Hello March! But before we move into this new month I’ll look back to the last few days of February with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and post Five favorites from the past week.

On Tuesday Dear and I donned some warm gear, packed our snowshoes and poles and headed east on state route 20 toward Tiger/Ione to find some snowshoeing trails.

We stopped at Beaver Lodge and got some good advice on where to go to find these trails.

A few miles beyond Beaver Lodge we found our stop in the Gillete Recreation Area, Frater Lake Sno-Park. This extensive area has 138 miles of groomed snowmobile trails. Welcome to Frater Lake Sno-Park Groomed Trail System and it’s 16 kilometers/10 miles of groomed cross country ski trails. Tuesday happened to be bitterly cold and we did not last long on the trail because our fingers started to freeze. We met the trail groomer in the parking lot before we started out but other then her we were the only people out. She told us that even with her hand heater she was having a hard time keeping her fingers comfortable. We decided we needed to consider some added good protective gloves and face protection to our snowshoeing gear and after 20 minutes of shoeing we headed back to Beaver Lodge to enjoy some warmth and a meal.

The photo above is the view standing at our table. Sitting down all you could see was the snowbank.  When we got back to Colville after lunch we stopped at North 40 and bought some good gloves and balaclava like gear for our head/face. We’ll be more prepared the next time we head out. A beautiful day which included a road trip, some exercise, good eats and shopping.

These old hands of ours are able to wear our original wedding bands again. I haven’t been able to wear my band for 33 years. When our daughter Katie was born, Dear bought me a diamond and we had it set into a wedding band/ring that I’ve been wearing until a few years ago when it became too tight, too. Sigh. We had that ring sized a couple years ago and I am wearing it again. Now we finally decided to get our bands sized so we could start wearing them again. The reason we hesitated so long with the bands is because of the intricate details that we thought would become distorted if they were made larger. The jeweler in Colville felt he could stretch them and keep the integrity of the design. He did a great job and we were very pleased with his work. I also had two other rings sized, an opal and a birthstone ring.

Last Saturday the kids came over for dinner and it was fun to watch Addy in the role of Cinderella scrubbing my cabinets, appliances and floor. I have a whole post dedicated to her techniques published on Wednesday. She’s definitely a favorite.

Speaking of dinner, this slow cooker carnitas recipe is really good and we all enjoyed it on Saturday night and for some leftovers during the week, too. It yields enough for at least 8 people. I’ll need to add that to the recipe. I ended up freezing some for later.

For my fifth favorite I went through the epistles in the New Testament and recorded each of the doxologies/benedictions at the end of these letters. Some were very short. Some were longer. Since I’ve been in Hebrews this week on the 5 day a week reading through the Bible in a year plan, I’ll share Paul’s benediction from Hebrews.

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

For the weather record we got more snow Wednesday into Thursday. I’ll be doing some more snowshoeing in our back acres. Hope you all have a peaceful weekend.