Dear Friends,

It’s that time of year again; a few snowflakes fell over the weekend signaling that winter is around the corner. Don and Grace headed south earlier this week and officially bid farewell to winter before it even begins. Palm trees and beaches await them in sunny Key West. I have to be honest, I can’t say that I am a huge fan of winter either; winters are a lot of work! I have an aging horse barn that requires special care in the winter and frequent trips up on the roof to remove snow. My woodpile ends up inevitably buried in a cocoon of ice and snow by about mid-February and last year a new twist as our water hydrant in the barn froze up several times. However, this year I am going into the winter with a glass half full mentality. We built a brand new wood shed for our firewood and bid farewell to giant tarps keep our wood day. Next spring we will be building a new horse barn so with any luck this is the last winter of frequent shoveling and my oldest daughter and I have a season pass for skiing this winter. I am looking forward to winter this year!

New emojis! iOS 9.1 came out yesterday and if you’re a fan of emojis then this is the update for you. iOS 9.1 features over 150 new emoji so you can easily have endless visual conversations with your friends. There are several new faces from the zipper mouth to money mouth, and you can update your friends on the forecast with new weather clouds and brag to your co-workers about your vacation spot with new scenery emoji. In playing with these new emoji we have found that recipients of these new emoji will also need to be on iOS 9.1 to view them. We discovered these new images will appear as only a “?”. Other updates to iOS 9.1 included security updates and included an update to live photos. Live photos will now sense when you raise or lower your iPhone so as to not record these movements. The live photos is still only a feature in the new iPhone 6s.

This week I have put together an exclusive bundle for Kibbles subscribers only, save $25 on a Belkin Wemo light switch and outlet! A great way to add a touch of security to your home by turning on and off lights when your not there, or just wowing your friends when they come over to visit. My favorite use is to secretly plug our Christmas tree into the outlet and show my younger nieces and nephews during the holidays how to turn the tree on and off with a magic wave of my hand.