Upcoming Travel Adventures!

There are a couple of upcoming trips that Aleksy and I are looking forward to! Our first vacation is June 29th of this year and the next is in February 2013. Only 2 months!!! until our first vacation to:

Dominican Republic:

We are officially booked in for the Colonial Majestic in Punta Cana for the week of June 29 - July 6!! It is your standard all inclusive resort, but its a bit fancier than the others we have gone to - the pictures make it look beautiful. It is a common wedding resort and we are going for my friend Jenny's wedding! I met Jenny in my social work program at Mac so there will be a few friends there including My Nikki and her man Jon!! So excited for a vacation with friends! On the to do list for Punta Cana: ziplining for sure!!

After our adventures in Punta Cana (then that little things about saving for and getting a mortgage) we will start saving for Chile!

Chile:

On my Birthday, I got an amazing gift from our friend Alejandra who is going to school at UWO and is from Chile. She got my a travel book for Chile and asked for Aleksy and I to come to Chile for their wedding in February 2013, then go for a 3 week backpacking adventure around the Andes mountains!! Obviously I said a big fat YES and Aleksy and I are super excited to go backpacking in South Chile with Alejandra, her to-be husband and Warren and Chelsea! We fly into Santiago Chile, will be aorund Conception for the wedding then will rent a car and go South. Alejandra's fiance knows the mountains well and will be our unofficial tour guide.

TO DO: Brush up on some basic Spanish!!

My (broken) 26th Birthday!

This year, my Birthday was made out to be a whole 3 days since April the 2 is a Monday and we celebrated on the weekend. Aleksy arranged for a surprise celebration for the evening on March 31, starting with supper for 6:30pm.

It is tricky when you live with someone to hide things like having a party back at our place. Aleksy spent most of Saturday out shopping then this was set up before we left for supper. I figured it probably would be a good guess that we were having people over after supper...

This picture actually doesn't do justice for how nice this looked - pink napkins and plates because I love pink, 3 pretty (and fragrant) Easter flowers, and a tray to ice the wine.

Aleksy did end up spilling the beans as to where we were going to supper before we left. I'm not going to lie, it may have had a little to do with me being a crazy person and telling Aleksy I didn't want to go anywhere too fancy because I don't feel pretty with my MASSIVE cast and crutches. We ended up heading to La Casa at 6:30pm, where I walked by the window and SURPRISE, there's my friends at the table! It was so great for so many people to be able to make it (and for Aleksy to arrange it!)... I have pretty great friends & boyfriend!

Our meals were very tasty too (which they better have been for the price we paid!). Aleksy had duck, which I had a bite of and surprisingly was a red meat, which I figured it would be more like chicken. I had a seafood risotto, which was good, but not as good as Aleksy's duck and garlic mashed (although mine was 20 and his was 30). What I should have got: the spinach pasta that Sam & Steph got... I had a bite and it was delic! The people at the restaurant were super nice to my birthday party and brought me a piece of cake and everyone sang happy birthday! They also offered me a free shot of vodka to "take my mind off" my foot (because I had to put elevate it).

After supper, we headed back to our place for an after celebration and mostly everyone was able to make it out (except the Browns because they had to go on vacation..pfff). We played a homemade version of the game of  things, which was a lot of fun and then had MORE birthday cake!! (There has been lots of cake eating in the past couple weeks!). I was very happy that everyone stayed in the living room since my mobility was limited.

Happy 26 to me!

Hillbilly for a Night

Since we bought tickets to the Bull Riding on March 24th, we decided to make a Country evening out of it. More so, we ended up having a Country weekend out of it! On Friday night, Aleksy and Al went to some hillbilly hockey out in Strathroy, then after hockey we headed down to Cowboys to celebrate Aleksy's brother Andrew's 21st birthday! The next day we headed over to Al and Stephs for supper before going to see some bull riding! Before leaving, Aleksy made up a new country CD for out evening endeavors!

Al & Steph made up an appropriate supper for the occasion complete with fried beans, breaded chicken, corn bread, homemade wine, and of course plaid place mats! Some yummy Southern food to get us in the spirit!

After some supper and drinks, we called a cab to head to the JLC for some PBR!

On our way into the PBR, there were people picketing outside of the event because of the cruel treatment of animals. I didn't actually know that they use tasers to make the bulls angry before letting them into the ring. It made me feel bad throughout the entertainment for the bulls. This is us pre-event - with the trucks and dirt in the background!

At the start of the show they put gas down on the ring spelling out PBR - it was pretty sweet! And they introduced all the cowboys - from several different places - All over the states, Alberta, Manitoba, Australia.

The bull riding itself lasted not long at all. The goal was to see if the professional bull riders could stay on the bull for 8 seconds. Most couldn't, but some of the bulls appeared stronger than others. I could definitely see that it would be very easy to be injured during this process!

Cowboy boots, plaid and beer!!