When Your Sister Visits

You do all the fun things and wish for time to stand still.

But, no matter how hard I wished, in the blink of an eye, my sister's week-long visit is over. We dropped her at the airport last night, while trying our hardest to hold back the tears. Well, I tried my hardest. I can't speak for Sully, who was in full-blown hysterics when he saw me get out of the car to hug and say goodbye to my sister. Silly toddlers. He won't fully understand that Aunty Vanessa is gone until we come downstairs in the morning and he wants to go look for her in the basement. That first day after company leaves is always the hardest; there's no one in the basement, despite your toddler insisting so. Saying good-bye to a loved one after a visit is so hard, but it's a frequent reality when you have family spread out across the country. Although, I'm making it my mission in life to get my sister to move to Calgary once she graduates from University!

Anyway, this past week with my sister was full of all sorts of fun and adventure. It was so great to have her here to spend our days with us - she's always up for anything, but is just as happy to spend the day at home with us. While the visit felt too short (like it always does), we managed to fit a lot of things in. We went to the beach, had a splash-pad afternoon in the backyard, went to the zoo, saw Pitch Perfect 2 (so good!) and Trainwreck (so funny!!) in the theatre, ran a Spartan Sprint, had a girls night out at Taste of Calgary, went to the local pub, and had lunch and ice-cream in Bragg Creek (and not necessarily in that order!).

I've mentioned it before, but my sister is my best friend and it melts my heart to watch her bond and spend time with Sully. He is just in awe of her and I can't wait to watch their friendship continue to grow as he gets older.

While I hate missing my sister so much when she's not here, I'm also incredibly grateful that I have a sister whom I'm so close with and miss in the first place. And I'm also grateful for photos so that I can always look back on our visits!

We miss you already, Aunty Nessa! Thanks for spending the week with us and come back to visit soon! xo

Thinking Out Loud {1} - Southpaw, Sisters and Instagram Contests

I've been reading these posts on other blogs for months now, and since they are one of my favourite posts to read, I thought I would finally join in the fun. That, and, I find I have a ton of things I want to talk about, but they don't really warrant their own blog post all the time.

1. I was hoping to have my 21 Day Fix recap up this week, but my sister arrived on Tuesday, and well, blogging naturally takes a backseat when we have guests. I'm not one to write posts too far in advance (should probably work on that), so unfortunately, the blog gets neglected when I have someone staying over.

2. Speaking of sisters - mine flew in from Vancouver on Tuesday to spend a week with us! My sister is my best friend and it kills me that she lives so far away. I would do anything to have her in the same city. Everything is more fun with her - working out, binge watching our favourite TV shows on Netflix, going to girly movies, talking about everything and anything - you name it, I probably enjoy doing it with my sister. I'm already dreading the day she leaves next week.

{post-workout sister selfie}

3. Last night Jim and I snuck out to catch a movie and a bite to eat at Earl's (yay for gift cards!), thanks to my sister offering to babysit. We were planning on seeing Vacation, but when we got there, we realized Southpaw was starting in 15 minutes, so we decided to see that instead. I went into the movie totally blind. All I knew was that it was a boxing movie and which actors is starred. I wasn't expecting the emotional impact this movie had on me. I literally started tearing up somewhere in the first 10-20 minutes, and I didn't stop crying until well after the movie was over. I had to wait for loud moments of the movie just so I could blow my nose. Pretty sure the guy sitting next to me thought I was crazy. My eyes still feel red and swollen today. The movie was tragically amazing and I can't stop thinking of it. I'm not sure anyone else in the theatre had quite the reaction I did, but this is a movie you must see! (Also, if you haven't seen a trailer for it, I MUST insist you go into the film blind like I did. I watched the trailer after the movie and I can't believe how much they give away!).

4. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I had no idea, until after the movie last night, that southpaw means someone (generally a boxer or a baseball pitcher) who is left-handed. My husband was like "what did you think it meant?!". My answer: "I dunno, the nickname for the "hood" he grew up in?".

