It's snowing, it's Christmas!

We got our first snowfall in London this morning! Even though it has started to melt, it still remains on the ground! With my Christmas tree in the window and the snow just behind, it surely is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

On the snowing topic, I found a pair of skis on sale on kijiji for $100! Hopefully I can call dibs on them before someone else, ski season is coming fast! And we have an awesome couples ski trip planned with a few couples to Blue Mountain in January!

And check out how many gifts we already have even BEFORE December!! So organized this year!! Look, even Piper loves it!

My first American Black Friday experience

On Thursday afternoon, Andzelika and I left for the States at around 4pm to head to Birch Run for some Black Friday deals. We left early in an effort to avoid the line ups at the border, assuming that most people would be going shopping after work. We got to the border around 5:30 and there was NO wait at all!! We got little hassle on the way over and headed straight to Birch Run to grab some supper.

Since it was about 6:30pm on Thursday of Thanksgiving for the US, EVERYTHING was closed in the area of the shopping outlets in Birch Run. We drove around a bit and asked the GPS for restaurant suggestions, but the only restaurant that we could see that was open was Bob Evans. Did you know that Bob Evans does not serve any alcohol? Unfortunately, we learned this during this supper outing. But to make up for them having no alcoholic beverages, they did have turkey supper (and I thought I was way beyond Thanksgiving!). So we got turkey with mashed potatoes, stuffing, and biscuits, plus a peanut butter chocolate brownie for supper, all for under $15! I always get stuck on the restaurant pricing in the States. We lingered in the restaurant for a bit before venturing out to the stores, which we could see from the window of the restaurant. Some of the stores opened as early as 7pm! We found a parking spot (which became more and more difficult as the night progressed) and began our shopping.

I cannot believe how many people are out shopping at this time! We went through several outlet stores, I bought all Christmas gifts (but not too much money.. about $100) and Andzelika bought things for the girls. Amazing prices! If it was just 20% off, we didn't even give the store a chance (clearly we want 50-75% off!!). At about 2:30am, we decided that we needed to pump more caffeine into our bodies since we were starting to feel it. They do have vendors set up in between stores that sell coffee at tables, but the coffees were a little smaller than what we were looking for (and we had one of those earlier in the evening). Starbucks was right across the road.

I found these napkins on the table where we sat. I thought this was really unusual because it was my perception that the people who were occupying starbucks that night were not the usual clientele as I observe during the day (the outlet shopping seemed to bring a diverse crowd). And particular orders aren't all that bad if they are meaningful (I drink soy because milk makes my stomach upset not because it's a fad). I wasn't too sure exactly why starbucks people were being stereotyped on napkin, and I have seen some of these characteristics in the past but I don't think that its a fitting stereotype because of the diverse crowd, students, and people who support fairtrade who choose starbucks.

 

 Our 2:30am beverages (lattes) and my cranberry bliss bar (an attempt for some additional sugar energy). We  tried to get ourselves motivated to get back into the groove of shopping, and ended up sitting for about an hour. Then we headed back to a couple more stores that we had missed in the outlet mall.

We finished up at Birch Run just past 3:30am, and it was time to head to Babies R Us for Andzelika's annual stock up of diapers and wipes that are crazy cheap on black Friday ($10 for diapers, $5 for wipes). We went to the Babies R Us in Flint, which is handy because there are some department stores in the area if we wanted to do more shopping!

We were super early for Babies R Us when we first got there at 4am, so I quickly popped into Wal Mart (but they didn't have what I was looking for because I'm sure they had a rush at midnight who cleaned them out of the sale items!). We got in line at Babeis R Us at 4:30am. It was frickin cold. Brrrrrrrr. Andzelika went over "the plan" with me a couple of times, which I didn't really understand the importance of until they opened the doors at 5am. The plan was for both of us to grab a cart and for me to head to diapers, and Andzelika would take wipes. At 5am when they opened the doors, everyone practically ran to the back of the store directly to the wipes and began to stack the boxes into their cart. I had to step over a lady who was taking about 10 boxes at once to get the mere 2 boxes that I managed to fight people off for. People are friggin crazy for their wipes. The people behind us in this line surely didn't get any boxes of wipes since they were gone within 30 secs. This is the madness that people get injured over!! All of a sudden for about 5 minutes I got an energy boost so that I could grab wipes. Andzelika bought a ton of diapers (probably 10 boxes) and 2 boxes of wipes... although the intention was for many more!

