Double Digits!!

So, I just happened to open my pregnancy app on my phone today (I have 2! Im expecting and What to Expect), and saw that as of today I am expecting baby in 99 days! We're already down to the double digits!! Tomorrow I am in week 26 and after this weekend I will start trimester 3. Only 3 months til baby!

Tomorrow is Canada day and Aleksy and I are taking the day to paint baby's room (gray and navy!). We bouggt his furniture and some other things on the weekend so hopefully his room will be all set up in no time! 

States Roadtrip: Boston, Massachusetts!

After our adventures in Rhode Island with Aleksy's aunts wedding, family time, and a bit of exploring Providence and area, we headed to Boston on Sunday morning (June 7th) for 2 nights just the 2 of us. I had booked our hotel in Boston about a month in advance. I was looking up hotels in Boston and fond most were super expensive around $300 per night and the weekend we were going, there were lots of bookings. Luckily, I found a simply, definitely not fancy hotel just outside of Boston (in Malden) that we stayed at for 2 nights for around $250... breakfast included (we always need our breakfast included!).

It took about an hour and a half to get from where we were staying in Providence to Boston. When we reached Boston, the first thing we noticed was that driving was friggin crazy! There were lots of tunnels like this one, and "roundabouts" where not everyone goes the same direction... I did not drive in Boston.

After locating our hotel and dropping our belongings off in our room, we headed back into central Boston! We parked pretty close to the north end/harbour front. There was a little incident with parking the car where we tried to ask questions to the man in the parking garage and his instruction was unclear. After we parked in an area we shouldn't have, he requested to take the keys and valet park it. I was a bit (a lot) worried... about my car and about the cost!
After some serious consideration about moving the car, we eventually left it and we ventured into the heart. We first came across the harbourwalk. It was a pretty brief walk along the water, but it was nice to look from the water at the tall buildings toward Boston central.

We found some good buskering!! As we ventured further in, we noticed this massive crowd around a bunch of guys who were dancing. Then they pulled some people from the crowd including "tall white boy", gathered donations from the crowd and one guy jumped over 5 people (including "tall white boy"!).
Aleksy caught him mid-air. Photographer extraordinaire.

We took a mid day break from exploring for some dunkin donuts! If you read my Rhode Island post, you'll know that I needed to get me a Coolatta, and here's me having a Boston Cream.... in Boston!

So many stops at Dunkin Donuts on this trip! They were so readily available...

And we made it in to the Boston Common! This was our first of many stops to the Boston Common: a massive park right in central Boston. It was my opportunity to have a sitting break because at 23 weeks pregnant, all that walking makes my back need a break...

While we were in Boston Common, we decided that we would take the next day to complete the freedom trail... a walk through Boston viewing historical buildings while learning about the history of the City and its relationship to independence. We bought a booklet from the tourist centre to inform ourselves of the history on each site of the freedom trail for the next day...

Right across from the Boston Common is the original Cheers bar from the 80s show. I don't really remember the show but we needed to hit up the bar because its one of the main touristy attractions! Aleksy did get to drink out of this fun beer mug... having the local selection of Samuel Adams. And I felt included also because Cheers had their own special brew of root beer in its own special brown bottle that made me feel like I was drinking... without the harmful effects on baby!

The food itself in the bar was not fabulous... we had a couple of burgers with salads and it was very basic. We also had the clam chowder... it was a bit pricey. We found it to be more of a come for a drink kinda place.

And after supper, we did a little more exploring of the shops in Boston from Bunker hill and to the North end. When exploring bunker hill, we found a children's store and bought some books for baby! The streets and buildings were pretty cool along that walk... lots of hills and buildings that were very old.

We stopped at Mike's Pastry shop in the north end just before heading back to the hotel for the evening. This is one busy pastry shop.. you can see the people packed in behind me. It was so busy that you couldn't fully see all the pastries and goodies that they had because of the swarms of people inside. We did get some amazing canolis, cookies, and boston cream cake!

