friday woke up to a sunny but breezy day. Too cold to sit outside unfortunately, but it certainly is cheery looking out the windows over the lake. Ray's project is coming along with his wooden Vancouver Island Map. My project was to finish the laundry and finish the ice cream for Ray from the batter that I made yesterday. It makes about 2 large sour cream containers worth in a batch.

Picture from this morning, yup Amelia has a full belly. :) Momma makes good milk. She is doing really well for almost 2 months old in spite of getting a new cast on her left leg every week.

With the sun out, but windy, we managed to find a warm spot in front of our garage to enjoy some sun rays on our faces. So nice. Definitely makes you feel warm and fuzzy. lol

Saturday morning has started out with clear blue sky and the wind is now a slight breeze from the opposite direction, from town. By noon time it was clear that the breeze off the lake was too cool to stay down on the lawn so I fired up the heaters on the deck and fire table and we sat there for a couple of hours bundled up. Lovely just to be outside enjoying seeing the sunshine. Our gardener was busy today putting new dirt in the gardens at the front and back of the house. Sure looks much nicer.

Ray is getting close to finishing his project ... just needs to be glued to the backing now and then stained. The project is coming along very slowly as Ray must limit his time cutting the small pieces due to his back.

Sunday morning very cloudy, the beginning of a week of showers, at least that is what is forecasted at this point. Glad we took advantage of the sun the past two days. Nothing much else happening at Kyle's Kottage.