After our Babies R Us craziness, we headed to one last store: Kohls before heading home (where I got some really cute Christmas travel mugs for $3.50 each!). We were in Kohls at around 6am!! It was beginning to get a little tired so we decided that was going to be the last store. We grabbed some breakfast at McDonalds and coffees at 6:30am, then headed toward the boarder... straight for our beds!! The man passing the border on the way back was not very nice and made us give him our receipts, and challenged Andzelika that diapers were cheaper in Canada. But he did let us through with no duty (we only had about $150 combined anyways!), and one more thing.. NO wait on the way back either (literally, not even a car in front). And I got back home around 10am, and slept all day until 5!

Why the heck do we pollute our bodies so much???

So Tuesday evening, I attended an Arbonne party, not really knowing exactly what was in store for me, but knowing that there was going to be some education surrounding the importance of natural skin care products.

When I was going to MAC, I did some volunteer work with Environment Hamilton where I participated in "Supermarket tours" which was for a gr. 12 class at a school in Hamilton. We broke the class into 3 groups around Metro: 1) the canned food aisle 2) the produce and 3) health/beauty products aisle. We presented to the teens about pesticides, preservatives, the importance of buying local, consumerism etc. I personally did presentations on health & beauty products where I educated myself online about the toxins and chemicals that are in the beauty products that we use everyday and had the students look at labels and identify a more natural way to cleanse our bodies. My presentation to these 3 groups of students was the very short, less informed version of the presentation that I had last night at the Arbonne party.

 The lady who hosted the party is a Phd student studying science (biology), which helped with understanding more about the chemicals in beauty products and what they mean and do.

Upon arrival at the party, they were providing facials and hand scrubs. As they were applying the products, they explained the ingredients in the product - that they didn't sud very much because sodium 'laureth', which creates the bubbles is a carcinogenic and is not included in the arbonne products. Also, that there is no 'parfum', but rather the products natural fragrance is from the fruit, and as a result the scent is not plastic to your skin, but rather fades away gradually (naturally!). Also they mentioned the feeling of using this product versus products filled with chemicals that strip the moisture out of your skin to give you the feeling of "clean". These products leave your skin feeling moisturized, not tight.

I just want to list some facts from the presentation that may make you think the next time you go to use your products in your shower, when you get ready in the morning:

• In the UK, there are thousands of ingredients that are banned from beauty products because they haven't proven to be safe. In Canada, there are 12 products that have been banned from beauty products because they've been proven unsafe.
• In Canada, beauty product companies (i.e. Proctor & Gamble) are only required to place 2/3 of their total product ingredients on the labels, because they are able to "protect their recipe" so no one can replicate it.
• Mineral oil is often spoken about as a natural product good for skin, however it actually sits at the surface of the skin, blocking pores.
• The wave of using products to make "improvements" on ourselves came in the 1980s, this is when it became cool to use a wide array of chemicals in products to hide wrinkles, do 15 things with hair (frizzy hair, dry hair, coloured hair etc.). And since these extra chemicals have been introduced, we have also seen a new introduction of illnesses and diseases: Autism, ADHD, less males being born (note: Sarnia), increase in cancer among many others
• Fish scales are often used in make up for shine, beetle skins for lipstick, and biohazard products for filler.

Because these products by Arbonne are natural and don't have the fillers that other products have, they come at an added cost, so it is best to slowly introduce these products into your routine. They say that an average woman uses 10-15 products a day (shampoo, conditioner, body wash, facial cleanser, moisturizer, toothpaste, deodorant, mascara, eye liner, foundation and I have 10 daily... except those days I dont shower.. Ha!) , so it could take some time to replace these products. Due to my budget, I am starting with a hand & body wash (29), and a facial cleanser (20) and I'll see from there...

Natural products like these are also sold at health food stores, but the variety is difficult to come by. Arbonne has a collection with choices and the scents are really nice (I am getting a shea butter body wash that smells fabulous!), but the products are made in California so shipping is at an additional cost as well.

