janice's mash-up

mothers day 2013

Mothers Day celebrations around here began Saturday with a girls night with a group of my best mommy friends. Adam asked, what did you do? drink tea? And I said, yes, but the rest is secret...he looked at me kind of funny and I am sure he now wonders what wild and crazy things happen on girls' nights out!

Sunday was a sleep in day, yippee! The boys googled how to make scrambled eggs and made me breakfast in bed and then we all cuddled in our bed and watched and episode of Donut Showdown and then one of House Hunters International. I chatted with my mom and wished her a happy day too!

The boys treated me to lovely hanging baskets, new beads for my bracelet and a new windowbox. I actually had a few hours to myself and drank some chai and read magazines as it rained outside. Bliss.

I took Adam out to his ball hockey game in Burnaby and spent the evening there with two of my favourite hockey moms and then we came home and had Sweet Spot desserts the boys had picked up on Saturday. Thinking ahead they were...

It was a lovely day.

making pasta

Inspired by this pin on Pinterest, I decided to make some homemade pappardelle pasta for lunch today. Carb loading for Adam before his first ball hockey game of the season and post-Sun Run lunch for Neil!

I just made a small batch: 2 eggs, 2 cups AP flour and a good dash of sea salt. It was the perfect amount for lunch for us and the boys gobbled it up.

I loved the way the herbs shone through the sheets of pasta. So pretty and yummy.

happy easter! happy spring!

The weather is amazing and it definitely feels like spring around here. I loved being able to walk out into the backyard in flipflops and cut some daffodils to bring inside for Easter. Everything in the garden is either bursting or about to burst into bloom!

 

We had a quiet Easter around here but the boys still wanted to dye a few eggs and we got them a few sweet treats to enjoy. And I just had to make some bunny cookies!

 

I went for a long walk with friends and the boys longboarded into Steveston, coming across a vintage car gathering which they loved. We had a birthday and Easter dinner out at Blue Canoe with Neil's dad and brother which was a lovely way to cap a gorgeous day in Steveston!

A great day for celebration.

spring break 2013: a collection of animoto videos

 The amazing Chacchoban Mayan ruins:

  

The rain and wind during our experience driving through a tornado warning just outside of Orlando:   

Many, many images from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter:   

Our airboat tour of the Florida Everglades:

 

spring break 2013: part two - exploring florida

After disembarking from our cruise on Sunday, we picked up our rental car and drove north to Orlando. What we didn't expect was flashing signs indicating "severe weather ahead - take shelter" which we later found out was a tornado warning. The rain and wind was absolutely crazy. 

After getting checked into our resort in Kissimmee and waiting for the weather to clear, we met up with the Loats and drove into Orlando to visit Downtown Disney and have dinner. It was so crowded but we had a fun night.

Monday morning we got up early to get to Universal's Islands of Adventure for opening. We headed straight for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I am still in disbelief that I was there - this has been on my bucket list of places to go. Many times throughout the morning I gasped and squealed. It was so amazing (and SO crowded!!). The rides were amazing and we drank butterbeer, ate Hagrid's rock cakes and ate lunch at The Three Broomsticks as well as bought some treats at Honeydukes.

 

We spent the rest of the day exploring the other parts of the park and enjoying some rides (and getting a little wet). 

On Tuesday we had a sleep-in and then did some outlet shopping before enjoying the pool and lounge area at the resort. On Wednesday we drove back down to Miami, stopping in Lake Worth for lunch at Havana Hideout, a Triple D location, for lunch. 

After checking in at our hotel, we drove towards the Florida Everglades and stopped to do an airboat tour. It was an amazing experience. We learned so much about the ecosystem and its plants and animals and saw a few alligators and some alligator babies along the way. Adam even held a baby alligator at the end of the tour.

We drove into Miami Beach to have dinner at the 11 Street Diner, another Triple D location. 

We have a list of places in Florida we would still like to explore, so I guess we'll have to plan another trip!

   
We had a great trip, very full of new places and experiences and lots of fun and new things learned along the way. It was one of those trips that you need a few days to recover from ;)

spring break 2013: part one - western caribbean cruise

Warning: long, photo-laden post!

