2010

I have seen a lot of bloggers either do this or a resolution post. Seeing as I don't make resolutions (largely based on the fact the my record for keeping a resolution stands at about 3 days) and that New Years Eve is tomorrow (!), I thought it would be fun to take this route and show you some of my favourite 2010 memories.

January

Celebrating the Bestest's 25th at Blue Suede Sue's

C's mardi Gras themed work Christmas party

February
Celebrated my sister's 34th


March
Celebrated 8 years with the love of my life

Celebrated St. Patty's Day with some good friends

Threw V a bridal shower
Saw Carrie Underwood in concert

April
Saw K perform "Disco Frog" for the first time

Celebrated K bringing home a gold medal for "Disco Frog"

Easter at the cottage with the family

V's bachelorette at Blue Suede Sues

S & V's rehearsal dinner

May
Watched S & V get married

Saw Taylor Swift in concert

Started watching these two full time

June
Watched K graduate from Kindergarten

Celebrated my brothers 22nd

July

Celebrating Canada Day

5 days at the cottage with great friends

Watched S & J get married

August
Wonderland with my two favourite little girls

Attended a surprise 20th B-Day party for my brother's girlfriend

Ex with C's family to celebrate our birthdays

Celebrated all three of our birthdays with family

September
Celebrated my 25th and C's 27th with friends at West 50

Celebrated B turning 2

October

Thanksgiving with family

Celebrated J's 25th

Watched D & C get married

Halloween Haunt at Wonderland

Halloween with Family

November
Went to T's photography exhibit

Celebrated K's 6th Birthday

Celebrated S's 25th (photo from J's B-day as I forgot my camera)

Went on my first big trip with C, in which I saw my first two live football games

December
Tree hunting with the family
Brought Brady home

It's been a great year, filled with awesome memories with all of the people I love most. Here's hoping 2011 brings the same!

Christmas!

I hope all of you had an awesome Christmas!

We had a very busy but fun Christmas weekend filled 3 full days of visiting and socializing. Unfortunately because I was so busy I don't have any pictures.

Santa was also very good.

I got C this guy

which I know you already knew, but I can't help posting pictures of his adorable face. Here's one more for good measure


My wonderful fiance spoiled me again this year. I got

Blue Uggs which I saw for the first time in Buffalo because the cheerleaders were wearing them. I mentioned to C that I liked them and he started the ball rolling on getting them for me that night. Love them.

Red Hunter Wellies which I have wanted for a while now. I'm actually very excited for rain so that I can wear them.

I also got a Costco membership which is a practical gift based on the amount of money I spend a year getting pictures printed. I also figure we can now start buying our groceries there and start saving some money for that wedding that isn't getting any further away.

My favourite gift this year actually wasn't given to me or by me.

My immediate family does a secret Santa every year to save money. This year my brother got my sister and shortly after we drew names I heard that Backstreet boys were coming to Toronto with New Kids on the Block. My sister was a HUGE NKOTB fan and I'm not going to lie, I was obsesses with BSB. When I heard that they were coming I did some recon to find out who had my sisters name and asked them if they were willing to buy the ticket for her as her gift and I would buy my own. That's what we did, and let me tell you it was torture keeping it a secret for over a month. Three of my good friends from highschool are also going with us so I had to recruit them to not put it on facebook and help me keep it a secret. We were successful and when my sister finally got to open the ticket on boxing day she completely freaked out, as expected. I have her reaction on video but I'm not going to embarrass her by putting it on here. For those of you who have me on facebook, expect to see it shortly.

I also did some boxing day shopping and spoiled myself. The deals were not as good as they were on Black Friday in the states but I still managed to spend a fortune by picking up


I would say I was pretty successful!

How was Christmas for everyone else? I would love to hear what Santa brought!

Christmas Traditions

I just realized that we are less then a week away from Christmas and I haven't done a Christmas post yet. Life has been absolutely crazy between drama at work that I'm really not going to get into and getting Brady settled at home. I figured I would get my favourite Christmas traditions post out of the way before Christmas is over and it becomes irrelevant.

Probably my favourite part of Christmas is getting our tree. We have cut down a real Christmas tree for as long as I can remember and it really doesn't feel like the season has started until it is up, making my house smell like pine. C has always had a fake tree, so this caused a bit of tension at the beginning of our relationship but I think I have finally won.

We always go the first weekend in December out to a tree farm somewhere in the country, we typically get lost, then spend some time running around in the snow until we find a tree and the boys cut it down. We then go into the lodge for hot apple cider or hot chocolate and cookies. It's so much fun and my whole family is always there, which is awesome because with the bust schedules that we all keep it's not very often that you will find us all in the same place. Here are some of my favourite pictures from this years trip:

Ready to go!

Our little tree

Cutting it down

Then of course we have to decorate the tree. I love decorating. We have so many decorations the my brother, sister and I made when we were younger and it's so fun to take them all out and look at them. C and I decorate several trees a year, here are some pictures from this year.

