Brain Fart Friday

Here’s what’s flying around my head on this Friday…

My iPhone won’t stop autocorrecting in to I’n. I don’t get this. I’n isn’t even close to being a real word. No matter how many times I change I’n back to in, it keeps happening. Frustration.

Something pretty spectacular is going down in two sleeps. I won’t say what. Just trust me. It’s pretty amazing.

Less than a week until I go back to work. The thought of this is starting to make me a little twitchy. Prayers would be mucho appreciated.

I cannot believe summer is coming to a close. This is the last “official” weekend. We’re heading to my parent’s new cottage and I’m crossing my fingers for great weather.

I’m counting down the days until Eva’s birthday party. It’s going to be so fun. I’m so excited to celebrate the first year of her life with those closest to us.

Speaking of her birthday, she’s going to be one in less than three weeks. Say what?!

I plan on getting my autumn decorations out next week. Too soon? I don’t care. Once labour day passes, all is fair.

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in canning and preserving stuff from my garden. I’ve done salsa (twice), peaches (twice), hot peppers, BBQ sauce, peach salsa and pasta sauce. That’s it for a while. After the birthday, I’ll do apple sauce and pears but for now, I’m taking a break.

That’s about all there is to say today. Happy Friday!

First Family Vacation

We’re home. We had a blast. I want to be on vacation with my family forever. Except, in that forever, I’d like my baby to sleep at night while we are away. Because, honestly, aside from the fact that she did NOT sleep at night while we were away, it was perfect. We walked miles and miles, seeing sights, shopping, picnicking in the parks – and just all together having a good time. A good, good time. Just the three of us.

Now that we’re home, I feel like Evalyn and I are going through a Daddy withdrawal. We got so used to having him with us all day for 5 days straight that life is kind of boring now that it’s just the two of us again.

I’m normally not a huge fan of vacation recap posts but for the sake of memories, I’m about to do just that. As I mentioned last week, we made a quick change of plans – very last minute – and headed to our capital city, Ottawa, instead of going camping. And lemmetellyou, we are glad that we did. Thanks to Jen, we found an amazing deal on travel zoo for a suite with a full kitchen and living/dining area. This meant that we could still keep our vacation relatively cheap by eating most of our food at the hotel and also, we could sleep more comfortably by putting up the playpen in the corner of the living room area instead of right beside our bed. Although, in the end, that part of the arrangement was kind of pointless since she ended up in our bed a good portion of the time anyway.

We left around 9 on Wednesday morning, stopping for a quick McD’s breakfast and iced coffee on the way out of town. We stopped for about an hour for lunch and to stretch our legs (okay, and to buy some new shirts at Old Navy for Evan) and then continued on. The trip took much less time than I expected and we were pulling into the hotel parking lot just before 3.

We settled in, had a quick snack and then headed out for the evening. We wandered around the By-ward market for a few hours. I stopped at Lush to pick up a few bath fizzies (yum) and we stopped at a nice little Pub to have some dinner.  After dinner, we walked a little more and then headed back to the hotel around 7. Eva went to bed and Evan and I ate junk food and watched a movie in the room.

Let me tell you, traveling sure is different with a baby in tow. Normally, when seeing a new city, I would leave my hotel at 8 am and not return until well after dark, in an attempt to see every single thing there was to see in two days. That’s just not possible anymore. But, that’s okay. We just decided to relax. Take in a few things and not over do it. We stuck to places we could go that were within walking distance from the hotel and quite honestly, those were the most important places to see anyway. Neither Evan or I had been to Ottawa since middle school so it was all new to us again.

On Friday morning, we all slept in until past 8 (although, sleeping in takes on a different meaning when you were up all.freaking.night) and woke up to find that tooth #7 had decided to join us for our vacation. We made a big breakfast in the room and then headed to the pool for a swim. I put the babe down, and we got ready for the day, packed a picnic lunch and relaxed a bit.

Once she was up, we were off to Parliament Hill. We wandered around there, seeing all the statues and buildings and had a picnic lunch with Sir John A MacDonald. In the collage below, my very favourite picture is the one of Eva and I in front of the “Women are Persons” monument. This monument honours the famous 5 – five women who worked hard (and were successful) in securing a place for women in the senate. Many freedoms my daughter will enjoy are a result of the work of these ladies.