London Santa Clause Parade & the beginning of Christmas Season

Saturday was the Santa Clause parade! That marks the beginning of Christmas and a good time to put up the tree (and I have a good argument to say its not too early as many may argue!!). So Saturday morning I put up the tree!

I love my tree! My ornaments are almost all individually purchased from Pier 1, the Christmas Store in Stratford (a couple of my favs!), and Bowring (and Zellers and the Dollar store... you can get some nice ones there too!).

This made me very excited... I always wanted to have the tree that's at the front window of the house! And this year I have it! Extra reason to put the lights on at night to get everyone in the festive spirit (Christmas lights to go up on the house soon! ... Just have to take the Halloween decorations down first! Ha!)

Our original plan for the parade was to go with my 3 year old niece, but those plans fell through, and we ended up going with Paul and the 2 adorable Brown girls. We planned to meet downtown for 5:30pm, got coffees and ended up finding a spot on Dundas in front of the JLC (right at the end of the parade). Before the parade began, the security man told us that the parade wouldn't make its way down to where we were until about 6:30-6:45. We dreaded that one hour wait since it was chilly (frozen toes!) and the girls were struggling with being in one place for such a long time! At about 6:45, Aleksy and I decided to make it our mission to find a public washroom to use and we noticed that the parade was about 3 blocks down down where we were standing! Good news.... But then those police lights stayed in the same place for another hour!! Longest wait in the cold of my life!!!

The parade finally got to us about 8pm. I still loved it, but I did want it to go a little faster since it was late, cold, the poor little gals were beginning to fuss, and I had started preparing supper, which I wasn't going to want to eat at 9:30pm (which we didn't end up eating!).

 The gals: we first tried without the stroller but quickly learned that standing still for a long period of time is difficult for little ones so the stroller was necessary! Naalia's hiding in the back! Protected from the wind!

 Serena keeping herself occupied by taking my hat, putting it on, dropping it to the ground... repeat... But she looked adorable in the hat so I did my best to catch a photo!

 Aleksy, Serena & Paul waiting for the parade... and waiting... and waiting!!! 

Here's a couple pictures of the floats. Considering they were talking a lot about the cuts and lack of sponsors, I found the floats to be good. I did notice that they weren't handing out candy (which could be because by the time the parade got to us, they didn't have any) which was always the best part as a kid! The first of these floats is the grinch and the second a train (the express!). The Shriners did quite a lot for the parade this year, which was nice - love bugs, floats, among other things! I did notice that there were a couple of marching bands from outside of London (Burlington & Collingwood). Although it was a super long wait, I still did enjoy the floats, bands, men on stilts, animals, dancing girls, and baton swinging girls!

And Santa came!! He'll be back in under 6 weeks!! Yay Christmas!!

Our mis-adventures in Puppysitting

Last night we were quite excited that we got to puppysit Al & Stephs puppy, Moose for the night! He's been over a few times, so he is familiar with the house and likes to play with Piper. 

Let me tell you how this ^ happened :(

Last night we let him outside in the yard and him and Piper were playing around. It was a special evening because it was the first time we were going to use the hot tub that was installed. We got our margaritas, sat in the tub for about 5 minutes when Warren decided to get up and get some cigars (Note the pups were playing in the yard while we were indulging in the hot tub & beverages). Then Warren noticed that there were spots of blood on the deck. Warren made note of this and Chels remembered hearing one of the dogs let out a cry, thinking they had stepped on a rose bush (which tends to happen since there are a few in the backyard). We all went inside to check out Moose's paw, and we saw his poor little back nail was gone and it was bleeding quite a bit. To stop the bleeding Warren & Aleksy put a bandage on his paw. Because Moose was picking at the bandaging, we got out one of Pipers old cones so he couldn't pick at it to let it stop bleeding. And this was the result :( 

When Steph & Al came to pick him up, he had stopped bleeding, but Steph & Al said that it started again and they had to take him to the vet today for painkillers, bandaging (not the amateur kind like ours), and a cone of his own :(

Poor little Moose! We promise we'll be better puppy-sitters next time!!

50 Days Til Christmas!!!!

Got my Christmas shopping started!!! Let the festivities begin!!!

Santa Clause Parade next weekend...

Christmas tree to go up soon :)

Aleksy's Amazing 25th Halloween Birthday Party!

