The World Thaws

The Snow Man!
Mason and Tyler in the snow
Mason can finally find the rocks he loves!
And then he would throw them!
Because look how cool they are when they sink in the snow!

And then we threw snow at Tyler!

Grant made a chair in the snow.

Well, I believe I have found my favorite thing about snow......when it melts! The temp got up to 42 F today. And it felt absolutely wonderful! Really, I was a little warm in my coat and didn't have a hat or gloves or anything. We all went outside and played in the snow. It was finally sticky enough to make a real snow man! It will all be frozen again tomorrow, but today its all drippy and melty. The sound outside is just fabulous. When you haven't heard rain in 4 months, its amazing how much you can miss the sounds of rain. Only problem is the mud gets thrown up on your car and there is no rain coming down to wash it off. People go through a lot of windshield cleaner here. I'm going to love the Spring here.

And yesterday morning we heard birds! Mason pointed them out, but they were hiding in the trees so we couldn't see them. "Hiney, Hiney!" as he says!

Our days

Well, I thought you might want to see how things look around here. Here's the snow in our front yard. The side by the door is at least knee deep, and the other side is waist deep. Of course a lot of that is from the driveways. And see how nice the road is? Its all packed down, and covered in dirt. There are empty spots on the roof because it has been so windy.

This is a pile in the cul de sac down the street. it truly is almost as tall as the garage. But it has warmed up, but that means more snow. We are expecting 5 - 10 cm of icy snow tonight. Snow shovelling will be fun for Frank in the morning.

Mexican Food

We finally found a place to eat Mexican food. I went on-line and searched Mexican food in Edmonton. Found 4 restaurants, most didn't have good ratings, so we went to the one with the best ratings. Its downtown, and about 20 min away, but for Canada its fabulous! The food was served differently than most in Houston, but it tasted pretty good. And actually just having chips and salsa on the table was AWESOME! Although they were not too happy when we ate 3 bowls of chips (they were really small bowls.) Then I'm sure they were shocked when Mason ate the guacamole out of the bowl with a spoon. But we will definitely be back. And they will notice as it only has 6 tables, and we are still the loudest people in all of Canada.

And now we have heat!

Well, I tried to be adventurous today. Grant got a Ratatouille cookbook for Christmas that has had some great recipes. (I'll have to post the Macaroni and Cheese one. Its almost as easy as Kraft, but tastes almost as good as Luby's.)

So I decided to make Vichyssoise - French Potato and Leek soup. I ended up making a double batch because I peeled more potatoes than necessary. Well, the last step is to puree the soup. I knew putting hot soup in a blender was not a good idea for me so we went ahead and ate. It was pretty good, but you could tell it would be better blended.

So after dinner was over I tried to blend it. Well, turns out you need the lid on all the way! Hot soup when everywhere! And mostly on me! I had to throw off my shirt rather quickly with everyone in the kitchen. Luckily it was just us. And thankfully it wasn't that hot. I have a few red patches that burn just a little, but it could have been so much worse if I had done it first. And it does taste so much better blended. I guess thats why they serve it cold....no one gets hurt that way!

Temperature Changes

When I got up this morning the thermometer said +23 F. Yeah! When I got out of the shower, +21 F. Ok, it often drops a little in the morning. I went to the grocery store, and with the sun it was back up to +24 F. But when I came..... + 17 F........and after putting all the groceries away in the house.....+11 F! And I was hoping for a nice day! And its so windy, I'm sure the windchill is 20 degrees colder.

Superbowl Party

We went to a SuperBowl party tonight. We had a good time, but I had to share this with anyone that didn't see it.

http://video.msn.com/?vid=1e124de4-c1c2-4abe-9f35-0f35c8463676&mkt=en-us&brand=foxsports&from=SuperBowlAllWidget


Ok, for anyone who missed the SuperBowl here are the best commercials every. They are both e-trade commercials with a baby in them. The second one is on page 3, its actually the first one and it works a little better if you see the one on page 3 first.

Thaw?

Well, I wanted to wait until the temp was above 0 F to update, but I'm just not sure when that will happen. The weather forcast says it will get to 4 F today. The highest I've seen in a week is +0.8 F, and I'm just not sure if that counts as being above 0. Although, it started raining on the couch the other day. I guess it was warm enough to melt the ice on the inside of the skylights, and it all fell out. Luckily, it wasn't that much, but it sure scared me when water starts falling in on me.