After seeing Parliament, we walked through the mall a bit and headed back for nap #2. After the nap, we decided to stay inside for a while since it was balls hot so we went swimming again and cooked an early dinner in the room. The evening was spent wandering more of the market and eating ice cream. Eva was more than happy to share her first ice cream cone with her Daddy. We also walked along the river and Eva had a chance to dip her toes in the canal.

On Friday morning, we got up early, made breakfast and went for a walk in Major’s Hill Park. It was a beautiful, cool morning – just perfect.

We packed up while Eva napped, checked out and were ready to go. Except we had one more stop to make. Because they only took cash and we didn’t have any the night before, I hadn’t had a chance to get my beloved Beaver Tail yet. So, yes, I had to stop for one on the way out of the city (you can see me stuffing my face in one of the photos above). I also stopped at one of the shops I’d been in earlier to grab a few souvenirs and off we went. We went to Dow’s Lake for a picnic lunch and a walk and then headed off to Cornwall for the next step on our journey.

Evan’s sister, Amy, got married on Saturday so the last portion of our trip was full of wedding fun. We got to the hotel in Cornwall in time for a swim and a nap before the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. And on Saturday, we enjoyed celebrating as Amy and Stuart committed their lives to each other in an extremely beautiful wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, I don’t have very many photos from the wedding. With a husband in the wedding party and a crazy 10 month old scooting around, I didn’t have an extra hand to snap photos. But here are a few of my wee family from throughout the day.

The wedding reception was so much fun and thanks to Auntie Marcia and Auntie Linda, I was able to put the baby to bed and enjoy some time partying it up on the dance floor sans baby.

Sunday came quickly and after enjoying a delicious brunch (waffles, yum), we packed up and hit the road. Again, we stopped for lunch and a leg stretch and made it home just before 3.

We were all amazingly tired when we got home. Five busy days with not a lot of sleep will do that to you. Evalyn went to bed around 6:40 and, to be honest, we followed shortly after. Ev fell asleep on the couch at 7 and finally managed to make his way to bed to go to sleep for good at 8:30 and I crashed then, too. And at last, we slept for longer than 2 hours at a time.

Although this vacation was short – it was so special. We’ll always look back and remember it as our first family vacation. My heart is so full.

Vacation!

Here I am, just checking in to let you know that I’m on vacaaaaaaaaa! Months ago, we had planned to go camping for our family vacation. We had booked a site at one of Ontario’s nicest provincial parks and had borrowed a pop up trailer from some friends of ours. We were set to leave on Wednesday morning around 9. It was Tuesday evening and we were basically all packed up and ready to go when Eva started getting really fussy about an hour before bedtime. We were in the midst of the hottest week of summer and it was only supposed to get hotter. To add to that, the past two weeks Eva has been going through her most difficult bout of teething yet. She has been in rare form.

Just as I was getting ready to put Eva in a shower to cool down before bed, Evan and I kind of just looked at each other and said, “What the heck are we doing?”

Isn’t the point of vacation to have a good time? The point is not to be miserable the whole time as you’re trying to entertain a hot, teething, unhappy baby, who likely wouldn’t even sleep. We figured we’d end up driving around through the night to avoid waking up other campers in the surrounding campsites.

So, within a matter of 10 minutes, we cancelled our campsite and booked a hotel suite in Ottawa for the two nights (thanks to my friend Jen for finding us such a great teal from Travel Zoo).

We’ve been here in our capital city for just over 24 hour and are having a really, really enjoyable time.

And? The fact that I was up half the night with a shrieking baby who woke up this morning with a brand new tooth was more than enough proof to me that we made the right decision and that the extra money spent on the hotel was worth it. Dealing with that in a private, air conditioned hotel room is bad enough. I don’t even want to think about what our time would have been like dealing with it at the campsite.

We’ve been swimming, walking, touring, shopping, and eating and having a blast! This is, really, our first official family vacation. The first time we’ve gone away anywhere – just the three of us.

Tomorrow we’ll head off to to our next adventure as we celebrate with Evan’s sister as she marries the love of her life. We’ll be back next week with pictures and stories to document our vacation.

B to the a-c-k

Remember me?

I’ve been on vacation for the past week and a bit. Well, to be honest, I’ve actually been home from vacation for over 72 hours but I’m struggling to pull myself out of vacation mode and back into reality mode.