The Birthday festivities were at a peak this Saturday the 29th. It took quite a bit of preparation but the party was a HUGE success: the best time I have had in forever!!

The prep work started the day previous to the party. I took the day off work for the important tasks of grocery shopping for all the party foods, making jello shooters, making Aleksy's birthday cake, making my baguette creation with sundreid tomatoes, artichokes, pesto, spinach, and cream cheese (which I got the recipe from a coworker and it was delic!), and making mexi dip. Most of the prep was actually done on Friday to relieve stress on the day of the party!

Because it was done the day before, it made it difficult for surprises. So I blocked off the aprt of the fridge with the jello shooters, cupcakes, and cake so that there would be some surprises! When Aleksy got home on Friday night, he took this picture and texted it to me (and the "surprise party" I had originally planned was no longer).

I wanted to make something that would be low maintenance, so I wouldn't have to go into the oven in the evening hours, so I decided on pulled pork. I crockpotted it and it turned out really well (and it was first time!), it was actually really simple, and it went incredibly fast: best party food idea... who doesn't love pulled pork. But I get very distracted at parties and I didn't get one. And to go along with pulled pork, I made coleslaw and beans!

Once Aleksy learned that there officially was going to be a birthday bash, he decided that he wanted to make a game for the party (after I told him beer pong sounded like a crappy idea because I already know we would be dominated by Craig and Zac who play beer pong as often as they game). So Aleksy made the drinking version of the game Battleship. It took him a couple hours,but it looked really good! We used poker chips to mark the "misses" and when someone hit a spot on the battleship, the person had to take a shot of whatever was in the glass!

 The first few pictures of the night are good, because costumes are still in tact! It seems parts of costumes tend to fall off as the night progresses. Here is one of my personal favorites, and not just because Jon made a fantastic baby!!

 Our 'tool time' friends!! So basically, if anyone knows Al at all, he pretty much went as himself with a "tool time" label on his back, but Steph looked cute as Heidi from Home Improvement!

And some girly love!! Heidi, a nerd, and Robin hanging out in the kitchen (which is by fat the smallest room in the house but still that is where we decided to congregate: note to self, next time put food in living room so we'll have more space to hang out - everyone always surrounds the drinks and food!).

I love how by the end of the night, everyone LOVED each other so much, Steph and Sam (Heidi and nerd!) were the "same person", Nikki told me about 100 times that she "loved my friends!!" and everyone exchanged contact information!!

This is the confirmation picture that you can indeed fit 7 people (including the picture taker) into our kitchen!! This is an earlier on picture too (I think its 11pm). Note as the night progresses, pictures are a little less organized!! At this point, there's probably still food on the table. I was having way too much fun to be a good hostess and I didn't bring out any extra food other than the food I brought out when people first started arriving at 9pm (although I did prepare for new midnight snacks: just didn't get to it!!).

 The battleship game in progress!! It took a lot of attention span, so I only lasted for abut 15 minutes, but it seems that others picked up from where I left off!

 This is a "girls" photo, which is absolutely impossible to take when theres boys all around  they all want to be in the pic too! There's Jon (with possibly the best face EVER in a photo), Al, and a little Craig lurking in the shadows behind us all.

 This is later in the night when we were outside "getting some fresh air" on the front porch and our neighbours from 3 doors down decided to come to the front door to greet us (I was actually in the garage at the time). When I came up to the porch, they were singing. Then they somehow thought it was a good idea to come into the house (the other one had to use the washroom), and there was quite a lot of anger from the boys for them to leave (Aleksy pounding on the door, Craig showing them where the door is). But before they left, we got a picture with one of them!

 When I was on the front porch, I heard people in the garage so I went to explore. Someone apparently decided it was a great idea to smoke cigars in the garage (and it really stunk for a couple days!)... I guess perhaps because it was a little chilly outside. For some reason, no one went outside to the backyard: it was either in the garage or the front yard.

Yet another one of the kitchen pictures of the evening! There is pure happiness in this picture, which makes is a goody and Aleksy may be falling over. I also don't really know whose hand is holding the beverage, its just kind of sitting in the middle there.

 This is the cake that I made for Aleksy. I was given the idea by someone at work. It is a graveyard scene (note the tombstones), with the skeleton in the center breaking through the ground, the oreo cookie crumbs being the dirt, and there's another skeleton and other characters breaking out from the ground as well! The cake shape is also a pumpkin (a clever purchase from the good ol' dollar store!).

