Flights Booked!

Today was the day we made it official and booked our honeymoon! Next year after our wedding, Aleksy and I will both make our very first trip to part of Europe!!
We booked our 2 week trip from Toronto to London, England for the Monday following our wedding. I was quite impressed with the price of a non-stop Air Canada flight for under $1000 per person!

The plan for the 2 weeks is to visit each country of the UK: England (to start and to finish), Scotland and Ireland. We will have 1-3 nights in each city that we stay in to make the most of sightseeing in all 3 countries. To be more prepared, we will plan a bit of an itinerary before about places to stay (bed & breakfasts etc) and things not to miss!

So much to be excited for next Aug/Sept!

Ilderton Fair: Year 2!

After all of our enthusiasm about finding the gem of a fair last year in Ilderton, we couldn't miss the fair this year! We went on Saturday September 28th. We even invited our friends along so they could see what all our fuss was about.

 We took our little Colton for the journey too. Here's us with Colton, enjoying a little fresh apple cider.

We watched the same rodeo as last year with the little kids lassoing cattle. I feel that animal activists would protest this activity hardcore because I have to admit it hurt my heart for those scared cows!
One of the things that I did notice as we were sauntering about is that they did take the animals back to their farms at the end of the day (around 6pm) rather than keeping them couped up. That made me a little happier for the animals, but I also feel bad for them to have to drive in the trailers.

Here's Aleksy and Colton after watching the 100 lb kids try to move the 500 lb cows...

 I love the contests at fall fairs!! This pumpkin was over 500 lbs. In this same area was the best vegetable display, best oddly shaped vegetable, best couple vegetable (2 that look the same).

We also saw all the baked goods that in competition from pies to cookies to carrot cake to "anything baked by a man" (seriously).

This here was the only disappointing part of the fair. They completely sold out of turkey legs!! :( The turkey legs were possibly one of the best things about the fair. They must not have expected so many people because many of the stand were out of pulled pork too.

We got these pulled pork sandwiches from what we think was the last stand that had pulled pork, but they must have been running out of bbq sauce because there was hardly any on the sandwich and it was dry :( Luckily these delicious baked beans spiced up my sandwich when I put it on...

And of course, we spent some time in the beer garden for some cold beverages to go with our pulled pork, baked beans, and slaw. Even Colton loved it... look at that happy face!

The kids were singing karaoke in the beer garden just like last year!

We got this shot just before grabbing our homemade cookies and huge bag of fresh apples to take home. We have now gone through almost the whole bag and its time to go apple picking this weekend! Can't wait!

And with all the apples that we bought from the fair, I made a delicious apple crisp on Sunday! And after making this, I made chocolate banana squares. Yum!

And many more apple desserts to be made with all the apple we pick this upcoming weekend :)

Fitness & Healthy Eating!

I am able to write this post right now because I am skipping the gym. It feels great now, but I know future me would shake my fist at myself.... Weekdays after work, it has been the routine of the past 4 months to go directly to the gym. The only thing that would prevent this from happening is working late and/or weekend plans. Until now: my hip is preventing gym time! I think from all the running and general exercises that I have been doing, I overworked a muscle/ligament/joint in my hip. I can't even sleep on the right side of my body because it gives me pain. I'm skipping the gym to give it a couple days to heal. So although my hip sucks, it also shows all the hard work work that has been done, and I have been recording all my workouts since June:

Starting in June, I thought it may be helpful to record my workouts as a way to hold myself accountable to my fitness routine.
You can see that the weekdays I hit the gym most (after work), especially with all the weekend summer plans.

My workouts for July were very consistent: almost every work day with lots of running with some of these weeks running 18 miles +.

Unfortunately for August, the room where classes are held at the Athletic Club was under construction and my classes were not running. This means most of August, I didn't weight lift. I'm really bad at motivating myself to weight lift independently, which is why I regularly do the classes. But I still made it out to the gym most weekdays in August too!

September was a much better month for consistency and balance between cardio, weights, and yoga. I think the repetitive running must be the culprit for my hip situation, which I tried to counteract with yoga twice last week, to no avail.

I'll get back at it hopeful tomorrow or Thursday... can't make excuses forever!!

The thing that has made it the easiest to get to the gym everyday after work is routine and a change of lifestyle. It has become second nature to go directly to the gym from work and since Aleksy and I have changed our lifestyle, I have never felt better about my appearance, I have lost 10-15 lbs, and I feel less physically exhausted. In addition to out regular workouts, we keep a healthy diet as well. Grocery shopping is probably 80& fruit and veg. But lets be real, on the weekends, we fully indulge!! There has been no shortage of elephant ears, fries, smores, and other junk food this summer (but just weekends!). Here's a couple of our favourite go-to suppers during the week:

Our fav tex mex salad: romaine, tomatoes, red peppers, avocado, black beans (or sometime mixed beans), cheese and salsa in lieu of dressing... soooo delic and healthy!








And below is a concoction of chickpeas, quinoa, cauliflower, italian seasoning, and curry powder... also delic!