Winter has returned!

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather remained mild with a couple dumps of snow, but with the weekend, the skies have cleared and it has turned cold with temperatures in the -20s, brrr! Aside from clearing the driveway a few times, I've also managed regular trips to the shop until it turned cold today. Still not making much progress on drilling all those holes as I'm not being successful in developing a jig to keep them all evenly spaced and in a straight line. Wendy has put the jigsaw puzzle away—too many other things on her plate. She has begun work in the side entry and stairs to the basement. She always seems to have lots of activity with the chorus, regular singing, books and banking. She has also begun an accounting job that has been a regular assignment the last few years. My back and legs continue to trouble me, and I'm getting impatient for the doctors to come up with some additional help. The markets have continued to gather value. Investors are easily troubled as the usual battle between fear and greed seems to be more susceptible to the fear side again this year. We're almost through the first month and all indices are nicely into the green. Keep 'er goin' Uncle Joe! The main fly in the ointment is if the USA decides not to pay their debts. That would cause a world-wide crash, so I'm keeping an eye on that situation and hoping cooler heads prevail. In the world of sports, my Oilers have continued their winning ways and are solidly in a playoff position. Leafs are in good shape, but are getting hit with injuries. Pens are a bit shaky, and are just on the edge of the playoffs at this point. As expected, the Jayhawks were punished for their losses and dropped to #9 in the rankings. They put together a big win today in Kentucky; that was a delight to watch! Now, we'll see if it's enough to arrest their drop in the rankings. 

Erica writes, "I had a couple days of training with the Indigenous services group. We touched on the history of the Indigenous people pre and post contact and learned a lot about what not to do. It was insightful. Eric and I also finalized our preparations for the trip to Punta Cana which included a bit of extra time at work finalizing projects so we could leave with a clear conscience. We left on Saturday morning and look forward to joining Travis and Joanna on Sunday. Our flights via airline points includes an overnight in Toronto. We haven’t heard much from the boys, but I believe they are fine."

Erin and Kristian are completing semester 1 of grade 11. Kristian had a few tight timelines at the end—how does this happen?! He starts curling playoffs on Tuesday! Hurry hard! Erin had a hard time swallowing the Jaguars loss in the NFL playoffs. She's decided to cheer for Bengals this weekend. 

Travis and Joanna are enjoying their vacation in Punta Cana. Their weather is running a boring +28° most days—tough work, but someone's gotta do it! Andrew has been taking care of Moxley and Darby over there, while we have Minnie with us! Jonas and Gemma got to attend Bruce Boudreau's final game with the Vancouver Canucks and reported that it was a lot of fun. 

Minnie

And that's enough for this week.