Anna: An extra photo to catch up for all those days we've been missing.
At the park today, while sitting and enjoying the sunshine, children were enjoying splashing around it a large puddle in front of us. When the water stilled, the trees were beautifully reflected.
Anna: My younger daughter and I made it to park day today - the first time in over a month. It was a beautiful 4C, which had a whole group of us sitting outside in the sunshine - me with my crochet, and about 5 others with their knitting. LOL
A few early geese are back. In a short time, we'll have many, many more, pairing off, nesting and laying their eggs.
Once enough of the snow it gone, anyhow.
Anna: We haven't been taking a lot of photos lately. Well, I have, but they're for my craft blog and I haven't finished taking them yet.
Today, we all headed out for a walk. At a balmy 3C, Philippe and our elder daughter broke out the sandals. Skirts, she always wears. ;-)
I'm really looking forward to lack of snow. And green. It's an unpleasant time of year to try for outdoor photos. Dirty snow, muck and puddles everywhere, and nothing's turning green yet.
*sigh*
Anna: The girls and I made an unplanned trip to the museum today. My elder daughter was wanting to use her fish-eye film camera that she got with some of her birthday money. While she was finishing off her first role of film, I was busy with the macro lens. 126 photos later, and only a handful turned out. I so wish we were allowed to use tripod or monopod in the museum! No matter how I brace myself, my handshake just kills my shots.
Of the few good ones I got was this, though the white balance was on the wrong setting. One of these days, I hope to catch this bull snake while it's tasting the air. :-)
I've done it before when we were living in Richmond. It was thriving quite well and had reached about 15 inches when we found ourselves moving back to Manitoba. I didn't think it would survive the trip, so I passed it on to friends. 
Anna: Today, our elder daughter turned 16. This is the cake she chose for this year.
I thought the blow torch BBQ lighter was a nice touch.
Anna: The cats are always *very * interested when we go onto the balcony. Tiger was an outdoor cat when we lived in Manitoba, but she seems mostly content to stay indoors. The Harley Bug, on the other hand, usually needs to be hung on to in case she makes a run for the door.
Anna: Yesterday, we had temperatures well above 0C, and things were melting all over.
This morning, we woke to more snow.
Spring will come.
Eventually.
Anna: Making up for lost time with a bunch of photos...
I didn't catch the shots I wanted - the cat trying to catch things on the screen - but I thought this one was cute.
Then she started hunting the Xbox cables hanging down in front. *L*
Anna: The girls and I are having our first bread baking day in the new place. So much counter space! It's wonderful!
I've got a Kitchen Aide mixer with dough hook, but it only fits a 2 loaf recipe, so we did three batches. That works out rather well, since we can do each batch differently.
In this photo is the third batch, just set aside for rising. We made it using olive oil, saffron (you can see a couple of threads in the dough), some milk and a couple of eggs. Oh, and we finished off the last of our dark honey with a comb in the jar for the sweetener. I did end up picking out little bits of wax while doing the final kneading. ;-) It was so lovely to knead - smooth and satiny. Much more pleasant to handle than the one with softened oatmeal in it.
If this one works out well, it'll be the bread for our Easter basket.
update: For some reason, blogger isn't letting me reply in my own comments area, so this is in response to Ash's comment.
They turned out lovely! A nice, chewy texture and golden colour. We couldn't taste the saffron a lot, but we didn't use a huge amount, either. It was definitely a hit.
I'd made half the dough into a braid, then formed it into a wreath. I made 4 "snails" out of the other half; one for each of us. 
It was wonderful, still hot from the oven and covered with melted butter. Yum!
As for the recipe, we use the same basic recipe for almost all our breads. These are the quantities for a 2 loaf batch.
1-2 Tbsp yeast
1-4 Tbsp sweetener
1/4 cup butter or oil (optional)
2 1/2 - 2 3/4 cups warm liquid
2 tsp salt
6-8 cups flour
To make the saffron bread, we soaked a few threads in about a tablespoon of boiled water first. For the liquid, we used 1 cup milk, then topped it off with the boiled water to make 2 1/4 cups. The saffron threads and their water was added to that. For the sweetener, we used an Italian brand of honey called "Clic - honey with honey comb," but any honey works well. The fat was Extra Virgin Olive oil, and the flour was plain old All Purpose, since that's all I've got at the moment. We also added 2 eggs, plus used an egg wash for baking.
It's been a week, and I still haven't taken my D70 out of it's bag since before the move. :-P
My elder daughter and I were sitting down to a cup of tea after unpacking a few items. One of them was a large finished puzzle belonging to my younger daughter. Whenever she finishes a puzzle, she covers it with Modge Podge for keeping. I'd leaned it against the stairs for whoever went up next to grab. That's when the little Harley Bug discovered it. After knocking it down to the floor, she started hunting it, diving onto it, nibbling on the edges, and even picking it up in her teeth and dragging it around.
I grabbed the S3 to try and take some video (we don't have a movie camera), but of course, she never did the cute stuff while I was recording. I did manage to get this still shot of her, with that intense, hunter's gaze.
She's such a silly cat!
We're quite happy with the new place, and amazed by the transformation.
