It was pretty wet and miserable outside during the first week of February, which had me dreaming of far off lands. As usual, I was monitoring the "YVR Deals"... and this time there were two flight deals that we were able to take advantage of: one to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the other to Paris, France. With international flights booked, I have been spending a lot of time researching and planning these future trips. Our domestic flights and accommodation are booked for our visit to Brazil. I really enjoyed Super Bowl LII; it had tons of offense and scoring, including a touchdown reception by Eagles' quarterback Nick Foles. I was also pleased that the Patriots didn't win yet another championship. Kona came to stay with us while Debbie and Shaun went away for the Family Day long weekend. Despite a forecast that called for snow, it was a beautiful, sunny weekend. On the evening of Family Day, we had a chimney fire. Our neighbour and I were able to deal with it before the fire department arrived (they drove past twice before realizing which house to stop at), but it was sure scary. The stove pipe turned completely red where the internal burn was and sparks were coming out of our chimney. After throwing about a dozen cups of water into the stove, it finally cooled down. While I was doing that, our neighbour was spraying the garden hose at our exterior chimney. I then went up on the roof with the hose to more thoroughly spray the chimney, the cap, and the roof, ensuring that a little bit of water got down the chimney. The fire department stayed for quite awhile monitoring the heat with a temperature imaging camera, and they did a quick "clean" of the remaining creosote. After that scare, we didn't light a fire at all the next day, instead keeping pretty much to our bedroom which is smaller, easier, and cheaper to heat with electricity than the whole house, while waiting for a WETT certified inspector to be available. Once he'd had a look, he gave us the all-clear to resume using our woodstove, but we also had him install some upgrades: a new fire shield, and double insulated piping right from the stove up - which allowed us to eliminate the small bend that made sweeping difficult and that caused this problem. Over one weekend, we had four cords of wood delivered. Unloading, moving, and stacking all of the wood was tiring and hard on my back, but now we're already prepared to stay warm for all of next winter. We binge watched the entire series of the US version of "The Office". We had the roll-up door on our shed re-inforced and repaired so that it is now in better condition than when we moved here. As usual, I enjoyed following the Olympics and marvelling at the wonderful acts of skill and athleticism. Canada's athletes once again made the country proud, winning a record high 29 medals. We acknowledged Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year, but both came and went without much fanfare. We hiked to Bald Mountain's lower lookout on Valentine's Day. We spent an enjoyable evening visiting, playing games, and having a tasty dinner at Debbie and Shaun's place on the 17th. The second half of February was quite a cold spell, with night-time temperatures dipping as low as -13 degrees, and daily highs below zero some days. We also received three more snowfalls. We spent most of our time indoors and did a fair bit of reading. In contrast, my parents chose the perfect time to enjoy cruising the Caribbean for twenty days!
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