I just can't believe we have made it this far with such little difficulty! It's been 2 months since my last entry and the time has really flown. The holidays were delightful with fresh snow on the ground, talking with our family and even a delightful visit from friends,Wendy and her 4 grown children on Christmas. New Year's Eve we spent in a very down eastern style: Lobster for dinner and then over to the Harpoon Restaurant with many new and old friends of Port Clyde for the traditional New Year's Eve Bash. It was 12:00 straight up when we arrived back at home with the snow beginning to fall...WELCOME 2010! Temps in January were mostly in the 30's but several bouts of teens and 20's for highs did keep us inside more than outside! We also had a 2nd episode of "runaway skiff" in the 35+mph winds. But it only wandered to the neighbor's shore, so Rob is hoping 3rd time's a charm and gets to look at new skiffs someday! We've only had 4 snowfalls since then. One being a 3 day, 19 inch event with the rest only dropping 5-6 inches at a time. Hupper Island is truly a beautiful place with fresh white snow on it's shores and boughs. Our new snow shoes are still new and now that it's March, we just might have new snow shoes for sale in May! But there are still 2 months left so I have my fingers crossed the white stuff will still fly. After all, Washington D.C., New York and New Jersey all have way more snow than we do! The only thing to deal with is the wind. It seems that the winds are higher than 15 mph only 3 or 4 days a week, sometimes day after day, but we just stay on island until the conditions are right to get across safely and not wet or frozen! The addition is coming along quite nicely. We move a bit slower in the colder weather but things still get done. Rob, however, seems to handle the colder, damper weather much better than me or Dana. The tides, wind, rain/snow and daylight really does play a major role in island life. The new wood burning stove stayed in the back of the truck for over a month, just waiting for all the forces to align so we could get it over here. The outside cedar shingle siding is our priority now, with wet, rainy weather on the way, we need to get the house protected from the wet elements. We are probably only a month behind our "island schedule", but hope to be working on getting the new kitchen in working order in April. While building a structure from scratch has been awesome, putting in cabinets and appliances and painting decorator colors sounds really fun! I am happy to report that Triple Stars has survived all of these high wind gusts...40-45mph sustained and 50-83mph gusts! She's never been out of the water longer than a week before, so this 7 month dry dock hibernation in the WINDY weather, snow and below freezing temps has been quite the experience I'm sure she hopes NEVER to repeat! Be sure to check out our photo gallery for more pictures on the progress of our house and the beautiful sites of Winter in Hupperland!