Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Food & Wine Show January 14, 2012!

On January 14th, my sister Mom and I went to the Food & Wine show at the Western Fair. This was my second time going, my Mom's third and my sisters first time! We plan on making it an annual event. We went a bit earlier than usual at 2pm since Steph had to get home a bit earlier, which actually worked well because the crowd didn't show up until about 4/5pm. And this is a super popular event so the crowd gets large! It was $12 each for admission then we bought about $30 worth of drink/food tickets. About a $50 night for some delicious food and LOTS of wine!!


When you first enter the building, this is the table of glasses where you pick up your wine glass for the day. You keep the glass as a souvenir as well afterward. You use the same glass throughout the day and the wine booths will rinse your glass in between wines or there are little glass washing stations throughout the building.

This year, I was really pleased with the wines we tried out. Usually a sample of wine is about 1-3 tickets (1-3 dollars), and for the more expensive ones (such as the Vintages) you pay 4-6 tickets. We stuck with the 1-2 ticket wines and were able to try a lot of local wineries such as the one on Dundas St. past the Trails End market - they had some nice fruity wines.

My sister, Mom and I after receiving our leis from  the "party section" of the food & wine show. Last year, the theme was Mardi Gras and they were giving out beads and this year, it seemed to be a beach-style theme, giving out floral leis and the employees were dressed in Hawaiian shirts. This is the only section of the show that played loud, fun music.

There are a lot of demonstrations that you can watch or participate in throughout the day, but the only one that we saw was a cheese-wine pairing and there was a long wait for it, so we didn't get to participate. There was a cooking demonstration on the main stage that we caught some of.


Our favourite booth!! They have this booth every year and last year, My Mom and I went back several times, and same as this year! We got about 3 of these delicious shots: little chocolate coated ice cream cones filled with Panama Jacks (which is like Baileys but with a wine base) - Butter Rum flavour! topped with whipped cream and sprinkles! Delic!

The Indian food was soooo delicious. For 6 tickets you get a plate of assorted Indian food. We absolutely had to get it because you could smell it from a distance. The chicken that I had was really spicy but everything was super good. I had never tried Indian from the Raja before because Aleksy and I tend to stick with Taste of India on York St which we love, but I know now that the Raja is also worth a shot next time we get take-out.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

What 2012 Has to Bring!!

2012: Another fantastic year to remember! This year I hope to accomplish:
- Keeping up with working out at the athletic club. Trying more and different classes out. Don't be deterred by the unknown!
- Having more family and friend time: inviting others over for supper, going out to dinner with friends etc.
- Buying a HOUSE!!
- Read more books.
- Taking the extra time to do the small things that are feel-good: painting my nails, curling my hair, dressing up, not staying in pjs etc.
- Be more productive with my after-work evening time.
- Eat home cooked meals with fresh rather than boxed ingredients. Eat out minimally as a treat.

Happy 2012!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Happy New Year!! 2012 is to be a GREAT one!

Happy New Year!

This New Years Eve, we had a few friends over for some beverages, Chinese food, and to exchange Christmas gifts. A New Years Christmas of sorts. Steph & Al, Andzelika & Paul all made it out for New Years Eve. We ordered some food from a place just down the street and it took a really long time for it to be ready. We called around 7 and pick up was for 9:15pm, then they made us wait an additional 45 minutes! Lesson learned: No more ordering food on New Years!!



While we were waiting for Aleksy and Paul to pick up the Chinese food, we got in a couple of rounds of 'You Dont Say', a favorite of ours which is a spin off catch phrase... so much fun! Once the guys came back it was time for presents! I was very excited to give everyone their themed baskets: the hillbilly basket, date night basket, and relaxation basket!

We also had 3 doggies to celebrate New Years with us: Piper, Moose and Bianca!!


The girls got their presents from us on New Years too, which I bought from the online store in Milton: Here is Natalia in her tutu and headband... Adorable!!


We caught the countdown online (about the last 10 seconds anyways) then we popped a couple of bottles of champagne and cheers to 2012!!


After midnight, we put our bathing suits on and went for some hottubbin!! We also had a fire going and Warren and Aleksy sat out of the hot tub (which didn't quite support 8 people!) and kept the fire going! Going in to the hot tub wipes you out really quick so afterward we called it a night about 2am so that we could get a good nights sleep since we were heading to Blue Mountain the next morning!








On New Years Day we headed to Blue in the morning and hoped for snow the entire way up. We somehow thought that if we travelled 3 hours North that the weather would be completely different and we would travel into a snow storm. But it was still raining in Collingwood. We arrived around lunch time and decided to start with lunch before we bought our tickets in case the weather was not tolerable for skiing. The restaurant that we went to in the village was super expensive! It was over $20 for a pitcher of beer and $11 for french onion soup. Crazy!

Because of the rain, they were providing these ponchos for skiers to protect us from the rain! Very classy looking. I only wore it for a short amount of time because I didn't find them very useful..

