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.

Closet Make-Over

Now that my students loans are almost completely paid off (two more payments!) J and I have decided to start doing some little things around the house. Part of it is because we're hoping to sell within the next couple years and we'd like to make a little money, and part of it is just because we haven't done much since we bought our place three years ago.

So far we've laid new flooring in the living room and dining room, plus we've given the spare room and the office a minor face lift. (Check out the fun I had giving our filing cabinet a new paint job...) The next room we plan on tackling is our master bedroom. But, before we could even start thinking about painting and re-decorating the room needed to be completely re-organized.

We decided to start with the closet and our dresser drawers this weekend. We ran a few errands in the morning, including getting our passport pictures done (yay!) and taking a run to Home Depot to pick out some kind of closet shelving kit. We went with the 5-8' FreeSlide because it looked like the best for our needs, and it was within our budget. (We had a $50 gift card and it was $59.99, so it was perfect.)

We've been horrible lately when it comes to putting our clothes away after we do laundry so we had baskets full of clean laundry everywhere, and most of it wasn't folded. So Saturday evening we threw in a DVD (Mom's Night Out, which was really cute) and started folding and organizing clothes. Of course we had some helpers during our laundry folding. Sydney wanted to play in every basket we opened, and Daisy wanted to knock over every pile of clean clothes she could. Luckily Daisy got tired eventually!

Sunday after church I took a little nap (like I do pretty much every Saturday) and J started putting up the closet organizer. It's a good thing my husband is handy, because the instructions aren't the greatest and they were designed for an 8' closet even though the organizer is for a 5' to 8' closet. Our closet is only 6' so he had to do some playing to get everything in and the way we wanted it. We spent Sunday evening sorting and putting away all of our clothes. We are huge pack rats, but we forced ourselves to throw out anything really ratty and we filled a couple garbage bags with clothes to donate somewhere. By the time we went to bed I was extremely happy with how the closet looked. Now it's time to pick out paint colours!

 

Weekend Highlights

I had all kinds of blogging I wanted to get done this weekend, but that totally didn't happen. And not even because there was a lot of fun stuff going on. Friday night I was in bed early and Saturday night we cleaned the house and I baked a cake for my mother-in-law's birthday.

My weekend did have a few highlights though...

- I decided to sponsor my first blog! For the next month you can see my button over at ember grey. and I'm pretty excited about it. My blog is two months old today, so I thought it was time. :-)

- I was nominated for a Sunshine Award by Anne @ Love the Here and Now. I was super excited when I got her email. Now I have to figure out what 11 bloggers I'm going to nominate, answer Anne's questions and come up with my own.

- The birthday cake I made for my mother-in-law turned out, and everyone loved it. I was a little nervous because the last time I attempted to make a layer cake it was disastrous. (Ugliest cake ever.) This one was tasty and didn't look too bad. This weekend I'll be baking a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting for J's birthday. Haven't decided if I'm going to try the whole "layer" thing again or not.



Lemon cake, blueberry filling, and blueberry whipped cream frosting.

Is it sad that 2/3 of the highlights of my weekend are blog related?

Have a great Monday!

Weekend Update

I'm posting my weekend update on Tuesday again because it was a long weekend and I was off for three whole (glorious!) days.

Friday night started with a potluck dinner at my parents' house. We wanted to have a potluck so we could take part in the #PotluckChallenge. It was a good night, even if most of my friends couldn't make it. We got to spend some time with my family and we ate a ton of delicious food. See that little clown on my cake? My grandmother bought that for my very first birthday cake. I went through those years where I was too embarrassed to use it, but now it comes out for every family birthday. And I'm so glad my mom held on to it for all these years!

Saturday morning we got a bit of a late start, but I'm not complaining. I think we both needed the sleep. It's so rare that Daisy lets us sleep in that getting up at 9am was a huge treat. We took a run to Tim Horton's for breakfast and they were giving out free birthday cake donuts. It's like they knew I was celebrating my birthday this weekend. (Or maybe it's because the were celebrating their 50th birthday...)

We got on the road around noon to head out to the Seaside Adjunct. It's a little over a 2 hour drive and we were a little worried about Daisy but she handled it like a champ. It's worth it too, so beautiful. You can read all about our day here, but the long story short is that it was totally amazing and just what we needed.

Sunday was the usual. Sunday school, church, and a delicious dinner at J's folks. I chatted with J's sister, Rachel, for a bit. She's coming home next month and we can't wait to see her. Hoping to get to do lots of fun touristy things while she's home. (Hopefully cross a couple things off my Summer Bucket List!)

Yesterday we decided at the last minute to head to the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park with J's brother and his fiance. We've all been there before, but it was still nice to get out and do something a little bit different. The weather was supposed to be pretty gross but it actually turned out not too bad so we stopped for ice cream on the way home. Of course I had to try the confetti cake blizzard! (Delicious in case you were wondering.)

Unfortunately when we got home we had a bit of a scare, we found a tick on Daisy. Unfortunately it's a holiday so our vet isn't open. We called the Metro Emergency Animal Hospital and they told us how to remove them. We've kept them so we can take them to our vet to have them tested for Lyme disease. I'm a bit of a wreck right now. Crossing my fingers, I've read that most ticks don't actually carry diseases so hopefully the one we found on Daisy was safe.