The beautiful thing about returning from vacation on Friday evening is that you have the weekend to pretend your still on holidays. The not so beautiful thing is that at some point, you have to put your foot down and remember that life must go on as per usual.

We enjoyed an amazing week in Northern Ontario with my mom’s side of the family. My days were spent lounging by the lake and it was fabulous. Eva napped like a champ while we were there – giving me the opportunity to put my feet up, get a bit of a tan, drink too much Pepsi and crush a few good books.

Too much happened to write a recap so I’ll just let the photos do the talking.

The weather was fab, the food was delicious and the company was unbeatable.

Phew!

Wow! We survived the holidays and now that we are home, I feel like I need a vacation to recover from our vacation. Traveling is a little more, shall we say, complex, when you have a little one, that’s for sure. But all in all, we had a wonderful time away with our families and we are all glad to be back home, sleeping in our own rooms and in our own beds.

We started our holiday celebrations around noon on Christmas Eve when the Dude came home early. We enjoyed a relaxing afternoon together as a family. We tried to get some pictures but evidently, we are not a family of photographers. So, they suck. But at least we have proof that we were all there.

While I put the babes to bed, the Dude put together a delicious feast of battered yumminess. No better way to kick of the holidays than by eating a plate full of cholesterol.

After enjoying a relaxing evening together, we headed to bed and hoped that Santa would make an appearance at our place. When we woke up the next morning, Evalyn was pumped to discover that he had. We exchanged gifts with each other and Eva was as patient as could be as she chilled in her bouncy seat and watched all the action.

When we were done, we put her down for her nap and went crazy packing and getting ready for our week away. We took down our tree (um ya, at 9 am on Christmas Day!), organized all the gifts and packed the car. When the babe got up from her nap, I fed her and we were off.

We spent the next few days with the Dude’s family. On the 27th, we had a mock Christmas morning with his parents, siblings and nieces and nephews. That afternoon, we had a delicious meal, played games, exchanged gifts, and went skating with his extended family. I’m serious – there is never a dull moment with this family. Ever.

On the morning of the 28th, we packed ‘er all up again and headed to visit with my family for the remainder of the week. There we played games, relaxed, the Dude did some work for a friend and for my Dad, and we just enjoyed the time with our family. I don’t have very many photos from our time together. My brother is the photog so I leave that up to him.

On Thursday night, my Grandparents came over for dinner. I always always always love getting to see my Grandma interact with Eva. It is so special.

Friday (which was New Year’s Eve for the rest of you) was Christmas eve for my family. We hung out together all day and then after the kids were in bed indulged in a delicious feast of appetizers. We determined that we have been having an “appetizer meal” on Christmas eve since 1993! That’s quite a tradition.

Sadly, none of us, except my SIL made it to midnight to ring in the New Year. The rest of us were all of the opinion that the sooner you go to bed, the sooner Santa will get there. And some of us (not mentioning any names) went to bed early because they were pretty sure their daughter would not be letting them get much sleep that night. Ahem – me.

We woke up on New Year’s Day to discover that Santa had arrived once again! We all gathered in the living room for the festivities. We all open our stockings together at once, clean up the mess from that (because, yeah, Santa WRAPS the stocking gifts) and then pass out the “under the tree gifts”. Once everyone has their pile, we go one by one and watch each other open the gifts. It’s relaxing and enjoyable that way! It was so fun this year because Little H is now at the age where he gets it. He really gets what’s going on. He was excited to leave cookies and milk for Santa and to see the presents in the morning! He was also so patient and cute as he waited for his turn each time.

We headed home with a jam packed car on Sunday after. When we unloaded, it looked as thought Christmas threw up in our dining room.

I’m spending this week slowly getting this organized and put back in place. It feels like I just got my Christmas decos out and now it’s time to put them away.

Goodbye Christmas! We’ll see you again next year.

Eva's First Trip

On Monday I wrote about Eva's first wedding. The wedding was about 45 minutes away from the Dude's parents house so we decided to head there for the weekend to introduce Evalyn to her Nana and Grandpa's house.

