So far this year our Winter has been reasonably good.  January, which is normally our coldest month, was considerably nicer than usual.  A few cold nights but nothing to complain about.  Of course, having our first trip of 2017 booked certainly makes everything more bearable!

In 2017 my husband and I will be celebrating 25 years married.  That being the case, we decided that our upcoming trip to Akumal will be the kick off of our celebrations and we are going to spoil ourselves a little bit more than usual.  This should be excellent!

The resort we are going to has a web cam nearby.  We have watched it everyday since our first trip to Akumal almost 10 years ago.  So excited to finally be staying on that beach!  This is the web cam link –  Akumal Web Cam

Now that February is here it is time to get things in gear.  Last week was pretty much a  write-off with a blizzard Monday and then another snow storm three days later.

Hopefully that will be the worst of our winter over with.

‘Cause flipflops in the snow is not near as nice as flipflops in the sand!

I did manage to get my suitcases out for our upcoming trip.  Well, sort of.

I also made a spontaneous decision to chop off a lot of hair before venturing to the sunny south.

Today I finally manged to get something, other than cats, in the suitcase!  And now I can’t wait for departure day!

2017 has also seen us spend lots of time with friends eating and drinking!  I have been experimenting with wine, which has been loads of fun. Too much at times, if that is possible.  Made a few different whites, loved the Riesling.  Now looking for a red, struggling to find one I really enjoy enough to have 30 bottles of.

I have a friend who does custom blasting, etching etc and he made me the best wine glass ever!   Blasting Impressions

Made some beer too, a pale ale.  It is getting better as it ages.  I think I would like to try a Mexican cerveza next time.

I have also been experimenting with new recipes for beef stew, donair’s, sloppy joe’s and pulled beef.

We are very lucky to have a very talented chef at our local Sobeys.  She makes great food and gives you the recipe to try at home.

The donair recipe is in a previous blog entry and the stew was a concoction of my own using the Clubhouse stew seasoning for flavour.

Hope you are having a wonderful start to 2017!