Camp Weekend

When J was a kid his church did family camp every year. For the past several years they haven't been able to do it, but God worked it all out this year and we were able to go. I don't think it was quite the way J remembered it, but it was nice to get out of the city and spend some time away from the world.

The location of the camp was perfect. It was less than an hour away from home, but it felt like you were so much further away from the city. The cabins and grounds were clean and well-maintained. We certainly didn't spend the weekend at a luxury resort, but we were comfortable and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. 

One of the neat things at the camp was the human fooseball. We had a ton of fun!

All of our usual doggy sitters were at camp with us. So after much debate we decided to take Daisy with us. She had a ball! She made new friends, and she certainly didn't lack for attention.

We spent a couple peaceful hours outside relaxing Saturday afternoon while J's uncle and cousin played and sang. 

Saturday night we had a devotion around the campfire and then roasted hot dogs and made s'mores. 

Sunday morning we were able to have our church service outside. I was worried about Daisy distracting everyone but she curled up on her blanket and slept through the entire thing. (Apparently she was tired from being up late at the fire the night before.)

The end of camp was a little bittersweet as J's youngest brother, Joseph, headed back to school in Florida early this morning. We won't see him now for about 16 months. We've already started filling a piggy bank though for a trip to Florida. He graduates in May 2017 and we're hoping to be there. 

I am covered in fly bites and have a ton of laundry, but I wouldn't have changed a thing about this weekend. I am so grateful to belong to a church that is full of members who enjoy spending time together both in and outside the church building. 

Hope you had a great weekend!

Linking up with: Her Heartland Soul, and Life of Meg.

Our Vacation; Part 2 (Smithsonian National Zoo)

Back in June my husband and I traveled to Washington, DC. His sister Rachel was getting married in West Virginia so we thought we'd spend a few days in DC before the wedding. Months before we left we had basically decided how we were going to spend our three days as tourists: seeing the sights of DC, the Smithsonian Zoo, and Six Flags America. For our first adventure we decided on the zoo.

After talking to the staff at the hotel and people we knew who had traveled to DC we decided to take the Metro into the city. It was a little intimidating. I'm not from a "small town" by any means but the population of DC is pretty much double the population of Halifax so our public transportation system is pretty tiny in comparison. We were really impressed by how easy it was to take the Metro - it was actually probably less complicated than taking the bus here. We parked our rental car at the station, boarded a train for downtown and less than an hour later we arrived at the zoo.

I had a fantastic time roaming around the zoo and visit all the animals. J struggled a bit since he's still recovering from his broken leg but he was a really good sport!

As soon as we started making our plans for our trip I started talking about the
 "giant baby pandas" so of course I posed with the sign. :-)

Speaking of giant pandas!

The one picture I absolutely wasn't leaving the zoo without. :-)

This is an American Beaver, and they are much small than their Canadian counterparts.
There was a zoo volunteer by his enclosure when we got there and we mentioned being Canadian.
She seemed very surprised when we told her we don't see beavers every day back home... 

And of course, a selfie!

We definitely enjoyed our visit to the Smithsonian National Zoo. The park was clean and the staff were friendly, If you're ever in DC it's definitely something I recommend checking out. (Especially since it's free!)

Still here!

Hello!

I'm still here, I promise.

I've been absent due to a major lack of planning. I was getting ready for vacation, on vacation, and getting everything ready to go back to work after vacation,

J and I had an amazing time on our first real adventure, but I'm not sure travel is totally for me. You would not believe how stressed out I got every time we were driving in Washington (so many more people so obviously way more cars), and when we went through customs coming home. (And all we brought home were a few souvenirs and a bottle each from the duty-free store!)

I'm working on a recap of our trip and hope to share it with you soon.

My Week in Pictures!

Not a whole lot happened over the past week, but I think it's important to document even the not-so-exciting weeks. They're definitely part of life. And a good part - I can't imagine how exhausted I would be all the time if I didn't have those weeks where I spend the majority of my evenings at home on the couch with J!