I started to get stressy about how to pack for her early in the week. Thankfully, my good blog friend, Kristin, suggested packing her things in ziploc bags to keep track of what she would need for each day. What a great suggestion! I don't think I will ever pack for Eva any other way. And it was a good thing I did, since her oil opened in my suitcase on the way home. Luckily that was contained!

She did so great on the drive. We stopped about 25 minutes into our drive at a mall so I could try to search for some things for her and to have lunch. I wore her in the sling and she snoozed the entire time. She fussed a bit as we got her back into the car but quickly fell back asleep and slept the rest of the drive. She was a ravenous beast when we arrived because she was clearly starving, but she made it! She quickly found a nice spot to get cozy at Nana's.

She was excited to meet her cousins, O and B. They were the last of her cousin's that she had not met yet. Eva and Baby B look so different in size right now, it's hard to believe that within a year or two they will just seem like they are the exact same age. O was so eager to love on Eva the whole weekend! My girl is never going to lack in the "loved" department.

At the wedding, Eva got to meet Great Grandma Shirley. Again, more love.

I already wrote about how well she did at the wedding so I won't rehash that here. But I will say that all the partyin' must have worn her out since she and her cousin needed to have a nice Sunday afternoon nap together.

When she woke up, we took her up to the nursing home to meet another Great Grandma. It is so special to me that Eva has 6 great grandparents that are still living.

Sunday evening came but Eva's vacation wasn't over yet. Eva and I headed home with my parents (who were in the same area because of the wedding). Again, she was a champ for the long car ride. She slept the whole way until we stopped for dinner and then she woke up, ate, didn't let mommy eat, and then stayed awake in the car for the last 30 minutes home.

She loved hanging out with Nana K for a few days. On Monday we took her shopping in the city and again, she did awesome. She just chilled out in her stroller and in the sling.

Off to see the next set of Great Grandparents (actually - now that I think of it, I don't have a photo of her with Great Grandma and Grandpa C but she saw every single one of her great grandparents this weekend. I bet that will never happen again).

This is the Grandma that she's named after...

I'm not sure what this picture has to do with our mini vacation but it is really cute so I had to share it.

When I told Eva our vacation was over and it was time to go home, she was none too happy.

Nana and Papa took us half way to meet the Dude and we all had supper together. I'm quickly learning that Eva is much better at going out for lunch than for supper.

The first time going away as a family with a new baby can certainly be nerve racking but thankfully Eva made it super easy for me. We have four more little mini vacations coming up in the next two months so hopefully she'll keep up the good work for those :)

The Weekend of the Vines

I just rolled in the door last night from a fun long weekend with my mom's side of the family. Every year we get together around the 1st of July for a family reunion. It's been going on since all of us were wee kiddos. And now, many of the wee kiddos have wee kiddos of their own. This year, there were 12 children ages 5 and under, and 8 of those are 2 and under - with two more on the way! Talk about chaos.

Judging by the status of the memory card on my camera, you may not believe that I actually went anywhere. I am guilty of taking ZERO pictures the entire weekend. I am really hoping that I can count on some of my other family members to post some photos on facebook or something so that I can have some evidence that my family actually exists.

Unfortunately the Dude wasn't able to come with me this year because of his job switch. It just wasn't logical or feasible to try to swing a few days off so close to the beginning of his new job - especially since he's heading to Quebec on a fishing trip next month.

The weather at the reunion was cold so beach time was limited (for the adults anyway - the kids didn't seem to mind the temperature) but we made up for it with game after game of Monopoly Deal and 3-13, a LOT of food (I mean a LOT) and plenty of visiting. And if that was exciting enough, I managed to get beetle juice all over my face and in my mouth when a giant bug crawled out of my pant leg and I attempted to squash it with a paper towel.

Every year I grow to appreciate this time with my family more and more. I am so blessed to have a whole slew of aunts, uncles, cousins, spouses of cousins, and babies of cousins to call my own!

This year we received a special gift at the reunion. Over the past few years, My Auntie Karen has been compiling a bunch of my Grandmother's recipes that we all know and love. Once she had them all organized, she used Taste Book to print the books. There is a picture of my beautiful Grandmother with a lovely dedication written by Aunt Karen at the beginning, followed by pages and pages of our cherished family recipes. I can't wait to dig in and start making some of them. This recipe book is definitely going to be my most cherished and will be passed on to my children someday.

The Babymoon and a Bloggy Meet Up!