Our goodies from day 1 exploring Boston: our books that we bought for baby, our pastries, and our freedom trail guide and Boston map for day 2 in Boston.

We were actually back at the hotel at a very decent hour (before 8pm). It was Sunday night, so al the stores that sold alcohol were closed so Aleksy had a dry night with me... just iced tea and lemonade (my new go-to pregnancy drink!). With all our extra down time, we even had time to watch a movie: the blindside.

Day 2 exploring Boston: we parked in a different parking lot closer to the Boston Common (which was more expensive at $33!) and started our day finding the bench from the movie Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams sat. Google helped us to locate which bench it was... but there were people sitting on it. All that searching to find it and we took this picture
<------ that's actually the bench beside it (its kinda the same thing...)

This was in the park beside Boston Common where they have swan boats!

And we started the Freedom trail from the Boston Common! We started around 11am and it took us about 5 hours! The man at the tourist building estimated 2 and a half hours so I guess we were pretty slow and thorough...

It was really easy to follow with a brick path that leads the way (you can see the rd bricks in the picture).

The freedom trail was a trail with numerous stops to see buildings, churches, cemeteries, monuments etc. and with the brochure we bought we informed ourselves of the history of the various sites. The history was all about local events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Some of the stops along the way were cooler than others... there were 2 churches that we visited that were designed like this one in the picture. Instead of rows of pews, there was actually little booths where you have your own private sitting for church! They were divided up into a bunch of little booths... probably not the best way to fit lots of people...

I took a little pregnant sit break in a booth and read up on the church in our guide!

One of the last couple stops on the freedom trail was this: the bunker hill monument. It was located right near the water and on elevated land. The monument was built to remember a battle that took place on the land. It was definitely one of the cooler looking sites that we visited!

While it was nice to tour around the city centre of Boston (and the freedom tail is a great way to see the whole city centre and lots of touristy sites), it was also not quite as happening of a place from our last vacation adventures on the UK. We were really glad to have visited the city, but found that 2 nights was more than adequate to see Boston!

This was our very last stop on the freedom trail before heading back to where all the restaurants and shops are (At this point, we had walked so far on the other side of the water!). This ship was massive even though it doesn't look it in the picture! The crazy part is that this boat still goes out! It was restored a couple decades ago and goes out a few times per year since the restoration...

The massive ship was our last stop, which was right along the water. When we had picked up our trail guide from the tourist information centre, the person checking us out recommended that we take the ferry back into the city to save some walking and see Boston from the water. This is us on the ferry heading back into Boston for some supper!

It was a wee bit windy...

Our final stop in Boston was at an Italian Restaurant for supper! There seemed to be a lot of Italian restaurants and the night before when we were walking down the north end of Boston, we could smell delicious garlic bread so I really wanted some Italian on our last night!

We found a restaurant that was just off the strip where all the other restaurants and shops (like Mike's Pastry) were, which we were hoping was less expensive. We ended up paying a bit more than expected because our appetizer was $20... but sooo worth it! Best antipasto plate ever with meats, cheeses, flatbread, olives & greens. We were pretty full from our appetizer, so we had our pasta to go (and ate it for lunch on the roadtrip home the next day!).

It was a little of a weird supper because we were offered to sit in the lower level of the restaurant and no one else came downstairs so we had the whole lower level to ourselves (while the upper level had several tables!).

After supper, we headed back to the car, made a pit stop to the liquor store to get drinks for the night and a bottle to take home (which is the worst pregnant experience when in the States... I couldve had so many yummy options!). We were back to the hotel at a reasonable time again (around 8pm) and planned to leave for the road trip back home the next morning!

