Thanksgiving Weekend 2016

It was a cold and snowy Thanksgiving this year, but honestly, I feel like it added an element of warmth and coziness that I enjoy when hanging out with family all weekend.

It started snowing on Friday and we debated waiting until Saturday morning to make the drive up to Red Deer, but at the last minute we loaded up the car and headed out late in the evening. I was already packed and ready to go, and there's something I like about waking up in the morning and already being where I'm supposed to be, rather than rushing to get somewhere the next day.

We spent the weekend at my sister-in-law's place and while we had originally planned to come home on Sunday, we ended up staying until late Monday afternoon. The holiday weekends we spend at Patty's are some of my favourites. We all just hang out in our PJ's, eat lots of delicious food, watch movies, play games and drink wine (ginger ale for me this weekend!). Sully adores being around his big cousins and the two dogs, and it was just really nice to have a weekend with no agenda, no driving, no running errands and no where else to be.

I didn't take very many pictures, and there's no need for a play by play of what we did(n't) do, but here's a few snapshots to capture the memories. I'm so very thankful for my family (those near and far), our health, good food, warm beds, nature walks, and our country.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian friends & family! I hope you were able to enjoy some time surrounded by the people you love.

Easter Long Weekend Recap

Happy (belated) Easter weekend, my friends! From the moment I got up on Friday, it was go-go-go all weekend long! Not that I'm complaining, it was a great weekend, but I haven't had a moment until now to sit down at my computer.

Let's back up to Good Friday, shall we?

Earlier in the week, Ange was somehow able to convince me and Laura to meet her at GoodLife Fitness for a double workout. This means I actually had to set my alarm on Friday morning since I needed to be up no later than 7:30 to make it to the gym on time. I actually was up and out the door before either Jim or Sully were up!

The gym was actually nice and quiet that morning, and first up was an RPM (spin) class! I haven't done spin in years, and even then, it was a class at a YMCA and it was not very good. It was tough, but I didn't end up hating it as much as I thought I was going to. We followed up spin with BodyPump and my goodness, I was a big sweaty mess by the end! And then we had fun goofing off in the empty classroom taking selfies like any true blogger would!

Ange had originally sold the idea of a double workout to us by making brunch reservations at Wurst for afterwards. I am not one to pass up an opportunity for brunch, and I love trying out new restaurants. I ended up ordering the Mountain Breakfast, although what I really wanted was the Weekend Omelette, but sadly, it had mushrooms in it this weekend and I can't eat mushrooms, nor could the restaurant omit them from my omelette. My breakfast was still really tasty, but I kind of wish I had tried the french toast! I guess I just need to go back! We ended up brunching (is this a word?) for two and a half hours before finally deciding we needed to get on with our days!

I ran a few errands on my way home, and spent the rest of the evening relaxing and reading before calling it an early night.

Saturday I was up early (without an alarm - who am I?!) and got to enjoy the quiet of the house in the morning to myself for over an hour! Once my boys were up, we had breakfast and then Jim got started on preparing turkey dinner. When Sully went down for his nap, I snuck out of the house for a couple hours to go to a friend's daughter's first birthday party, and by the time I got home, my sister-in-law and her three boys were at our house.

We spent the rest of the day and evening eating, playing card games, and drinking wine. Once the younger boys went to bed, Jim convinced me and his sister and our oldest nephew to watch a horror movie with him. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately since I scare so easily!), the movie we ended up watching was more cheesy than scary. I can't even recall the name of it it was that bad. Then we quickly hid chocolate eggs for the morning and finally crawled into bed around 2a.m., ouch!

Thankfully, Sully slept in until after 8, so the Easter egg hunt didn't start till almost 9a.m. Sully still has no idea what Easter is or who the Easter Bunny is, but I was pretty confident that he would pick up on finding eggs with his cousins. When he first started coming down the stairs and we were pointing out eggs, he got so excited and started yelling "ball! ball!" and then picked them up and threw them down the stairs, haha! Then we showed him there was chocolate inside and he wanted to eat every egg he came across. Thankfully, he quickly caught on to the thrill of finding the eggs and putting him in his bucket! I will admit, I let him eat way more chocolate than any two year old ever should, and miraculously he didn't get sick!

We spent the rest of the day eating leftover turkey dinner (the best!), playing more games and just hanging out with our family. Patty and our two oldest nephews headed back to Red Deer in the late afternoon, and we kept the youngest with us for a few extra days. Sully adores his cousins dearly, but it's extra special when he gets one on one time with them. Fresh air was in order and we headed out to the nearby playground and then ended up going for over an hour long walk around our neighbourhood. It was a beautiful day out yesterday!