5. What is it about guests that makes you want to eat all the bad food?! My will-power goes right out the window. And my sister is a pretty healthy eater so it's not even like she's a bad influence. Luckily, I haven't given in to all my temptations, but I am allowing myself to have more treats than usual during her visit. I'm still human after all.

6. I've been pretty lucky on Instagram when it comes to winning contests. I've won quite a few and I've kind of lost track. But yesterday, I won a pretty awesome prize: $150 to spend at Well.ca. But the best thing about it is, the person I tagged in my entry also won $150 to spend on their website and that person happens to be my sister! We're already a little overwhelmed with what to order, but it's fun browsing all their categories.

Have you seen Southpaw yet? 

What's the last movie that made you cry?

Have you won a contest on Instagram before? 

What's the best thing you've ever won?

Bloggers - do you blog when you have company, 

or schedule posts in advance?

Weekending: New Hair, CD Players & Dandelion Picking

Any regular length weekend immediately after Jim's had a long weekend always feels way too short. What can I say, we like having him home with us! We laid low this weekend - Sully's been extra fussy the past few days, and I think we only have teething to blame for it - and we had a bunch of things we wanted to accomplish around the house.

On Friday, I took Sully to drop-in story time at the library for the first time. I wasn't sure if it would be a hit or miss since his attention span for sitting for 30 minutes isn't really great yet, but surprisingly he loved it! He was so into it, pointing and exclaiming at everything the librarian was reading. He also quietly entertained himself for a bit during one story by stacking a huge pile of those cushions he's sitting on in the picture below, on my lap, ha-ha! This kid LOVES to move things from one pile to another.

Friday evening, we picked Jim up from the train station and ran to a few electronic stores. Our home had been pre-wired in the family room/kitchen area for speakers and this past week, Jim installed the speakers into the ceiling. But of course, we didn't have anything to hook up to the speakers to play actual music through, so we needed to buy something for this. Doesn't sound so complicated, right? Wrong. We still love to listen to CDs (along with my iPod), but CD players are almost non-existent now! Yup, we felt old asking young guys working at the electronics store for a CD-capable playing system (that wasn't a big ugly boom box). (Come on! We can't be the only people who still listen to CDs?) Luckily, not all hope was lost, and we scored a really good quality, (and small!), Yamaha system that plays CDs, as well as your iPod.

On Saturday, I had a much needed hair appointment! It had been over three months since I last had my hair done, and while I originally planned to continue to travel back to Edmonton to keep seeing my hair stylist there, once it came down to it, a 6 hour round trip just to get my hair done just wasn't going to happen. Luckily, my blogging friend, Ashley, also happens to be this amazing stylist and took me on as a client. She spent a lot of time discussing with me what I wanted and I couldn't be happier with the results! It's completely different than what I had and exactly what I wanted. (If you don't know what I looked like before, or can't remember, you can see a recent picture in this post). Hard to believe it's been just over a year since I cut off all my hair! Also, these photos don't really do the colour justice, but it gives you a pretty good idea.

 

The rest of the day was spent playing with Sully, going for walks, where we tried to teach him how to blow dandelions (that didn't turn out so well!), and playing at the park.

Sunday, Sully's teeth were bothering him again and he was a bit of a meltdown mess. After he woke up from his too-short afternoon nap, we packed up the bikes for a short bike ride around the Glenmore Reservoir. We didn't last long before the heat became too much so we turned around and went to the splash park there. Of course, as luck would have it, the splash park wasn't spraying any water (turns out the park staff chose that time to clean out the pipe system), so after a quick swing, we headed back home.

We let Sully eat supper outside on the deck, in his diaper, where he practiced eating food with a real fork (his favourite!). And yes, he would take the food, place it down and then stab it with the fork. Silly kid. After that, it was bath then bed, Jim headed out for a motorcycle ride while I got to enjoy the quiet house to myself!

Hope you all had a great weekend! How are you surviving the heat?!