1. Our church celebrated it's 15th anniversary on Sunday so after church we all stuck around for lunch and of course some group pictures. It was great to hear some of the memories of people who were responsible for the "birth" of the church. I've only been going since shortly before J and I got engaged but he's been there since the beginning. (J's dad is our pastor, I'm not sure if I've mentioned that here before or not.)

2. One of my many purchases during my shopping spree last week. I love the way this top flows, it's very flattering. I'm looking forward to wearing it on our vacation in a couple weeks.

3. I still love these sunglasses. I wore them to church yesterday and got a ton of compliments. J still doesn't like them, but he's not the one wearing them. ;-)

4. I may not have any kids to let lick the beaters (which I totally plan on doing) but if I'm making anything with peanut butter I always let Daisy lick the spoon. I made peanut butter pie for the church potluck and it was a big hit!

5. Thursday night I just didn't feel like cooking so J and I decided to use one of our Christmas gift cards and headed to Boston Pizza for a last minute date minute. After supper we did a bit more shopping for our trip. (We splurged and bought us both a t-shirt from East Coast Lifestyle to wear when we're in the US.)

Hope you had a great week!

Confessions of a shopaholic

I am turning in to a shopaholic. And it's not a good thing.

I guess it's not an entirely true thing either. I've gained a little weight since last summer. Enough that I don't feel fully comfortable in all my warm weather clothes. Since we're heading to Washington in (let me just check my countdown app...) 17 days I figured I needed to bite the bullet and head out shopping for some outfits that I felt good about having my picture taken in.

One of the two new pairs of sunglasses.
(J hates them, but I love them!)

I spent about $200 yesterday, the bulk of which was at Marshall's. This was my first trip to Marshall's, but it felt just like being in Winner's. I was super successful there though, and came home with a pair of cropped jeans/denim capris (I have no idea what the correct word is, all I know is they're longer on me than they would be on a normal person but I love how they fit) and four tops. Three of the tops are casual and one is a little dressier and will be perfect for a nice dinner out. I also ended up with five pairs of flip flops, two pairs of sunglasses, and four head bands from Ardene. I also bought a pair of capris from Reitman's but ended up taking them back when I found a pair of denim bermuda shorts that I LOVE at Wal-Mart of all places. (The Wal-Mart shorts were by far my favourite purchase of the day.) I grabbed a couple plain t-shirts at Wal-Mart too, I just can't pay $20 for black v-neck tee when I can get one for $7 at Wal-Mart, it just doesn't make sense to me.

The shopping continued today with two tops and a necklace at Old Navy, and two necklaces and two earring sets and Icing. (How I managed to get out of Icing with only four items is a mystery - everything was on sale for $5. One of the necklaces I bought was regular $22 and I spent $23 total including taxes.)

I was so excited to find so many things I actually felt good in! I was going to order a couple other things online but I think I'm just going to wait and do a little shopping when we're away. (I have to admit that I can't wait to check out Torrid in person - there are definitely a ton of things on the website I want to try on.)

Now, I know a good fashion blogger would have pictures of all of her purchases. But I am so not a fashion blogger! So you'll have to wait to see my purchases until I recap my Washington/West Virginia trip in about a month.

My Week in Pictures!

I think I like the idea of doing a phone photo dump each week. I take so many random pictures with my phone it's hard to narrow it down though. Okay, that's totally a lie. At least half of the pictures on my phone are either food or one of my fur babies. But I managed to find some that show what I was up to last week.

1. This is Lil Eatily. It's one of the "food trucks" at Truckside, a new indoor food truck food court in Dartmouth. We had supper there Saturday night. I had pasta from Lil Eatily and J had fish from U-Pick Fish. We both enjoyed our meals. 