The next morning (which was Tuesday the 9th) we left for Canada! We paid our fortune to the tolls on the way home and made sure we filled up gas before crossing the border. And made one last supper stop at Cracker Barrel. I don't remember ever eating there before but we got some delicious southern style food (lemonade, fried chicken, biscuits, and corn bread) for a reasonable price (it was around $20!). We even bought a gift for Cadence's first birthday at the country store where they have some super original things!

States Roadtrip: Rhode Island!

The first weekend of June, Aleksy and I headed out for a 10 hour car journey to Rhode Island where we were going to see his Aunt get married on Friday June 5th! We left at the deathly hour of 3am on the Thursday and got to the house that Aleksy's Dad had found for the whole fam to stay around 4pm. There was a lot of driving and my new car held up great... so good on gas (plus gas is half price in the States!).

This was our house for 3 nights in Providence! When we got there on Thursday afternoon, we knew immediately we were in Providence's "hood". You know... a couple abandoned homes across the street, lots of people hanging out looking suspicious in large groups... BUT our place was actually so nice!

The Thursday we arrived, we headed over to Aleksy's Aunt's and her new husband David's house for a dinner before the wedding. It was kind of a meet and greet between friends and family from all over Ontario and the States. The food was delish! stuffed mushroom caps, fruit and cheese platters, fancy pizza, lasagna, eggplant rolls, and garlic bread. Being pregnant has its perks; Aleksy's aunt insisted that I take some of the dessert cookies to go! When you can't have wine... just have extra servings of dessert!

And Friday was the wedding day! It was at 4 in the afternoon and was in a little town just outside of Providence called Bristol, which is right on the water. Aleksy and I went to the wedding with his sister, Alyssa and Jon. Alyssa let us know that day that it was national donut day and if we bought a drink at Dunkin Donuts then we got a free donut! So guess what we hit up on the way to the wedding? This is when I discovered the delish coolatas... and had about 4 more before leaving the States!

This picture was taken before the wedding ceremony. We arrived a little early so we were able to explore the grounds of the mansion where the wedding was located. Right on the water.

And everyone after the ceremony and at the cocktail hour. There were some yummy hors d'oevres served at the cocktail hour, my personal favourite being the clam chowder with clam cakes... yum!

It was a really nice ceremony outside. The cocktail hour was outside too. The reception to follow was inside the mansion with delicious dinner and dessert.

On Saturday, the day after the wedding, we made plans to travel as a group to see Newport, Rhode Island, which was recommended by a few of the people we met from around Providence. On the way to Newport, we stopped for lunch at Evelyn's Drive In: an amazing restaurant that Aleksy's Dad scoped out that was featured on the Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives show. We were up for some good seafood!

And this is the platter of (wholesome, healthy deep fried) seafood that we got! It doesn't look like much in the picture, but it was A LOT of food! There was scallops, shrimp, cod, clams, and calamari. With a little lobster on the side... So good!

After our awesome lunch, we headed into Newport and wandered the harbourfront and the stores.

We bought our first purchase for baby in Newport! A little wooden sailboat for his room :) We also found some other fun shops like a popcorn shop where we got some blue raspberry flavoured popcorn.

And this fun store: fun for Aleksy and barfy for me. It was a store with a bunch of different animal meats. For example, Aleksy got these 2 meat sticks: one made of elk and the other kangaroo. They had all different types of jerky and also bacon soap, which I made the mistake of touching and it really smelled exactly how it sounds... bacon mixed with soap... ew.

Large plates of seafood and exploring Newport on foot can make you pretty tired. So when we got back to our Providence house, we did a bit of relaxing in the form of front porch sitting. Aleksys sister tried to nap, but what made that a challenge was the loud salsa music that was being played across the street. Aleksy and I (and Aleksy's Mom) found it pretty catchy! The front porch of our house was amazing for porch sitting! Perfect space and some good people watching...

When we had driven back into Providence the first night we were there after the "rehearsal" dinner, we saw a bunch of food trucks lined up a few blocks from where we were staying and planned to hit them after the wedding (but we were too full), then we definitely had to hit them the Saturday night since it was our last night in Providence!