We started skiing after lunch - tickets were pretty steep at $133 for the two of us. Once we started, we forgot that the weather wasn't the greatest. Actually I didn't complain about the weather until it was dark and it became really cold on the ski lift at the top! It ended up being a really fun day with some good skiing and good conversations with the girls when breaking and having half coffee, half french vanilla beverages!

I'm going to make an effort to go out more this year now that I have all my own gear :) We are going back up to Blue on the 20th weekend with our couples trip! Excited!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Belated Christmas Festivities

After Brooklyn and I had seen each other twice the week before Christmas, I remembered that I had purchased a gingerbread house a while back from the Bulk Barn so that we could do it together. So, we made some post-Christmas plans to make a gingerbread house. It ended up working out very well because all the Christmas candy was on sale at the bulk barn, which we bought in the morning.


We quickly learned that I may have put a little too much water in the icing mix because the icing took forever to dry, which made it take forever to put these pieces together. This process took about 2 hours! We had to ice one piece at a time then put it in the fridge to speed up the icing hardening, supporting the cookie by objects in the fridge. But eventually it did work out! Time to put candy on... the fun part!

We filled every spot of the roof with candy! Since we got so much candy for a good bargain, we had lots to use! Since it was after Christmas, we also added some candy that wasn't so Christmas-y. We put on a gigantic rattlesnake (we're very original), and some little gummy bears ("cubs") along with the Christmas goodies. Most of them seemed to stick pretty well!

Delicious! So much candy!

Our final finished product: tons of candy and I really wanted to make trees... I made about 3 of them with mint hard candies and rockets. We also made a fence out of candy canes. Best gingerbread house ever!

Christmas Festivities of 2011!

Christmas festivities started early this year. Brooklyn and I started off the holidays with volunteering at a kiosk in Masonville where we gift wrapped Christmas presents with the proceeds going to Big Brothers Big Sisters. It was the second time that we had volunteered this year, the first time being at the beginning of shopping season (Dec 2) which wasn't nearly as busy! It is great for Brooklyn because she gets the volunteer experience and she has started working on her volunteer hours for high school.

We were very proud of this difficult to wrap present. We managed to wrap a 6 pack of beer in a bucket and still make it look great: this is proof!
Brooklyn and I at the gift wrapping kiosk at Masonville.
The very next day, Brooklyn and I got together again to do a gift exchange and so I could attend her "Winter Wonderland" presentation where she plays in the band and sings in the choir! This year Brooklyn's really into reading so I made her a book-themed gift with a couple books, some snacks, a gift card to Chapters and a plum reward card.

 This year I wanted to do thoughtful gifts for the people in my life and stick to a budget. So back in November I decided to do themed gift baskets with a $20 limit for everyone. We chose themes based on everyone's interests and over 2 months collected various things that went along with the theme (even free things here and there that were relatable like 3D glasses for the movie themed basket and travel magazines for the travel theme). We did a travel theme for my Dad and is girlfriend, movie theme for Steph & Kenny (my sister and bro in law), poker for my bro Mike, student for my bro Matt, Sailboating for my Mom and Paul, a couple "relaxation" themed basket, date night basket and my personal favorite for Al & Steph: Hillbilly Deluxe for our country music loving hillbilly friends! This included a John Deer catalogue, deer hunting card game, beer, beef jerky, pepperettes, a burned CD with Country music, homemade BBQ sauce and homemade corn bread!

 My tins of annual Christmas baking for everyone :) This years contents included: peanut butter balls, chocolate peanut butter bars, ginger snaps, almond cookies, magic squares, pecan cookie squares, haystacks, sugar cookies, and brownies.

 Our first day of family Christmases was Christmas Eve. We went to Aleksy's parents during the day and saw his Dad's side of the family and did some gift exchanging. Then afterward we headed to my Moms for the evening for Christmas turkey dinner. I got this shot of everyone at the table just after supper!

 Just before starting to open the presents... Rachel a nice wanted a nice close spot to the presents!  
 This year I bought tutu's for all the little girls in my life from lil chelsea bun hair accessories: an independent business run my a Mom in Milton (referred to by a friend at school!). I also bought headbands with flowers for an extra feminine touch! To go with Rachel's new accessories, I signed her up for ballet (or "preschooler dance") starting in January! She is going to be the cutest little ballerina ever!

Aleksy and my gift basket from  my Mom and Paul. Some delicious wine: a VQA Cave Springs white and red (the red we already enjoyed!)

 My sister and I always seem to dress the same. Especially on Christmas! Christmas day we had different colours on!

Christmas Day
On Christmas day we had 2 dinners to attend. We started at Aleksy's parents in the afternoon with Aleksy's Mom's side of the family then headed over to my sisters at 5pm. 2 turkey suppers in one day!
 Rachel thought it was funny to put on safety goggles with the Christmas hat! Shes so cute.
 Aleksy and I on Christmas day :)
 On Christmas day, my younger brother Matt was sick and couldn't make it for supper. But he bought a bottle of wine for supper, which was an Italian bottle that cost more than what we usually pay for a bottle of wine (we usually top out at $10!). To show our appreciation we took this picture! It was delicious pinot grigio!