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January 13

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January 23

January 27

While we haven’t had a LOT of snow dumping on us this winter, this past week had enough accumulating that it was time to shovel the driveway!  Ezra was home getting over a fever but he had enough energy to push around some snow which he enjoyed.

Ezra showing off the toilet for the ‘house’ they built in the front yard

Slow motion snowboarding

The weekend was pretty relaxed considering we had Sierra with COVID but it really didn’t amount to anything but a runny nose which is great news.

Not sure if you can tell but Ezra was NOT a happy camper when we brought him to go snowshoeing near the cemetery.  He refused so he and I just walked around in the forest.

It was a nice day to go for a trek even though Ezra was a poop.

Ezra was a lot happier the next day when we went to a different forest and tried out a few sliding hills.

Ottawa doesn’t get much sun during the winter so it was nice to see it peaking through.

Saturday morning the kids had the grand idea to make cinnamon rolls.

If you know me, you know that my adventures in the kitchen are not something I enjoy.  Sure…there are spurts where I get some ambition to try new supper/lunch ideas and I have to say we’ve got a few go-to Instant Pot ideas now because of that…but baking is definitely not a forté nor an interest of mine.

However, Grandma did make some cinnamon rolls the last time she showed up and Sierra wrote a recipe so of course when the kids begged to make some, how could I say no?

*Sidenote: this was a great activity to do with Max and Uncle Mike when they visited a few weeks ago.  Baking is a lot more fun when there is a gang looking for a productive way to spend time together.*

We only made one batch of rolls (I’m not even sure I got more than one in my belly after the week went by but the kids sure enjoyed them for breakfast each morning!) but I also stumbled upon a bag of sourdough brew bread that my folks picked up for me when they were in the United States a few years ago.  Maybe many years ago?  How long has this bag been sitting in my pantry?

It made a tasty loaf of bread which got Vero and I thinking of buying a bread maker.  Life is too short to settle for regular bread, especially if I eat toast every morning!

I’m on the hunt for a bread maker that’s been in sitting in someone’s closet for the past ten years not being useful.  I want to try it out before I buy one.

Edit/update: A few days after posting this, a heavy package from Amazon arrives on the doorstep.  I ask Vero: “What’s in this thing, a breadmaker?”  She replied “How did you guess?  It’s your Valentine’s Day gift!”

So I made a loaf of bread and it was pretty neat.  Vero also attempted a loaf of bread, didn’t follow instructions closely and it resembled an alien.  But hey, it’s both our first attempts here folks!

I was amused the other day by the age-old game Ezra and I played while walking back from school.  “Let’s see if we can kick this chunk of ice all the way home Dad!”

I remember many a chunk of ice being kicked down a street in my youth.  Probably every Canadian has seen how far they can go with some ice.

In other news, COVID has finally entered our home.  I have to say it’s pretty wild when I think that it’s been five years and no one had it.  All Sierra has currently is a runny nose so let’s hope that’s as far as it goes!

Ezra has a sore throat so the two of them have been playing Nintendo this morning.  I booted up some Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers on the Nintendo for them.  I’m not sure their brains could understand just using the A and B button for a game.

* If you don’t want to hear about pensions and stuff, just go to another post where I talk about what I did with my kids.*

Who doesn’t think about retirement?

I know I didn’t really think about it for a long time…I was so early in my career that whenever Dad would ask me specifics about my pension or my plans I would have to admit that I didn’t know a whole lot.  Why would I need to?  It was so far away in the future to think about it!

But Etienne and I were comparing notes today and we both realized we can retire the same year.  What a milestone for two buds working together for such a long time.  Heck, maybe we will even walk out of work the last day and hit the pub!  Sounds like a typical Friday back in the day for us.

2034 is coming fast, especially with a young family.  2034 is the year I can retire but it’s also another milestone…Sierra will be finished high school!  Aye aye aye!  What a thought.  Would I really want to retire while my kids are still/just finishing high school?  It’s too early to tell really.  Who knows what I will want my life to be in ten years.

What I do know is Vero will still be aways from retiring so it will be fun to sleep in while she has to go to work.  Mwahaha.

 

Winter fun time is finally here after waiting through a green Christmas.

This year Vero asked that I snowblow some snow into the typical hill that we make but also have a spot where the kids can try out their snowboards.  They seem to work out better on a spot where’s not a lot of snow.  It worked out quite well as I just blew the snow from area onto the snowhill for the other!

Contrary to popular belief, I was the one who followed Ezra’s lead with his hand in his pocket while having his drink.  I thought it would make for a fun picture.

Snowblowing on this particular weekend was tricky.  When I started snowblowing the 20cm of snow it was really sticky.  Ideal snow for making snowmen.  But it was really compacted on the left hand side of the driveway after starting from the right side.  Next time I think I will need to start from the left side, blow as much as I can and either do another pass at the end or blow some of it to the right.

The kids built a pretend house in the snow and I started building a snowman.  I’ve never seen snow that sticky since we moved to Vars so I took advantage of it.  Here’s a hilarious video of Sierra trying to scale the bottom part of the snowman!

The snowman was so high I had to hoist Ezra up to work on it!

The snowman originally had a bucket fez but we traded it in.

A little out of focus but at least we captured the snowman in its glory.

Best buds.

The best part of this weekend was the temperature.  Hovering around -2 makes for great days to spend outside.  The kids and I had sore muscles that night though!  I couldn’t sleep well with my sore arm from snowblowing and building that snowman!

On Sunday we ventured out to Ski Hill Park with Vero and Melody.  She wasn’t a happy camper…I suspected she may be teething.

Vero and Sierra ripping down the hill on the GT

I laughed at how Ezra steered back up the hill instead of heading down

I thought I was a welcome addition to this photo until Vero immediately asked me to leave so she could take a nice photo of the kids.

Nice spot for a snack.

Great winter weekend with some good memories made.  I really don’t mind winter with the kids if we can have some fun with it.

https://www.talkhouse.com/wtf-are-merch-cuts-and-why-are-musicians-so-pissed/

This was a really good read about how the life of a musician generally works while touring. It was an eye opening read.

They were calling for quite the storm but other than the snow blowing in the kids faces, we made it through quite well.

The key to this storm was to snowblow the driveway late at night before the rain came overnight otherwise I would have been blowing slush which is ridiculous.

But as long as the rain doesn’t take all the snow away, that’s all I care about this winter!

For the past few years I’ve been borrowing photos albums from Mom and Dad and using Google Photoscan to scan the photos.

I thought I was on the right path.  It was quick to use and it created a backup of a memory in case something happens to those photos.

But the other day I was perusing Google Photos (where I store all my digital photos) and noticed duplicate photos where one looked really great and one…not so much.

It make me realize that I should really put more effort into scanning these things in the future.

The photo that triggered this line of thinking

This is the other copy I have.  It sure looks clearer.  I still have to track down where I got this copy from in the first place…I believe Uncle Gary had done some digitizing of our photos years ago.

Scanning on a flatbed scanner is a slow process but I’ve set my sights on two different items:

• a scanner that scans actual negatives from 35mm cameras.  I kept a box full of negatives from my own photos and research shows that scanning the negatives is the best method.  Something like this Magnasonic scanner.
• A scanner that can work faster than a flatbed scanner.  If I had a spare $600 I might be enticed to buy one that scans a stack of 30 photos at 2 seconds a photo but I might be better suited with a $200 scanner that lets me feed in photos from the top like this one.