This is us with all our food truck food on the Saturday night!

This is the sandwich goodness that we got from the food truck! Our first stop was for empanadas (our discovered gem in Chile!) and it was like a cultural experience right in the States... he made us order in Spanish... thank goodness for that tutoring 2 years ago. Then we stopped at another food truck where everyone got a bite to eat and we had the most delicious cubana sandwiches. Aleksys parents got quesadillas which they said were amazing and Andrew got a big plate of meat and fried plantains!


We left Providence the next morning (Sunday the 7th) around 11am and Aleksy and I headed to Boston for a couple days, which is just about an hour and a bit from Providence!

Our Gender Reveal Party!

We had out gender reveal party of Friday May 22nd! I have really been planning this party since even before we knew we were pregnant, so it was pretty nice to start preparing all the pinterest pins that I have had saved for months! We invited our immediate family and close friends to share (and learn) the news with.

We had our gender ultrasound over a week before the party on May 14th. The ultrasound tech doesn't tell you the same day what the gender of the baby is, but I filled out a form so they would email me the results. I received them in my email the next day! The email sat, so easily accessed on my phone for a week. I was dying to open it but knew I had too much invested in planning the party to spoil it!

Part of the party prep was a pink and blue candy bar. We went to the bulk barn and picked out the blue and pink tootsie rolls, salt water taffy, and mini eggs.

And those pink and blue bags were some left over from the prepared bags I made of pink and blue rose petals. The plan was to have Warren open the email with the gender, grab the bags stuffed with the correct colours and give to all our family and friends to throw.

Andrew came by early before the party and helped with prepping our decorations... well the balloons anyways.

I was all over the pink and blue.

We set up a station where our friends and family could put their guess of what gender our baby is on the board. I cut out little hearts for the girls guesses and little blue bow-ties for the boy guesses.

We printed out our 12 week and 19 week ultrasound pictures and put them on display.

I have been taking pictures of my bump every other week since week 10, holding a chalkboard where I wrote what week it was and what fruit our baby was a size of. We printed these pictures and hung them by the board too! Because lots of people say they can tell the gender of the baby by the way I am carrying or ultrasound, I thought these may help with the guesses! Although lots of people have already been firm on their guesses for months!

Our spread of food! I prepared a veggie tray, mexi dip, cheese, kielbasa, and crackers, meatballs, and I made shortbread squares with pink & blue sprinkles!

It was all pink and blue plates, cups, cutlery and we even bought some pink and blue platters!

Aleksy's Mom made the most delicious desserts: a lemon blueberry crumble bundt cake, and brownies topped with a peanut butter sauce... so glad there's leftovers and we'll have dessert all week (or a couple days...)!

The banner that Aleksy made! The plan was to have this is the backdrop of our picture with everyone throwing rose petals, but I think we overestimated the size of our living room with everyone in it, so you couldn't really see it in the official picture (but it looked great!).

Everything went exactly as planned! Warren opened the email and grabbed the bags for everyone and everyone threw the rose petals at us at once! Warren and Paul were the photographers.

And it's a boy!! We are so excited!

Blue rose petals! The rose petals were cleaned up in record time by everyone who took some home and my Rachel who took home a ton!

I have a lot of little bags of unopened pink rose petals in my basement!






The votes were almost split down the middle but there were a few more who guessed boy. My guess was boy and Aleksy's was girl (those are on the board too!)

This is the email attachment that the London XRay place sent to me! Our baby boy is predestined to love football (and I know Aleksy will be a firm encourager)!


It's a boy! Time to start shopping and baby room decorating/furniture buying!

