Cute Kid Pix January 2025

More photos that didn't make their own post...

We had a serious bit of snow the first Friday in January, I happened to be out running errands when it started. 

Snowy parking lot

Our front porch even more decorated

Little did I know the next week would bring an even bigger snow storm with two days off from school for the kids.

9 a.m. photo

We took that time to put away the Christmas tree and indoor decorations. The outdoor lights were already partially buried in snow so I decided to leave them up.

Vacuuming up fake needles that fell off our fake tree!

We had a family video game night for which the kids were especially enthusiastic...

Are we having fun yet?

The next day we played in the snow, or at least the youngest did...

Sledmaster!

I forgot to post this video with last month's post (or even the Christmas post), so here is the rocket launch from our cul de sac. What an awesome Christmas present!

Our youngest was the top speller in his classroom in December, which meant he moved on to the school-wide spelling bee in January. The school sent two tickets home for parents or other adults to come watch on a Friday afternoon. He was eliminated in the fifth round when he stumbled on "committee." Too many double letters! He confided in me afterwards that he did not want to go on to the county-wide spelling bee and would have deliberately misspelled a word if it was down to three students.

Some chairs emptied by round three

On the spot

We went to a concert for our eldest held at his school. It was a fun time!

High school band

We did our first rollerskating of the year at the nearby rink. I swear my youngest has other t-shirts!

Wearing a chess shirt to a roller rink?!?

I was amazed to see a certain chocolate bar in a local convenience store. Our family is convinced that Mr. Goodbar only comes in the Halloween multi-packs, but there it was.

No more need to go looking for Mr. Goodbar

We went ice skating at Color Burst Park, which was a lot harder than the roller rink.

Making a face

Making the same face

Sister gets in on the act

It was a fun, if cold, month.

Sucrerie de la Montagne, Montreal Outskirts

A popular thing to do in Quebec is visit what's known as a "sugar shack," a place where maple syrup is made. The busy season is when the sap runs in the early spring, so our visit to Montreal was well timed. We went to Sucrerie de la Montagne, about an hour's drive from downtown Montreal. It's on a mountain with plenty of maple trees around. They even have cabins for people who want to stay overnight. To give it an authentic feel, there's even a horse-drawn ride from the parking to the main building.

The cart coming for us!

Less impressed riders

Not a long trip

A tree being tapped

The sap does not look like syrup! (There is sap in that bucket, I swear)

One of the lodges

The main building

The main building is the restaurant and bar, where visitors get their fill of traditional fare, including many maple-enhanced foods. Outside, we saw a fire that had died down.

Smoldering

Decorations on the main builiding

Inside is a large hall with tables. At one end is a fireplace; at the other is a stage where a fella was singing (mostly in French) to entertain the crowd. I only recognized one tune (Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora) by Harry Bellafonte). A lot of the music had a folk style that was charming. The guy on the stage played guitar. We then noticed a fiddle player wandering the floor, visiting the various tables. At one point, one of the tables was called up to play along. They were given wooden spoons and taught to keep rhythm with a couple of songs. We guessed they were a birthday party or some other celebration.

The main singer

The fiddler and the group with spoons

The main attraction was the food. The meal was a set menu, starting with bread and soup.

Homemade loaf

A warming soup

The main course was a variety of dishes, including ham, bacon, sausage, mashed potatoes, beans, meatballs, a crustless quiche, and a beef pie. The bacon was the most flavorful. The egg pie/quiche was quite light and refreshing. It was all good.

The main course

The dessert round was pancakes with fresh syrup and a molasses pie that reminded me of the Pennsylvania treat Shoo Fly Pie.

Dessert

On our way out, we check on the fire. It was not very big since it was already April and the weather outside was in the 40s (Fahrenheit). 

Looking at the fire

A closer look

Outside, one of the other buildings is the maple candy spot. Little trenches of snow had cups full of sticks used to pick up the candy. A guy came out with a hot pitcher of maple syrup and poured strips onto the snow. Visitors used the sticks to pick up the cooling syrup, making a type of lollipop. It was delicious.

Cabane a Sucre is where I want to stay

Pouring syrup

Enjoying syrup

Another small building looked a lot like an outhouse but was the "Station Selfie" for pictures.

Don't get in the picture!

Special 3D effect!

Nearby was a bunch of targets. We assumed they were for axe-throwing but clearly they haven't been used in a while.