2. I was in charge of the nursery Sunday morning at church and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of these two cuties colouring together. 
3. For Mother's Day J and all of his siblings gave his mom a family ring with all their birth stones. She burst into tears before she even looked at the ring. As soon as she saw the box from People's the waterworks began. 
4. My amazingly smart friend Jenn was interviewed in the local paper as part of a nurses' week feature. She's a labour and delivery nurse and a strong advocate for breast feeding. 
5. My staff spoiled me with lots of birthday treats. (Including chocolate covered jujubes which are my absolute favourite.)
6. We are finally starting to get some sunny, warm, spring weather here in Nova Scotia. Two evenings in a row I laid outside reading while Daisy played in the yard. It was wonderful!
7. At work this week we presented a cheque to Threads of Life. We raised $1305 as well as providing a barbecue for participants in their annual Steps for Life walk. I love that my job allows me to do stuff like that. 
8. After supper at Truck Side Saturday night we headed to the Middle Spoon for dessert and drinks. If you're local and you've never been I highly recommend it. Dessert ended up costing more than dinner, but it was totally worth it. 
9. This picture shouldn't even be included because it was taken today but I absolutely love this picture of J and Daisy and I couldn't wait until next week to share it. 

I love that it's so easy to take pictures with my phone, but I find I never get pictures printed anymore. I need to start getting prints again I think! (And I might start with that shot of J and Daisy.)

Grateful for History

I am one of those incredibly lucky people who has had the same best friends since practically forever. And by forever I mean junior high. I met Jenn (who was my maid of honour at my wedding six years ago) on the first day of grade seven. She came right up to me (not shy my Jenn...) and told me she had the same shirt I was wearing. We've been friends ever since. (I still totally remember the shirt too. It was a cream coloured blouse with a vest attached. Made of rayon. My mother hated it.)  Kerry was Jenn's friend from elementary school and she and I didn't really become friends until grade nine when we ended up in a hotel room together on a band trip.

I have so many memories with these girls and on Saturday night I was lucky enough to make more. We all went out for supper together with our husbands. (It sounds so weird to say that, Kerry only got married about a month ago and this is my first time we've all gotten together since they got married.) We don't see each other nearly as often as any of us would like, but when we do get together there are never gaps in conversation and we laugh harder than should be possible. (I have to admit the conversations were a lot different with the guys around though!)

These girls were there for me when my brother was diagnosed with cancer and they were there by my side when I said "I do." I am so grateful to have them in my life. Our lives are all so different but we can always make time for each other. We decided this weekend to plan our first ever girls weekend away and I couldn't be more excited. I can't imagine a life without them in it - they remind me of who I am, and they made me who I am too.

Wedding Shower Planning

Last Saturday I threw my first ever wedding shower, and I am so happy with how everything turned out!

My brother-in-law, David, is getting married in July and J and I are both standing in the wedding. In a short period of time David's fiancée, Tracey, has become one of my favourite people. They've decided to have their wedding in our church which is older and hasn't had many updates over the past 15 to 20 years. In order to get the church ready for the wedding without spending a fortune David and Tracey have been doing a lot of the upgrades themselves. The church is looking amazing, but it's taking a bit of a toil on them and their wedding planning/preparation is a little bit more stressful than it is for the average couple. Because of the added stress I really wanted to make sure Tracey's shower was perfect and something she would really enjoy. (I like to think I was pretty successful.)

I decided to go with a morning shower and serve breakfast type foods. I think this surprised some of the guests, but it worked really well. Months ago Tracey had pinned an image of a yogurt bar to her wedding planning board on Pinterest but in the end they decided to go with a candy bar. Since I knew she liked the idea of a yogurt bar I knew that was something I wanted to incorporate. I served vanilla yogurt with three different types of berries and granola. I love the chalk board easel and galvanized pail that I picked up at Micheals. The serving dishes all came from Dollarama. It was a big hit! We also served four different types of muffins made by my mother-in-law, some fresh fruit, and mini cinnamon rolls.

For the decorations I tried to go with a bit of a rustic theme. I made two banners (one said "Thank you" and the other said "From Miss to Mrs") using a free printable. (You can find it here.) It was so simple, and I love how they turned out. One of the other bridesmaids painted the "62 days" canvas and I just love it, it worked perfectly.