May 2-4 Long Weekend Kinds of Things

We have had a super duper busy, and most fun long weekend! This May 2-4, we continued our tradition of trailer camping with Al and Steph. We have gone long weekend camping together to kick off summer in 2012, 2013, 2014 and again this year! It gets a little different every year as we both add to our families. Luckily, my 19 week bump doesn't take up much extra space at this point, but this year we did have an extra 6 month baby! On Friday evening, we headed up to Wildwood conservation centre in St. Marys for a 2 night adventure with our Osborne friends!

We got to the trailer on Friday around 6:30-7pm. Our pulled pork supper was all ready to be eaten when we arrived, and afterward Aleksy and I pulled out our birthday surprises for Steph! Her bday was Tuesday, so I made her a chocolate on chocolate bday cake and we brought her bday present too (a baked good cookbook wrapped in some new tea towels). Colton was very excited to be eating cake for a week straight with Mothers Day and his mommys bday celebrations! It only took the 5 of us (Colton incl.) 2 days to finish that off!

After supper, we went on a brief walk to the park for Colton's enjoyment (and also to exploe the campground). I also like swings. But I was probably a bit more pumped to get the fire started and pull out my fav thing about camping: smores! Several were had. That night I had a later night and went to bed around 1am... but Aleksy and Al were even later ad said they stayed up until 3... we wouldn't know because Aleksy and Al were tent sleepers. The trailer is getting a bit tight these days with the 2 babies plus us, so Aleksy and Al "real camped".

The next morning, we were awaken around 8am by our little people (not so bad for 2 babies!). It was cloudy and a wee bit chilly, but after a healthy breakfast of egg sandwiches (better than a sausage egg mcmuffin!) we headed into the town of St. Mary's for the morning.

We started at the park by the river in St. Marys where there was a little park for Colton to play on then headed up to the main strip. Chase slept a good majority of the time in his stroller.

And we walked all the way up to the waterfall and got this shot for old times sake: we have one from our 6 year anniversary about 4 years ago, which I blogged about then:

http://kat-todaysanewday.blogspot.ca/
2011/09/our-6-year-anniversary.html

St. Mary's is so pretty!

After a morning of walking all over St. Mary's, we wanted to finish off our adventure with an ice cream. The place that Aleksy and I had gone a couple years back was closed down so we tried the chocolate factory, which was on the main strip. They didn't sell ice cream (but we did get some chocolate), and they recommended Hearns for ice cream just down the street. It was a cute little ice cream place and by that time it had gotten warm so business was def picking up for the ice cream place. I had a blueberry cheesecake flurry which I was sure I couldn't finish until I did.

We got back to the trailer just after lunch time and although we were pretty full after the ice cream, we whipped up some lunch anyways. We had some sausages, salad and potato salad. We hung out for a bit lounging outside of the trailer and enjoyed the super nice 25 C weather, where Colton targeted and attacked me with his watergun until I was soaked! We then decided to do one of the trails of the conservation area. We left around 3:30 for the trail.

And this is us on the trail! It took us over an our to complete the trail and we were pretty tired at the end after walking out in the sun all day. Colton was especially feeling tired toward the end and we could tell by the increase of his tripping over roots. He was very cute though gathering "gifts" for me all day: flowers (dandelions), rocks, and sticks.

It was a nice trail, and we were impressed by the size of the campground and how much there is to do and see (we didn't even have time to visit the lake that the campground was built around!).

That night we had some supper, smores and went to sleep a little earlier around 12am. We left the next morning after breakfast so we could shower (because 3 days without a shower was kinda dirty) and get ready for birthday celebrations for my sister and Kenny's birthdays!

On Sunday afternoon, Kenny had set up a surprise birthday party for my sisters 33rd birthday! She was out with my Mom shopping for the afternoon and my Mom was to bring her home for 4pm and we all were hanging out in the back yard... Steph only knew Aleksy and I would be there because we had made supper plans. Kenny had planned everything out from having extra tables, decorations and food!

When Steph got home, we had some awesome bbq and hung out in the backyard... me with my special non alcoholic drinks and everyone else enjoying their cold beverages (I'm finding it isn't so bad.... yet!).