It was about 1:30am when Al and Steph called their cab, and I realized that we didn't bring out the birthday cake yet! So as they were waiting for the cab, I brought out the cake, and conveniently realized that there already were candles on it (served 2 purposes!) so we sang Happy Birthday to Aleksy and had some cake! I am quite impressed that I was able to coordinate this at this hour (must be because I lost all my beverages throughout the night and my full drinks were found all over the house the next day!).

After Al & Steph left, Sam & Zac left not long after and we decided that we wanted to "keep the party going" so Andzelika, Nikki, Craig and I decided to pull out the jagerbombs (minus the redbull) at 2:30am. Seemed like a great idea at the time, but the next day not so much! Good thing we absorbed it all with some breakfast the next morning at Angel's Diner... the best time to go out for breakfast!

This was a fantastic birthday party, with just the right amount of close friends, and hopefully we can have a re-do next year!

Just some memories from Saturdays party that have come up after the fact...

An amazing party always has afterthoughts of... did that happen? Here's some that have come up over the week:

- The 2 guys from 3 doors down came to the door, then one used the washroom... random!

- The dog went after the red rocket on the floor in the middle of like 8 women.

- Multiple shots were consumed when we realized it was 3am, no redbull, just jager...

- Highlights of life: children... and jobs...?

- Steph & Sam became "the same person!!!"

- rules of Battleship really didn't matter because we drank through the whole game anyways

- Exchange of information happened on the paper towel because all the girls became BFFs!

- a certain couple disappeared for a while.. then there was a white pile beside Aleksy's jeep.

This is all I could think of right now, but I know there were more!!! What an amazing time, which I will blog about with pics ASAP!!

Knights Game & The beginning of celebrations of the season: Mom's Halloween Party

Friday October 21st, we attended our first Knights game of the season. Aleksy got some tickets from one of the families where he tutors. They have season tickets and weren't able to attend that game. Score for us! We got 4 tickets, so we asked Al & Steph to come along. We arrived a little late after having a glass of wine at Al & Stephs, but of course, first thing upon arrival got us some beers!

I always found it curious that the cups that they give out for beer have straw holes in it. So I decided to try to be funny and ask for a straw, but the lady who was serving didn't seem to understand my humour, and gave us straws - so we went with it and drank our entire beer with a straw!

My favorite picture from the night! Whenever you want a picture of just the girls, Al becomes a wee bit jealous and pops into the picture!

During the last break, we went out on an adventure with Aleksy's money to purchase another beer (and use the ladies room, ha!) and we were hit up by some 10 year old boys to purchase 50/50 tickets. From the $20 Aleksy gave us (for allowance) and the bud light lime purchases, we had $3 left over, which we told the boys who then went over to their Dads and asked what we could do about this. We got $2 and a friendly "hello ladies" wave from the Daddys, and a full arms length of 50/50 tickets from the kids: such sweet talkers!!!

Overall, we probably watched a total of 10% of the game (max). I guess that's what happens a) when you drink beer from and straw and b) when you have 2 months of catching up to do! We'll have to go to another game and actually watch it! 

After our Knights game adventures, we went back to Al and Stephs and had some more wine and delicious nachos (and played with Moose - their adorably cute golden retriever puppy!).

The next day we had my Mom and Paul's annual Halloween Party!

 There were lots of snacks to choose from because it was a potluck and everyone brought a little something - I haven' had deviled eggs in SO long and I enjoyed every minute of consuming them! We brought some store bought desserts because I didn't get a chance to make anything: just bought cupcakes and brownies.

My Brandon was the guy from LMFAO (which I didn't know, which showed him just how cool I am at my ripe age of 25), and I youtubed it and he absolutely looked the part! But of course, I did know the song "everyday I'm shuffling!"

 Batman & Robin!!!

 Robin and the most adorable mermaid ever!! Love my niece!!

My Mom and I. She was a 1920s gal and looked all glammed up!

This was Halloween party #1, Halloween party #2 was this past weekend: Oct 29th for Aleksys birthday! Blog to come!! I got to wear my costume 3 whole times this Halloween: 2 parties and for trick or treaters on Halloween day!