Targets

We weren't sure what this other structure was supposed to be.

A hive? A shelter?

They also had a shop that sold various maple products, some authentic-style clothes, and various food items that had been served in the main building.

Magazin General

It was a great place to visit and we left very satisfied.

Ice Cream Summer Part IX

Part of an on-going series as we make home-made ice cream all summer long!

Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer in the United States, so this may be the last of the ice cream posts, but certainly not the end of the ice cream making!

We finally made cookies and cream ice cream. We thought about using Nutter Butters but the store had a big sale on Oreos, so they became the special ingredient in our usual vanilla ice cream. We did not measure the cookies properly, we just filled the mini-food processor two-thirds full and pulverized the cookies.

Oreos about to be made "ice cream friendly"

The process was very standard, just toss in the final ingredient in the last five minutes of mixing a standard vanilla batch. The flavor was very popular in the family even with the grayish color.

Putting the gray in great

Going back to chocolate, we made some chocolate and peanut butter ice cream. We used the usual chocolate ingredients and not the whole jar of peanut butter.

Mixed chocolate brands!

The process was the same old except for, you guessed it, the last five minutes. We did not measure out the peanut butter, unfortunately, we just kept adding knifefuls to the machine, hoping it would mix in with the chocolate. Those peanut butter ice creams with a ripple in the middle look great, but after previous experience not being able to easily spread marshmallow, we thought we'd let the machine do the mixing for us.

A gorgeous batch

The ice cream came out well, though the peanut butter did overwhelm the chocolate flavor. Maybe rippling is the way to go (and also measuring)? We will experiment in the future....

Going back to vanilla, we made Milk Dud ice cream, so hints of chocolate and caramel.

Two great tastes that taste great together!

After measuring out two-thirds of a cup of Milk Duds, I ground up the Duds in the small food processor to make them smaller. I wound up cutting some of the Duds that survived the chopper! Otherwise the process went smoothly. 

Enough for two containers

The flavor was good. Freezing made the caramel solid but crunchy. None of the chunks were big enough to cause problems while eating. The batch went quickly in our house.

We hope you've had a great summer filled with more ice cream than ours was!

Valentine's Day 2021

As a Valentine's Day celebration, our local independent chocolate shop, Sweet Cascades, offered a "make truffles at home" class. We signed up, which meant we picked up a kit the week before and started work the day before.

The first step was making the ganache. The kit contained a half pound of dark chocolate. We heated up half a cup of heavy whipping cream (which was not included in the kit because of refrigeration requirements) to mix with the chocolate.

Start of cooking

Once the cream simmered, we took it off the heat and added the chocolate. We patiently waited for the melting to happen.

Combining ingredients

My daughter whisked the mixture until it was smooth. Finally, we covered it and stuck in the fridge for the next day. We found out the next day that if we wanted to add flavor, we should have added it during the mixing. The trick is to keep the liquid level the same. So if you are adding a tablespoon of rum or bourbon, take out a tablespoon of the heavy whipping cream.

Whisky (not whiskey) business

In the fridge

The next day (i.e. the Saturday before Valentine's Day), we took out the ganache and melted the other chocolates in small bowls for dipping/coating the ganache. We had a half pound of milk chocolate and half a pound of dark chocolate. According to instructions, we microwaved each for a minute at half power, stirred, and heated them more until we had a smooth consistency. A chocolatier needs to be careful as chocolate can easily burn! We also took out the ganache about an hour early, but it got too warm and didn't hold its form as well as it could. Possibly we mixed in too much heavy cream the day before.

The kit included a melon baller for rolling the ganache and various items for sprinkling on the truffles.

A ready work station

We started up the Zoom and enjoyed a bit of conversation before we got to work. The work was messy enough that we did not take pictures. Since our ganache wasn't as chill as it could have been, the balls were a bit lumpy. Dipping was tricky too. We used spoons and forks to dip the ganache balls into the melted chocolate. The chocolate outside solidified fairly quickly, giving a good coating.

Finished work

We had leftover dipping chocolate. We checked our cabinets and then dipped some marshmallows, some peanuts, and some cashews. The nuts we did as clusters, not individual nuts, because that would be...nuts.

Nut clusters

We sampled some of the chocolates that night, and then enjoyed the fruits of our labor on Valentine's Day.