I also made a display of pictures of David and Tracey using paper doilies, twine, and clothespins. (I totally got that idea from Pinterest, you can see the original post it came from here.)

I painted mason jars and filled them with artificial flowers for centre pieces, and I covered water bottles with pretty duct tape so they'd look a little classier sitting on the tables. (I used this tutorial for help painting the mason jars. I ended up deciding not to distress them because I liked how they looked as they were.)

For the favours I bought little bottles of shower gel and stuck tags on them that said "From Tracey's shower to yours" and for the guest book I had everyone sign a white plate with Sharpies. (I used the oil ones as I've found they tend to fade less than the regular ones.)

And of course we played games! Tracey's sisters created a "Who Knows her Best" game and a "He said, She said" game that used their past Facebook statuses. We also played wedding pictionary,  "What's in Your Purse" and of course we played the clothespin game. I put all of the prizes in brown paper bags with purple tissue paper so they would match the theme of the shower.

I will admit that the shower may have consumed my life for a couple months. I work full-time so it felt like every day off was spent doing something shower-related but I didn't mind in the least. It turns out I really love planning events like this! Luckily one of the girls at work is going to need a baby shower soon and my brother is getting married next year. ;-)

I hope that this post helped a little if you're planning a shower! Let me know if you use any of these ideas, or if you have any ideas for the next shower I'll need to throw.

Birthday Ramblings

My third birthday... 30 years ago!

My birthday was on Tuesday. I turned thirty-three. 33! I don't know how that happened. Didn't I just turn 23?

J and I celebrated quietly at home. We had lobster and cheese cake and caught up on some TV shows we had missed. Not the most exciting birthday celebration, but life has been pretty hectic lately so I think it's what I needed.

We're going to continue the celebration Saturday night and go out for dinner with a couple of my girlfriends and their husbands. We're planning on checking out a new place called Truck Side, it's an indoor food truck food court. I'm pretty excited about it!

I'm not where I thought I'd be at 33, but I'm happy with where I am. Life is good, and I'm excited to see what this next year brings my way.

Let's try this again!

I feel like life is finally starting to get back to normal so I'm going to try to carve out a little bit of "me" time each day for my blog. I had all kinds of ideas of the past two months so I'm hoping that a) I remember some of them since I didn't write anything down and b) I'm able to execute them the way I envisioned them while I was laying in bed, or in the shower, or on my commute to work. (The shower tends to be where I do my best thinking...)

One of the things that I'm really excited about is monthly guest posts I have lined up. Lauren, my best friend since forever has (finally!) started a blog. Lauren and I have been best friends since grade seven, despite being complete opposites in many ways. The biggest difference is that she's healthy. No, really. Lauren is a real inspiration when it comes to being active and eating properly. She is extremely passionate when it comes to fitness and eating properly and she's going to be sharing some of that passion over here once a month. I can't wait! (If you can't wait either you can check her out over at The Golden Graham Girl for now.)

 

Here's a quick snap shot of my week taken from my phone... 

1. The shower I was planning for my brother-in-law's fiancee finally happened on Saturday. Everything went really well, I was super pleased with how everything turned out. I'm actually planning a post about it because I stole a lot of great ideas off Pinterest that I want to share. 

2. It's finally barbecue season! We've had the longest winter ever but it's finally nice enough to barbecue. J made supper Saturday night as part of my early birthday present. 

3. I found a new summer-y "adult" beverage that I really enjoy. It's white peach and it's delicious. (PS: Doesn't my jamicure look fabulous? I recently started selling Jamberry and I love it!) 

4. Daisy has completely destroyed the back of our loveseat so this past week we finally went out to buy some new furniture. It's not being delivered until May 28th but I am so excited! I can't wait to actually be able to have company over again. 

5. My brother popped in for a visit and Daisy got so freaking excited. Uncle Jon is definitely her favourite human. 

6. Our passports arrived! J and I are leaving for our first big trip together in 28 days. We're heading to Washington, DC and West Virginia. I'm so excited! 

Hopefully you'll be hearing more from me soon. :-)