For our spring break this year, we flew to Miami and took a Carnival Cruise to the Western Caribbean. With all the disasters Carnival has faced recently, we were a little worried but it was an amazing trip. I can't say enough about how wonderful all the staff was on the cruise and the amazing events and opportunities that were provided. We travelled with the Loat family. We have done a small trip with them before to Great Wolf Lodge and spent some days together in Waikiki but this was our first major trip together. We commented several times during the trip how great our kids got along the whole time and for me, it was nice having some female travel companions for a change! We saw the best and worst of each other (there were some moments...) and there will be many stories to tell and special memories to hold on to.

We flew all day Saturday (through San Francisco and Houston) and stayed in Miami Saturday night before heading to the Carnival Glory on Sunday afternoon. We sailed off as the sun set over Miami.

Monday on the ship was a "day at sea" and the boys tried out the waterslide, the arcade and Colin played volleyball. We had our first formal dinner in the dining room.

On Tuesday, we had our first day in port at Cozumel. We walked around the town doing some shopping and got a great recommendation for an authentic Mexican lunch. We took a taxi to Paradise Beach for the afternoon and the kids all had fun on the apparatus and the pool available there.

On Wednesday, we arrived in Costa Maya, which is a little town created for cruise ships. We took an excursion to the Chacchoban Ruins which was one of the highlights of the trip for me. These are recently discovered Mayan ruins (1973) which are not fully excavated and have only been open to the public since 2002. Our guide was amazing and we all learned so much about Mayan culture and history. 

On Thursday, we sailed into the Island of Roatan in Honduras. This was my favourite port of the trip. We booked an excursion to Tabyana beach which was really family friendly (unlike the Mexican beaches we experienced). The bus ride there took us along the coast of the island and through towns and residential areas. We got a real sense of what life was like there. The beach was quiet and stunningly beautiful. The snorkelling was the best I have ever experienced. The variety of coral and sea fans as well as the fish was outstanding. There were even baby sting rays swimming in the sandy areas of the beach. It was very very hot but there was lots of shade under the palms trees and lemonade to keep us cool. I didn't want to leave and this is somewhere I would go back to.

On Friday we had our last stop in a port at Grand Cayman. For this port, we had to "tender" in (take little shuttle boats) to the dock. The Loats went off to a stingray excursion and we headed to Royal Palms beach (which is part of the famous Seven-Mile Beach) where we swam and snorkelled and enjoyed the quiet and sun. We walked back along the beach and took a detour through an empty lot where we encountered several iguanas! We had lunch in Georgetown and did a little shopping before heading back to the ship and getting ready for another formal dinner.

Saturday was another "day at sea" and was a pretty low key day. We did attend a magic seminar and learned three tricks from the ship's magician, Elton. He was so great with our kids throughout the whole trip. We got up early Sunday to disembark and say good-bye to the Carnival Glory!

On the ship, we really enjoyed the nightly family-friendly comedy shows, music and dance shows, the magic shows (often at our table in the dining room), the many buffets and dining experiences and the towel animals left in our room each evening.

Lots of stories, lots of memories. Such a great, full trip - but that was just part one!

our own little hot chocolate festival

Last year we had many little adventures during Vancouver' Hot Chocolate Festival...you can read about that here. This year I read over all the locations and types of hot chocolate and planned to get to about half a dozen. That didn't happen. Colin and I did made it to a new place for us, Schokolade. We stopped by on the way home from soccer in North Van while Adam and Neil were up in Kelowna for hockey. I had the Bombay Spice and Colin had the Canadian Classic and we each had some amazing chocolates as well. We brought some home for Neil and Adam.

And that was it. Our schedules just didn't make this is a good festival year but next year, oh next year, we might even get to them all ;)

So instead, we enjoyed hot chocolate at home.

With crazy holiday marshmallows...

Having a very spicy drinking chocolate I found at Whole Foods...

And enjoying some fun hot chocolate sticks from the Ticket Kitchen...

 

 A mug of hot chocolate can do wonders on a cold wet afternoon.

valentine's day 2013

I didn't bake. I didn't go all out. I didn't even use any of of the many ideas pinned on my Valentine's board on Pinterest.

Instead, the boys were greeted this morning with root beer heart-shaped waffles (made on the weekend and frozen to be ready for today) and a collection of sweet treats at their spots at the table. I remember my mom doing this growing up on holidays like Valentine's, Easter and Hallowe'en and I remember the anticipation, milder than on Christmas morning, of coming down the stairs to see what little treat there might be for us. This year there were chocolate hearts from Purdy's, some red lollipops (the boys are in a lollipop phase) and some fudge from Butter. Neil got some dark chocolate and some David's Tea called Fired Up Fennel, because Neil likes fennel!