Everyone was in bed early Sunday night, myself included! I love long weekends SO much, especially when we spend them with family and I wish so badly that we could slow down time once in a while.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!


Do you have any special Easter traditions?

Did you eat your weight in chocolate this weekend? (I did!)

*This post was written as part of the GoodLife Fitness Blogger Ambassador program, however all opinions expressed are my own.

Weekending: Happy Thanksgiving!

This is post is coming to you a bit late because this past weekend, we packed up the old car and headed North to spend the long weekend in Edmonton. I didn't have my computer with me and we didn't get back home until late last night (well, not too late to watch two episodes of The Walking Dead, because, priorities), so I'm getting this written up until Wednesday morning.

It was a last minute decision to head North; we really didn't want to do another road trip in my old car, but we worried that if we didn't get up to Edmonton this weekend, we wouldn't have another chance to until after Christmas. We also hadn't seen my dad since June, before he left for his annual trip to Europe, so a we were due for a visit!

Saturday, was spent hanging out at my dad's, grocery shopping for turkey dinner for Sunday, eating pizza and playing tile Rummy. Such a fun game!

Sunday, Jim was on turkey and stuffing duty. We started cooking our own turkey a few years ago, following the direction of his dad's. It's actually much easier to cook a turkey than one would think, and our method never fails to leave us with a deliciously moist bird! The stuffing is also a "family recipe" and my favourite part of the whole meal.

While Jim was busy in the kitchen, I snuck off to get in a quick visit with my good friend Lauren and her new baby girl. It was so great to catch up and get in some baby snuggles.

I got back to my dad's just in time to help with the final preparations for dinner before we all dug in. My dad's girlfriend, my uncle, and my brother also joined us for dinner! (FYI, my dad's house has got to be the hardest house to take photographs in - it's dark and the cherry hardwood floors give off crazy colours, hence the lack of photos this weekend).

Monday, the three of us visited my Grandpa and GG. They hadn't seen Sully in several months, so it's always fun to see how much he's changed. We ended up visiting for almost four hours…eating up all of GG's yummy homemade snacks and her amazing pumpkin pie, before taking Maggie out for a walk (Sully was in doggie heaven!).

After that, we popped over to my mom's place for a quick visit (she had been out at my Grandma's farm for the weekend), before heading back to my dad's place.

Tuesday, we took our time packing up, before heading back to Calgary, but not before I made sure to get some photos outside since it was another beautiful fall day out! We stopped for gas and a quick leg stretch in Red Deer at The Donut Mill. Every single time we drive through Red Deer, we always say that next time we will stop at The Donut Mill, yet we never do. They have some AMAZING donut flavours, like pumpkin pie, oreo cream, rolo, and the best Boston cream I've ever had, plus the classics. I was severely disappointed in the sprinkle donut though, which is my all time favourite donut. They also serve soups and sandwiches and some other warm food options. The coffee was good, and I'd definitely stop in for donuts again!

We rolled into our driveway around 8:30 p.m., got Sully into bed, then watched two episodes of The Walking Dead before calling it a night!

I'm having serious turkey dinner withdrawals right now and feel like I ate my weight in food this weekend! I guess the one benefit of not cooking Thanksgiving dinner in your own home is the lack of leftovers (although I would love me a turkey and stuffing sandwich right about now!).

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian family and friends! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend however you may have spent it.

Extra-Long Weekending: Homebody Edition

I'm going to be honest here. Sometimes, as a blogger, I feel the pressure to do fun and fabulous things ALL the time, things worthy of blogging about, worthy of taking and sharing pictures of. But the truth is, we spend a lot of time at home, including on the weekends, and we kind of like it that way. We're homebodies, what can I say? Of course, we try and get out to do new and fun things with Sully, but some weekends, we just don't. Sometimes I think we are just big time wasters, incapable of getting our act together and venturing outside of our home, but, we also really enjoy our home and the company of each other. It's also really nice to just have Jim home with us during the day. We like to putter, work on house projects, read, play, sleep. No agenda, no rushing around - just being.

This first weekend of August was a long weekend, but thanks to some flex days Jim had at work, he made it an extra-long weekend, having six days off in total. We didn't do a lot, and a few of the days we didn't leave the house. But, we did get out for a short walk in Fish Creek Park, had an afternoon at Heritage Park, cooled-off before dinner one night at the beach near our house, ate corn on the cob, played with new toys, and did a day trip to Discovery Wildlife Park to see the animals. It sounds like a lot when I type it out, but spread out over six days, it was the perfect mix of activity and having fun at home. Which is really just the way we like it. Call it a stay-cation if you will, "stay" being the operative word!

Hope you all had a great long weekend! Let me know what you got up to in the comments!