The decorating team at my house - Brother, his girlfriend, C and I

C in front of his parents tree

Our little tree that stays in C's room. We buy an ornament each year (there are only two on the tree because I keep losing them) so this is where we put them (when I don't lose them....)

We also have a girls baking day every year. My mom, sister, mom's best friend and I always pick two recipes each year and get together sometime in December to make them. We then divide them up evenly so everyone gets a good selection of goodies to take home. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, the day is a bit busy to stop and take out my camera.

My final favourite tradition is something the bestest and I have been doing for a couple of years now. Instead of going out and agonizing over what to buy each other we pick a day and go out to the mall together. We get lunch, finish up some last minute shopping (that's normally me...this year I pretty much accomplished all of my shopping that day) and then we buy each other our gifts. The last few years we have been doing sweaters. We pay for each others and then swap them, this year we decided that we have enough sweaters so we bought each other season 1 of 90210. It's always fun, and good to hang out just us, something we really don't get to do often. It also makes the gift giving so easy. We guarantee that we get what we want, and we both spend the same amount. It's the perfect arrangement!

I'm a mommy!

Yes you did read that right.

Meet Brady

Brady is a 9 week old Rough Colllie/Sheppard mix and is technically C's early Christmas present but I'm in love after only one day. He is definitely going to be my baby

How can you not love that face???

This is a big step for us, it's the first thing we have bought together that we actually have to take care of. I told C it was like a test, if we can successfully care for a puppy then we can have a baby. I'm not sure he was too impressed with that comment.

Anyways, I know I still owe the Buffalo post but I wanted to introduce you to our baby, wish C a Merry Christmas and not so obviously inquire as to where my early Christmas present is?

Pennsylvania: Black Friday Shopping

I am WAY behind on my blogging. Exams, final assignments and work have pretty much screwed me over in this department. On the bright side, I wrote my final exam on Sunday (yes Sunday, my University hates us) and I am officially done!!!! I have a lot of potential blog posts floating around in my head, so I'm planning on posting several in the coming days, including one about some possible big news going on right now (but I'm sure you have all grown used to my laziness, so none of you will be holding your breath!)

I figured I would start with another trip recap.


We left Detroit Thursday night and headed to Pennsylvania in pouring rain that would not stop. It was a very long drive, longer than I think we anticipated, but I love Pennsylvania and I think this trip made me love it more, so it was worth it.

Pennsylvania is such a beautiful state, so the drive was at least pleasant. We got to our hotel (much easier than the whole Detroit fiasco) late so we stayed in to get ready for what I expected to be a crazy Friday.

We did not go and line up at stores a 4am, much to C's disappointment. Around 2 I got a little nudge asking if I wanted to go and I not so nicely told him if he wanted to stand in the rain then he could go ahead. I'm a fan of sleeping at 4, not shopping. So we got up and headed to our first store, Walmart, at about 10. I was expecting madness and was actually a little disappointed. Walmart in Pennsylvania on the biggest shopping day of the year was nothing compared to the Walmart by my house on some random Tuesday. Nevertheless I did get some good deals and picked up First Choice by Nicholas Sparks, Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and one other book (I really can't remember the title right now). I went to the cash to pay, again expecting to wait in some hour long line up and again was shocked to see that I could immediately go to cash and pay, no waiting.

We jumped back in the car and headed to Best Buy.

Here it was busy, but not crazy, and I did some damage. I got:



As well as another memory card for my camera and new headphones because my old ones were crap. We then headed to Grove City, which was the part of the trip I was most excited for. I have to admit I was slightly disappointed. I guess because Prime outlets is an outlet mall and therefore have good deals every day they didn't do the whole Black Friday thing. After dragging C around to store after store in the FREEZING cold I only walked away with one zip up hoodie from Aeropostal (which I love and pretty much wear all the time)

After a busy day shopping it was time for dinner and C was determined to go to Olive Garden. I have never been but have heard good things so off we went. I'm now officially addicted. It was SO good, but the portions we HUGE!

I ordered the stuffed cheese ravioli which comes with a starter salad. Well when they brought this salad out it was big enough to be my meal. I was only about halfway through when this came out

I am proud to say that I did finish it (not the salad, but the ravioli) but I was still very stuffed at breakfast the next morning.

Saturday morning we woke up to this

Yucky snow....

but the plan was to go to Millcreek mall, so that's what we did, as well as hitting Buybacks and Barnes and Noble. By the end of the day we had accumulated this

I would say we were fairly successful.

All in all Pennsylvania did not disappoint. I loved the state before this trip and I love it even more now.

As for black Friday, definitely not as bad as I was told or expected. I would do it again, and next time without the added stress of anticipation.

Next up football in Buffalo!