The Dude and I decided we needed to take a short time to get away. So that we did. It was short and it was close to home, but it was just what we needed. We killed a few birds with one stone with this short vaca - we celebrated my thesis defense, had a little break in between the Dude's jobs, and got away together for a night before the baby comes.

Now the embarrassing part - can you believe that this is the first time that the Fabulous Dude and I have ever stayed in a hotel together, just the two of us? Our honeymoon was spent at my Grandma's cottage, on our trip to Dominican we had our own room but my parents were also vacationing with us (and it's a resort - kind of not a hotel), and other than that - anytime we've been at a hotel, we've been with people .... crazy, right?

So we decided it was time to fix that. We found a great deal in Niagara Falls that included a room, a $40 credit to The Keg (one of our fave restaurants) and a $40 token credit to Dave & Buster's arcade or the Seneca Nigara Casino. We opted for D&Bs because we didn't want to go across the border just to spend $40 on the slots - we would have wasted that in no time flat.

After work on Friday we packed up and headed into the falls. We settled in our room, got changed and headed to dinner. The coupon was good for the skyview Keg, which is on the 9th floor of a hotel and overlooks the Falls. Unfortunately, being a Friday night, we were told we could either wait 2 hours for a table with a view or we could be seated immediately in the lounge with no view. I will leave it up to to guess what this 6+month preggo chose.

After dinner we waddled walked back to our room, got changed into some warmer clothes and headed down to walk around by the falls and on Clifton Hill. We didn't snap too many pictures except for one in the room and one down by the falls.

As we made our way up Clifton Hill, the Dude was so stuffed full from dinner that he was amazed at how I found myself being lured into every candy, fudge, ice cream, or chocolate shop that I saw. Well, I was stuffed full, too, but I strongly believe we have a separate stomach for sweets, don't we? I drooled over everything in the Hershey's store and in the chocolate shops, but I refrained.

Eventually we made our way to Dave & Buster's and we quickly realized that it was a good choice to keep me away from the Casino.

Have you ever seen or heard of those old ladies who wear diapers in the casino so that they don't have to leave their slot machines for hours at a time? Well ... I'm not promising that I would not be one of those ladies. I found myself stuck to the Deal or No Deal Arcade game, gambling away our $40 of chips and celebrating with each prize ticket that I won. The Dude kept going back to this stupid racing game, which I did not understand. I had a strict rule: WE ONLY PLAY GAMES THAT WILL WIN US MORE TICKETS!

Some of my rounds of Deal or No Deal did not go so well....

Others were much more successful....

I even found myself doing so well that I had to snatch up one of the D&Bs Big Winners cups to store my massive stash of tickets.

At one point, while I managed to peel myself away from the Deal or No Deal Machine, I caught the Dude showing off his moves at the Dance Dance Revolution Machine. Te he he.

At 10 pm, the Dude came and pulled me away from my machine (why oh why?) to go outside and watch the Fireworks. I was less than impressed. We could hardly even see them so I quickly ran back into the arcade to reclaim my spot at my Deal or No Deal Machine. Eventually, we ran out of credits on our card and were left with our cup full of winnings ...

We headed into the Winner's Circle where they counted up how many tickets we had. I was disappointed to discover that I couldn't afford the Diego lunch pail but excited that I had enough to win a bag of Carmel Corn! Whoo hoo. I must tell you, it was a major toss up between the caramel corn and 8 bouncy balls and a wooden snake, but in the end, I felt the caramel corn was a better choice.

The glory at the arcade was short lived, but fun. After we were done, we continued our way up the hill and stopped for a soft serve and lemonade for the walk back to the hotel. By the time we got back, my feet were killing and I was ready for a nice long bubble bath!

On Saturday morning, we slept in, headed to Denny's for breakfast (delicious breakfast burrito for me!) and then headed to Marineland for the day. It was the family picnic hosted by Evan's previous employer (the one he finished with on Friday) so we decided we should get in one last hurrah with them before his time was done. :)

Marineland is fun - but I don't think I would go or recommend going if you had to pay for your tickets. Getting to go for free is definitely a-okay with me, though.

When we got there, we met up with M&L who had the Dude's little cousins there for the day. We wandered around and they all went on a few rides for the first little while and then we watched the Seal, Dolphin and Walrus show. I get such a kick out of animals, I was clapping and cheering like a little kid.