Kenny had bought fireworks for the night too! Before it got dark, Kenny set them off in the park across from their house! This is the kids loving their lives watching the fireworks going off. Rachel is all dressed up in her batman outfit and she was jumping up and down in excitement! Birthday fireworks!

It was a bit of a tiring weekend with all our camping adventures so Aleksy and I called it a night early around 10:30 on Sunday. We did have an extended birthday celebration today: the holiday Monday at my dads!

And today was a good day to recuperate with a good sleep in (until 9!), catch up on laundry and get some "me" time in at the gym! We headed over to my Dads around 5pm for some pizza, cake and (extended) birthday celebrations.

We had the best weather all weekend, feeling like summer! The best kinda May 2-4!

Weekend Awesomeness

Aleksy and I are really good a filling up our weekends with plans... most of which make for some pretty sweet weekends. Aleksy likes more down time than I do, so sometimes it works out well when I make plans separate from him. On Saturday April 25th, I bought tickets for me and my little to go to the Superdogs show, which was at the Western fair.

I didn't know what to expect when I bought tickets. I saw an advertisement on my newsfeed on Facebook and suggested it to Brooklyn. And it was so good! There were a ton of little kids there and Brooklyn and I were not the majority in the crowd, but I though it was such a good show for anyone.

The doggies were so cute, I couldn't stop smiling! This picture here is 2 fluffy dogs: they called them the twins, Waffles and Syrup. They did most of the show together... with one in the front and the other practically nudging the other form behind.

The show was filled with doggies races, some dancing by the dogs, and general entertainment with the dogs as entertainers. It was a great afternoon and nice to have something new to do with Brooklyn!

And just this past weekend (May 2-3), we had the nicest weather and spent both days in the 22-25 degree weather. On Saturday, we decided to do a little something about our dead grass and top soiled and seeded our grass. It was the day to do gardening.. everyone was doing yard work. Raking sucks... I got a blister. But I was very excited to get a little sun on my shoulders.

An Sunday, we headed up to Stoney Creek to visit the Browns. We had some bbqed hamburgers for lunch before heading to the Hamilton hiking trails to see the waterfalls.

This is Aleksy, Paul and the girls on the hiking trail... such a pretty trail. This was our 2nd time doing this trail and it is definitely worth a re-visit.

After about 2 hours and a bit, we made it to the big pretty waterfall toward the end of the trail. Here's Aleksy and I by the Sherman falls (with my 17 week bump you can see in this picture!).

After our hike, I made a strong case for wanting to go out for ice cream (because the marble slab I had the night before wasn't enough!). Andzelika suggested a place on the Burlington Lakefront, so we headed there after the hike.

It was a gelato place... the best gelato I've had!! I got half peanut butter chocolate (of course) and half wildberry and it was just the best time in a cup. I wish we could have that gelato in London...

And after the best gelato ever, we headed back home to finish the weekend off with yet another bbqed supper! Love nice weather bbqs! Sunday was a good day!

I Love Free Stuff!

Everyone who knows me, knows I love me a good deal... and love to talk about good deals that others have found (and hopefully reap the same benefit!). Couponing? Redeeming a Groupon? I have no shame at all!! The only thing is... I wish I had more time so I could find coupons & sign up for the things that get me FREE (or cheap) stuff!! Well, earlier this month, I found myself with an overabundance of time as I took a week off for my birthday.. a "stay-cation", which I have not really taken since I started! I was bored. I like to occupy my time. But... while I was browsing Facebook, a couponing site came up that said time was limited but if I signed up I would be sent a bunch of free stuff through Samplesource. So.. nothing else to do at that time... signed me right up!

And this is all the freebies I got from Samplesource! My "special package" came in the mail this past week and all for free I got samples of these 9 products! They actually offered me 12, but I didn't take the ones I wouldn't use. I was so excited for my free stuff... a little present in the mail :)