Some New Photos and some Old

Well, I really can't shake my winter blues. I have tried to and so has Stino but I can't shake it. I feel sometimes mad or just depressed. Usually the cold spell is all of February but this year it started, I believe, the second week of December with horrible temperatures of -35 and sometimes higher with the wind chill (celsius). It's enough to bring anyone down that really doesn't like the cold and I HATE the cold.

For Valentine's, Stino got me a 26 inch flat screen tv for our room. He said he would never ever have a tv in the bedroom. But I know he sees how much I enjoy going up there and watching Dexter or a movie. It's just so cosy. I'm happy with the tv but deep down not thrilled. The price of it, would have paid for 2 airline tickets to Puerto Vallarta. That's what I really wanted.

But realistically I knew it wasn't going to happen as then we have to add airline tickets for the kids and the cost of hotel and food. Way too much this year. Well, enough blabbing and going to post some photos.

This one of me and Stino or is that Stino and I. I like me and Stino better. Anyways, this photo was taken on Valentine's day by Carlina. My smile is not a real happy one.

For supper we had lobster, crab, kiwi mussels, shrimp, and scallops. I was going to make rice and some of my home-made salsa but my mood was not in favor of doing all that. So we had only the seafood. But I will say, it was a delight to watch Anthony eat his shellfish. He loved it and I want to remember his cute expressions forever.


Not a very nice looking presentation but I can say it did taste so delicious. What I did was to a very large pot, I added Portuguese Mild Pepper Paste, with tons of chopped garlic and a nice amount of butter, some black pepper or white pepper and some salt. Let the butter melt and I even added a tad of extra virgin olive oil. Added the lobster and crab. Covered the pot with a lid and set the stove to medium and let it steam. To another pot, I added the same ingredients but added the scallops, mussels and shrimp and let that all cook on medium. What a smell!! We just love it. Well, almost all of us love it, except Carlina whose taste buds just don't care for flavorful food.

Did some garlic toast and baked up some jalapeño poppers which Anthony loves. I made Carlina and Anthony some virgin strawberry margaritas. For Stino and I, I added 1 and a half ounces of jose cuervo tequila and 1 oz of triple sec. Ummm very nice.

The virgin margarita I make for the kids has the following ingredients:

1/2 cup of orange juice
2 or 3 ounces of frozen limeade
1/2 cup of mott's strawberry daiquiri flavoring
16 ice cubes that I put into a bag and hammer the heck out of it just so it is nice and crushed.

I add this to either the shaker or blender.

if not making this for kids then to the blender or shaker add 3 to 4 ounces of tequila (if making a daiquiri then add 3 to 4 oz of rum) and 2 ounces of triple sec.

you can substitute the mott's strawberry mix with 2 cups of fresh strawberries.

Any ways, Stino and I winded up putting away our margaritas and drinking a bottle of Baby Duck instead. I haven't had that for years and you know I really enjoyed it. It's a cheap bubbly slightly sweet wine but I don't care. It went down very well.

Dessert was to have been fresh strawberries with melted chocolate but we were all too full.

Sunday, we went out for a drive. I wasn't really much in the mood to go out but Stino can not ever sit at home on a sunny day. First picture is showing our part of our deck and then the second one is the sidewalk on the back our of house.



After supper on Sunday Feb 15th 2009, I was feeling just super sad and I went and took a shower just to escape for a few minutes. Stino, came in with two cockatails. At first taste, I thought 'wow this is strong' but by the third taste, I was really liking it.
Stino, made this drink that I had never tasted before and turned out to be a nice combination. I guess his bartending technique came back to him from the OLD days when he used to work at Club Soda.


I looked up the ingredients he used on the internet and found no cocktail with all of the ingredients he used, so I decided to call it:
Stino's Copa Cocktail
C for 1 oz of Contreau
O for 1 cup of orange juice
P for 1 oz of peach schnapps
A for 1 oz of amaretto
and he added ice to the shaker and shook it up good.
add a slice of fresh pineapple to rim or right inside the glass.
Now that was my drink so he actually doubled this recipe up for 2 drinks.
You think that would have snapped me out of my sadness but it didn't but I love my honey for trying and 'darn'that was a good drink.

Today, Monday Feb 16th 2009, I got up kind of late. I was up until 2am watching season 2 of Dexter. I watched 2 episodes and it sure is getting interesting.
It was a stat holiday here, Louis Riel Day. So, nice we're all home. Carlina wanted to make some pancakes. So, that's what she made for us all.

I definitely have to find a better recipe as it was kind of on the rubbery side. But still, I loved she wanted to make them for us.

My sister-in-law, Enza called and asked if we would like to go bowling at Academy Lanes. She spoke to Stino and at first I thought it would be a nice opportunity for me to stay home and deal with my self-pity but within minutes I changed my mind and decided I really should go.
I wasn't happy there although I really REALLY tried not to show it.
Here are a few pictures that were taken.



My little monkey, Anthony is entering the school science fair and his project is on volcanos and here is a picture of him and Stino working on the volcano.


I was going through a 2007 folder of pictures and thought I would add some here.




Here is the shed that Stino made from scratch a few years back. All his own plan.


and here is a Fall picture in 2007 of our deck. Do I ever miss sitting outside.


I wish I could remember the website I went to, to create these photos. I can't find it. I did have it bookmarked but after doing a reformat, I lost the website.
If anyone knows, leave me a note to where I can find it again.



and finally some halloween 2007 pictures. I wish I wasn't so behind. I used to keep up with printing out photos and now I'm one full year behind. But at least I have the ones I want printed out in a folder. I even resized them all to 4x6 because I noticed that when picking them up at walmart, that sometimes very important parts were cropped out so now I resize them all.



That's all I have to say and I think I said enough. Going to make myself some earl grey tea, kiss Stino good night and head on up to watch episode 12 of Dexter.