I also did get my crafty queen crown on a for a bit last night and whipped up some little valentine's pockets. I bought the Starbucks special edition valentine's gift cards weeks ago when they first came out and I included a little message heart from me with some special phrases for each boy from when he was little and some lyrics from our wedding songs for Neil. The materials for the pockets were actually part of a banner kit I bought but decided to repurpose it to use for this!

From the same craft company, I ordered the materials to make these cute little boxes to give to some friends and to some co-workers.

And to really celebrate and share our love for each other, we went as a family to get our Hep A vaccinations and then a quick dinner out before fencing and a hockey game. Yep, that's reality on Valentine's Day, not so different than any other day except maybe there was a little more chocolate involved!

what's up?

What's up over here? Apparently some of my friends and family get concerned when I'm not posting on the blog. Although I understand they appreciate the wordless wednesday food photographs, I know my mom in particular misses the updates about what is going on in our little part of the world. I have gone from posting every day during the first year of the blog to now maybe once a week posts.

I am really trying to spend my time writing other things right now. Not that I really want to, but I feel I have to and am trying to push myself to bring an end to what has become misery for me. I loved my PhD program up until I had to write a dissertation and for someone who writing usually comes quite naturally to, this has been a tortured, painful experience. Drudgery, I tell you. I am learning so much about myself and my passions and motivation. Motivation is a very interesting thing and apparently, I have absolutely zero motivation to complete this little project! My advisor and I have set little deadlines to help me keep moving along and one is coming up this Tuesday. So it is a battle and most of my long weekend looked something like this...

In other news, Colin had an exciting soccer game on Saturday with a 7-1 win over a North Van team.

What made it exciting is that with this win, they have captured the League championship title already. Mathematically, no other team can catch them. There was quite a bit of celebrating after the game!

The boys did homework, longboarded into Steveston, Adam had hockey volunteering and practice and the boys had some sort of epic battle upstairs in the playroom. Neil ran a half-marathon on Sunday morning and was happy with his time. The rest of us were just getting out of bed when he arrived home ;)

So that's what's up around here!

and January is a wrap!

Wow. January 31st. How did that happen? Why does January always seem to fly by so fast? Checking back on previous years'  blog posts for January, it has not always been a stellar month for me. Illness, too much work stress, deadlines, etc. January 2013 has been all of that and I have been missing in action quite a bit.

A few highlight from the last couple of weeks.

Colin had his first final exam ever for Math 8 last Friday (and the second part on Monday in the big school gym). As we talked in the morning and went over some test-taking strategies, Colin remarked that this was "the biggest test in my life" which I guess is true at this point! 

I had a pretty nasty headcold so Neil took Adam up to Kelowna last weekend for his first Midget hockey tournament. They had a great time and Adam played really well as a forward, his favourite position. He's been playing a lot of defense this year because that's what his team needs him to do, but his heart isn't in it 100%. There are no photos of the weekend, even after a few requests, so all I have is text messages to document his hockey weekend away....

     
oh, and the photo of the cookies I made for him to take on the road, which I don't think he shared ;)

I stayed home and had a soccer weekend with Colin. I was so sick still on Saturday and bundled up to brace the rain and cold in North Van. Colin had a great game and his team had a strong win. They are leading their division and playing so well as a team.

We stopped at Schokolade for hot chocolate on the way home, as part of Vancouver's Hot Chocolate Festival. The chocolates were amazing and we brought home some for Adam and Neil.

Sunday morning brought yet another soccer game, this against Richmond's Silver team. It was a very very close game, much closer than the final 3-0 loss suggests. Again, great team play.

Adam has done some more driving and did his first night drive this week over to the Loat house to drop off some books. He is gaining confidence and is still very cautious but has such an urge to go fast. Yikes.

Neil and I are both ridiculously busy at work but the boys have enjoyed a pretty loungey week as they have been home mostly during semester break this week. Adam did some volunteer hours and they still had their sports in the evenings, but they pretty much slept in, did some cleaning around the house and lounged. And Adam took apart an old gas-powered weed eater and tried to do something with the engine...very Mythbusterish in our garage!

So goodbye January and hello February!