Next up, the Beluga whales!

While the "Big Kids" were on the SkySkreamer and the Adult roller coaster, Linda, Stefan and I headed to the Killer Whale show. We stood on the side of the pool where we expected to get soaked (I could have used a cool down) but we ended up being right on the outskirts of all the splashes and only felt a few trickles of water as the whale sprayed the audience.

After the whale show, we headed back to the Deer Park for one more quick visit before joining up the rest of the gang for the BBQ supper.

After supper, the rain hit so it was time to clear out and go home. Of course, the Dude ran to grab me just one last soft serve cone (noticing a theme here? But hey, we had free coupons) before we left and then we were on our way home.

C-Biscuit and Bigg Burd came over for a visit for the evening and then we spent Sunday going to church, having lunch with good friends, and then puttering around home in the afternoon.

And that brings me to today - I know it's not part of the BabyMoon or even the weekend ... but I must share that I had some major excitement this morning!

I finally got to meet SnoWhite and Frog Prince in real life! Whoo hoo!

They sometimes drive through my neck of the woods when they go to visit family, and since they are gearing up to move farther away, we knew it was now or never (or, perhaps not never ... but maybe not for a long time!)

We made plans to meet at the Tim Horton's (because, duh, we're in Canada!) near my house and spent an hour visiting together. It was just like meeting with old friends. And, really, that's exactly what it was.

Over the past year and a half or so, SnoWhite has become one of my most treasured friends. We pray for each other, share exciting news with each other, and of course, swap our most loved recipes with each other! She is such an encouragement to me on a daily basis and I am so excited to say I have finally hugged her in real life. Now here's hoping it won't be another year and a half until we see each other again.

A Weekend at the Lake..

I didn't do very good at taking pictures of our weekend at the lake but I do have a few to share. It started on Friday when the fabulous dude and my dad met my mom and I down there for supper. Since it was my birthday, supper consisted of many of my favourite things. The guys had steak, too, but I stuck with the grilled shrimp! Yum-o!

Then I got to open my presents. Can you guess which one is from the fabulous dude? That's right. The one that has a walmart bag inside a shoe box, covered with tissue paper that he stole from the other gift.

I had to laugh because he gave me a "gift certificate" for a store in his hometown that has a massive tent sale every year. Since he couldn't actually get to the store to buy a gift certificate, he made one himself. He printed the logo off their website and put it on a piece of paper with the value on the top and bottom corners. It looked like monopoly money. The best part was that he didn't know our printer was out of colour ink, so instead of a lovely wine colour the logo was a disgusting shade of lime green and pink. Very nice. I can't wait to spend it! He also gave me an extra set of measuring cups and spoons and a Pyrex 4 cup measure. I dropped and shattered mine a few weeks ago and I've been lost without it!

My mom and dad gave me some shoes, a wallet, some autumn decorations (which I will be showing off once I get my house all falled up) some autumn menu planning pads and a rooster recipe box with a whole bunch of cute recipe cards to organize my favourite recipes. Sidenote: Looking back on the list of things I got here, would you say my family knows me or what? I also got a cute shirt from my sister and a great gift from my brother and SIL (which deserves a post of it's own and will come tomorrow). The next day, my sister, brother-in-law and nephew joined us. We weren't sure how the little man would like the boat since this was his first time on it since he was 6 weeks old, but he sure loved it. He especially loved getting to drive it with Papa.

Of course, the fabulous dude had to show off. Boys and their toys!

Little H was so excited to drive on the little boat with Papa. He was making "Zoom zoom" noises the whole time.

On Sunday, my brother and his wife joined us as well. I got really bad with the picture taking this day. But, we enjoyed lots of good food and fun times on the water. On Sunday evening we had a party celebrating my birthday, BIL's birthday, Sis and BIL's anniversary and our friend Ashley's birthday. After visiting the same Brazilian steakhouse that we went to a few weeks ago, Ashley and her hubby decided to recreate the pineapple they served for dessert. It was so delicious!

Monday was our last day at the boat and we were joined by some of our good friends. We had a blast. The boys played all day on the jet ski. They were tubing like crazy fools and today I'm sure all of them are paying a high price.

We were blessed with wonderful weather and good company on the last weekend of summer!