Disgusted

I know I owe you all trip recaps but after a particularly crappy week at work I felt the need to vent.

For those of you that know me, or have followed this blog for an extended period of time, you know how much I love this time of the season. I love the music, sound smells, and yes, even the busy shopping malls. Working at a retail position (which I won't name) as a cashier/customer service rep occasionally can put a damper on this mood, but it has never been as bad as the childishness that I witnessed this week.

Friday I witnessed two grown adults get into a full war in front of me over who happened to be first in line. They were the only two people in line, and the one who went second literally had to wait 10 seconds longer than the first. Even so, this caused a full melt down which resulted in name calling, yelling, screaming and me ending up bleeding from trying to rush one of them out of the store. Patience people, patience. It's very important during this time of the year. It's Christmas, we are all supposed to love one another.

This was bad enough, but really not enough to ruin my favourite time of the year. By the time today rolled around I was actually thinking back on it in an almost comic way. I mean, two adults (over 40 at least) throwing a tantrum that could give my 2 year old niece a run for her money...it's a little funny....
...And then today happened.

I have never been so disgusted in my life.

As I said, I work retail. This means that I work with a lot of teenagers, many of who are starting their very first jobs. I was working at customer service today, and one of the cashiers was one of these kids who is fairly new (only started a few weeks ago) and is 16 years old. She suffers from a medium to severe form of Acne, a problem that many teenagers struggle with. We all should be aware that having this problem in such a visible area, like the face, is hard enough to deal with without it being pointed out. Unfortunately another grown adult who apparently lives in my area has not learned this proper form of etiquette and found it necessary to point out this girls problem, on a busy Saturday, in front of a line full of customers, by giving her a card about acne and telling her that she should really have her face looked at.

All I can really say is who does that?? He intentionally embarrassed this kid and made her cry for no reason. I'm so mad.

I know people have bad days and problems at work or at home, but they really need to think before they act. A bad day is no reason to intentionally hurt someone, especially a young cashier who works a shit job, for shit pay. Even if this customer thought he was helping (which I highly doubt), all he managed to do was make an already self conscious teenage girl more upset and uncomfortable.

I'm sorry for such a downer post, especially during this time of the year but I am seriously disgusted.

On a more positive note we are going to cut down out tree tomorrow, hopefully this can help bring back my Christmas spirit!

I hope everyone else is having a better weekend!

Trip Recaps: Detroit

I'm Back!

We got back late Sunday night, and yesterday was spend recovering, sleeping and unpacking. Today it's back to real life.

We had a lot of fun, ate WAY too much and spent more money then I probably should have. I figure I will break up the posts into three, by state, to make them smaller and not give you posts with a million pictures. First up Detroit!

We left around 1:00 on Wednesday and began the 4 hour drive to Detroit. We took our time stopping to eat and pee often. I didn't drive at all (I'm not a fan of driving, C drives pretty much 98% of the time) but I found even being a passenger in Detroit impossible. The lights were confusing, the street signs were no existent and figuring out where to turn was not easy. So naturally, we got lost looking for out hotel. We passed it a bunch of times, which we figured out when C pulled into a gas station, cracked out the Iphone and looked up direction, noticing that the White Castle that we were currently staring at was directly across the street from the hotel. We finally got there and checked in about 7 and at this time I was tired and hungry and perfectly willing to order pizza and go to bed. C....not so much. He was determined to get to Pondarosa. So we broke out the computers, went to Google maps, wrote down directions and headed out again. And again got lost. Repeat the pulling over, looking at the iphone, searching landmarks and finally getting dinner about 8:00.

Needless to say once we ate (sooo good) and finally made our way back to the hotel all we wanted to do was sleep.

Thursday morning we were up early to eat breakfast, get showered and ready to get to the Detroit Lions game. I am proud to announce the we DID NOT get lost! (no need to mention the thousands of cars ahead of us going to the same place). This was my first football game ever, in Detroit, cheering for the opposite team (New England Patriots) and of course my loving fiance had to dress himself entirely in Patriots gear, so there was no way people would ignore us. The game was actually really fun and the Patriots won!. Ford field is beautiful with spacious, comfy seats and a roof! I'm not going to lie, I still don't totally understand the sport, but I'm trying and I think I'm doing much better.

We left right after the game with the intention of hitting The Melting Pot for dinner. It was closed (very sad) along with Burger King (not so sad). This is SO different from Canada. Here, on Thanksgiving, restaurants are open, especially fast food places, but you live and you learn. We managed to find a 24 hour Arby's and didn't starve so it was all good (and I experienced Diet Mountain Dew for the first time ever....I may have an addiction....). We ate, got back on the road and started a long journey to Pennsylvania.

And, of course, I will leave you with some pictures

Kid Rock's awesome half time performance - Born Free

The only picture I have of C and I from the whole trip

My New England fan

So that was Detroit. Up next, Black Friday shopping in Pennsylvania!