Other than the whole tick thing our weekend was pretty fantastic. Hope you enjoyed yours too!

Weekend Update

I know it's Tuesday, and I probably should have posted yesterday if I was going to do a weekend update, but yesterday was my birthday so I figure 1) yesterday still counts as the weekend and 2) it's really not actually that big of a deal. ;-)

I ended up working all weekend. Usually I take my birthday off (the past couple years I've actually taken a week of vacation) but it was my weekend on our department manager rotation and it just seemed like a lot of effort to try and get someone to trade with me. That didn't enjoy my birthday weekend though.

Saturday was a pretty normal day at work except for the hour or so I spent dressed as a giant carrot roaming around downtown handing out flyers. May 16th is Food Revolution Day and my company is participating. We're having a bunch of demos and stuff that day and we wanted people to know about it. So we borrowed some costumes and off we went. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest so there weren't actually that many people out and about. It was still nice to get out of the store for a bit and do something a little different.

After we got back to the store I went for an early birthday lunch with Melissa (my second, and the apple with me in the picture) and Justine, one of the other department managers. I've been trying to eat healthy lately, but decided to throw that all out the window for my birthday. I hadn't been to Darrell's in a month (that's a long time for me!) so we headed there. I contemplated a peanut butter burger but ended up with my usual wrap and Darrell's fries. (If you live in the Halifax area and haven't been to Darrell's I definitely recommend it!)

Saturday night a friend surprised me with a ticket to a fancy dinner she was attending through work. The food was amazing (we had duck!), the company was great, and I loved getting to dress up. I didn't love not getting home until after midnight and having to be at work for 8am. That is not nearly enough sleep for this girl! J was pretty disappointed too, that I had worked all day and then was going out without him that night. He survived though, and we're both off for the entire long weekend so we have that to look forward to.

I didn't do a whole lot on Sunday other than working. It was a long day because I was so tired, so when I came home I basically crashed.

Yesterday was my actual birthday. And I think I was more disappointed than I realized to have been working. I have some pretty adorable staff though. I came out of my morning meeting and found a treat waiting for me in my office. My staff are trying to help me give up pop, but apparently I looked like I could use one yesterday.

Last night was probably the best part of my birthday. I think I've mentioned before that I still hang out with my girl friends from high school and that we don't get to spend nearly enough time together. Well, the three of us all managed to be free last night so we we met up for dinner and martinis. We're all in such different places, with different careers and different relationships but that doesn't seem to matter. We spent a couple hours chatting and laughing and by the time I was heading home my day at work was a distant memory.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

How was YOUR weekend?

Happy Monday! Today actually wasn't too bad as far as Mondays go. Probably because I don't actually work Monday to Friday so weekends aren't quite as big a deal in my life. Work went super fast, and J is making supper. Win.

My weekend was pretty fantastic too.

Saturday was one of those days I really loved my job. I think I've mentioned that I'm really not supposed to blog about work. (Social media policies and all that.) But, this is good stuff, so I'm going to share anyways. This weekend my store donated barbeque supplies for a charity barbeque and myself, the store manager, and our community room co-ordinator did the barbequing and serving. The weather was gorgeous (I got a little burn on my arms!) and the people were all fantastic. So much fun!

And then of course there was the concert Sunday night. Our seats were great and those five guys put on an amazing show. More about that tomorrow. :-)

Hope you had a great weekend, and that your week got off to a great start!

xo,
Sara

Weekend Update

I've been lucking in to a lot of Saturdays off lately, it's kind of nice! This weekend I was off Saturday and Sunday. We didn't do anything too exciting, but it was nice to spend a couple days with J.

Saturday we slept in, then headed to the mall to try and find a birthday present for my Dad. There's a store at Mic Mac Mall called RUA Sports Fanatic that sells all kinds of "fan gear." J loved seeing how much Avalanche gear they had. (His birthday isn't until June but I think I already know what I'll be getting him.) We picked up a Blackhawks t-shirt even though Dad already has tons of them. Nothing else really jumped out at me unfortunately. And everybody can always use t-shirts...

We spent some time roaming the mall trying to find jeans for J too. He hates shopping, and hates spending money on himself so it was a bit challenging. In the end we gave up. I think he's going to have to go out some time by himself.

Supper Saturday night was at my parents with my brother, his girlfriend and my uncle to celebrate Dad's birthday. Mom did a feast of ham and scalloped potatoes and attempted a berry flan for dessert. Now that it's just her and dad in the house Mom is getting adventurous with cooking and baking. Every time we go over she's trying something new. It's nice, but I wish she had done more of it when I was home. :-)

After supper J and I headed in to the city for a Moosehead's play-off hockey game. (The Mooseheads play in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.) Our seats were in the upper bowl but it was an AMAZING game. Super intense. We ended up winning 3-2 in overtime. Probably the best Mooseheads game I've ever seen. They're playing in Val D'Or, Quebec tonight and if they win they're off to the next round. Fingers crossed!

Hockey game selfie. Go Moose Go!

Sunday was the usual flurry of church, dinner with J's folks, and grocery shopping. I actually did up a meal plan for the whole week so hopefully that will help keep me on track with Weight Watchers.

Hope you had a great weekend!

xo,
Sara