The Jones Family: February 2015

February

We celebrated Eedie turning 4! She got that little monkey sitting next to her. She's kind of obsessed with monkeys.

At the beginning of February we headed to Quebec City for the Snow Festival.

We saw this sign for Saint-Louis-du- Ha! Ha! in Canada. Oh... those crazy Canadians.

At the festival, they had this fun tube sledding. In northern Maine it isn't called sledding. It's called "sliding" and riding a snowmobile is actually called "sledding."

We found this fun mirror at a mall.

At one restaurant they made faces out of the children's food.

This winter I started playing with a community orchestra and band. It was the first time I've played in a group setting in almost 5 years... 5 years too long. I need to start practicing again because really, I've hardly touched the bassoon since I graduated. And it's sad, because really, how many people can say they play the bassoon!?

Making Valentine's cookies.

Hey! We had a sunny day! It was still about 0 degrees outside!

I want to find my videos that really show how bad the wind can blow here. But we get these snow drifts and this year it was pretty dangerous. We had quite a few accidents because of the blowing snow. I kid not, there was one day the wind was blowing so hard, I almost couldn't open the car door. That was the day I wondered why we had moved to Antarctica!

But then there are views like this that seem to make it worth it.

And we even had a moose living around our area for a few weeks.

And this view of our sugar shack!

After another storm.

This was the amount of snow built up on the roof.

Mike works with the scouts at church. They had a camping trip and they made these snow caves. The temp was well below zero, but they all survived the night--except for the one kid who called is dad to come get him in the middle of the night.

The girls came to visit the next day.

While we were in Quebec City, we tried a dessert called Pouding Chomeur. It was seriously maybe the best thing I've ever eaten. It tasted like a pancake on steroids with ice cream. This was one I made at home. I think I finally figured out a good recipe. Here are two pretty good recipes if you want to try it:

http://www.reclaimingprovincial.com/2014/09/09/pouding-chomeur/

or

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=198217.0

The day I got stuck in our driveway in the snow! I let Eedie get the mail out of the mailbox and tried to pull into the driveway. We hadn't plowed yet and I ran right into that mound of snow. I know it doesn't look that bad but some guy stopped to help me and tried for 15 minutes to get me out. He still couldn't so he called his buddy with a truck to pull me out. Well, that was embarrassing!

Just to show how much snow can build up after the plows come buy. And we have to make sure there's a pathway for the guy to fill up our gas for the heat. I was just to plow this day and it took me quite a while to get through all that mess.

Building a fort in the living room.

Because sometimes Mom just lets you eat out of the ice cream tub.

About an hour north of us in Fort Kent, Maine, they hold a dog sled race every year. It was pretty cold that day, but we bundled up and headed out to the races.