~Winter~
I made posts about our two winter birthdays, our Christmas and our New Years. As far of the rest of the winter goes, I can sum it up in one word...COLD!!!!! We just experienced the coldest winter of our lives. It was also the longest winter of our lives. The wind is almost constantly blowing and when it's already below zero it just cuts you right to the bone. It was not unusual to have temps in the negative 20s when the wind was blowing. And it was cold for 5 months straight, whereas I'd classify a northern VA winter as 2.5 months. I'm so thankful for our indoor bounce house, our big playroom, and the indoor pool at the Y. I don't know what I would have done without those sources to burn the ridiculous amounts of little boy energy in my house.
In December, John decided to take up hunting. There are lots of deer on his grandpa's property, and Grandpa was gracious to allow John to hunt on it. This was nice because he was not having to compete with other hunters on public land (which also means it was safer). John and a buddy went out several times together. His friend shot his first buck in December and split half the meat with us. Shotgun season is only two weeks, so John thought his chances were up for the year. But our brother in law let John borrow his muzzle loader, which enabled John to hunt for a few more weeks, as that season runs into January. Thankfully, John was able to get a doe in January. That same brother in law is an avid hunter and processes his own meat. He and my sister in law (John's older sister) add ground pork and seasoning mixtures to some of their meat as they grind it and make a variety of sausages. They taught us how to do that so out of our meat we got steaks, roasts, plain ground meat, Italian sausage, and Andouille sausage (John's from Cajun country). The Italian stuff is awesome and we really enjoyed it in spaghetti. I wasn't sure what I was going to think of game meat, but this venison was pretty tasty and did not have a gamey taste at all. I believe that is partly due to the deer here being largely corn fed versus grass fed. But the other part has to do with the way the meat is processed. When John got his doe, another friend of ours came and helped him cut it up and he taught John his steps for eliminating the gamey taste. I was able to use that meat in any of my recipes that called for beef without any taste issues. We were able to not buy red meat for three months and that was really nice on the budget. Now that we know we like the meat and how long one deer lasts us, we are hoping can get a couple next winter.
We didn't get as much snow as I had expected over the winter, but we did get a big snow in early February. The kids had a blast sledding down our hill, building forts, and making snow tunnels. It took 5 of us 3 hours to shovel the driveway. The winds here caused the snow to blow all around and make large drifts in the yard. It looked like white sand dunes all over the yard. So in some places you could still dee the grass and in other places, it was up to my waist. We will definitely get a snowblower for next year.
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| Their sledding train- there were so many happy giggles while they did this! |
I spent February and March dealing with some health issues, but thankfully those appear to have passed now. For Valentine's Day, John and I went on a search for the best cupcakes in Omaha. We tried several different places. We were not impressed by any of them. We have been spoiled by Georgetown Cupcakes (of TLC's DC Cupcakes) and have found that they are truly the best cupcake bakery in the country. Everywhere we go, we try cupcakes and nothing compares. We also went to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse in Lincoln. I had never been to one before. It was pretty tasty. I don't think I've ever had so much protein in one meal before!
Next update.....March!
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