Toronto Girl out West goes on Vacation!!!!

That's right amigos! I'm going to be leaving you for a while for a much needed vacation. :o)

Now now . . . don't cry too much! I know you'll miss me (awwww . . .) but I promise to be back on the 8th of June!

If it sounds like it's a long-ish vacation, that's 'cause it is! And I couldn't be more thrilled!

What will I be doing you ask?

First, the fiance and I will be driving from our Rocky Mountain town to Vancouver (this will take about 10 hours) where we'll meet my mom. It's her first visit to Vancouver AND I haven't seen her since early last October. I'm looking forward to the reunion!!

Then we'll be checking into our swank hotel located near Stanley Park. Remember these views?


Well look for something similar again! :o)

And the whole purpose of my trip to Vancouver? To attend my Call to the Bar Ceremony. You see all of us new calls (new lawyers that is) dress up in our Barrister Gowns and are formally introduced to the practice of law. This is done by presenting us to a Justice of the Supreme Court and having us sign some really old and important books. lol

Want a preview of what I'll look like? Okay! I'll show you one of the graduation pictures I took while wearing said gown. Kind of like an English Barrister minus the wig:

Hahahaha! Yeah that's me rocking the wise lawyer look! :oP I think I got it down to a T in that picture!

After my call, I plan on going out to a wonderful restaurant to celebrate before tucking in for the night and heading to MEXICO!!!!!!!!!!! *Insert crazy Mariachi sound here*

The main reason for our trip is to check out wedding locales. Yup! A Destination Wedding for me! :o) Hence a good chunk of our time will be spent on the beaches of Tulum:

Picture borrowed from here!

I hope to get married on this tranquil stretch of beach hours away from the maddening crowds of Playa del Carmen and Cancun. In fact, I have several meetings set up with some wedding coordinators and hopefully by the time I get back we'll have the location more or less (hoping for more) sorted out.

You can also bet your bottom dollar that I plan on coming back with some amazing food pictures! It's no exaggeration to say that I've been dreaming about my wonderful Mexican eats for months now! lol

And I promise to try to get my exercise in although I don't think I'll be running miles in the hot Mexican sun. I will however do some yoga in this tropical destination! People travel from all over the world to practice yoga in Tulum and I'm not about to miss out! :o)

The fiance will just have to find something to do while we (mommy and me) work on our warrior two poses! lol

Before heading home from Mexico we'll also take a bit of a road trip to the colonial city of Merida, visit the ruins of Chichen-Itza, and finish off with one night in Cancun.

So there you have it! My plan for the next while. And the reason I'm going to be absent. I promise to be back with a vengeance and in fact I promise to come back with a lovely Mexican souvenir for a GIVEAWAY!!!

That way I can lure you all back to my blog! :oP

Hasta luego amigos!!!!

What NOT to do During Your Runs

Hola bloggies:

So I've had a bit of an interesting run. Mostly having to do with my run! For a bit there it even seemed like a bit of a gong show. But out of all of it, I think I'd have to say I learned a couple of things!


Running Towards a Half - Update

Saturday, May 23rd

As predicted I ended up taking yesterday rather light. My stomach was kind of upset and I didn't want to risk running. Kind of wanted to save my legs for my Sunday run.

Given that it ended up being a yoga and stretching day. It was a relaxing way to spend my cross-training day.

Sunday, May 24th

Today I woke up and was for some reason completely convinced that I was scheduled to do a 4 miler. Upon double checking my schedule I realized I was wrong. It was only a 3 miler. Whew! 'Cause my tummy was still kind of upset and frankly I was a bit nervous about the first "long" run of my training.

Usually, I do my runs in the evening. Just as the sun is starting to set. That's because the sun here is ridiculously intense. Even when it's not very hot the sun makes it feel like you're absolutely cooking. Nowhere in my life have I experienced such intense sunshine! I figure it has something to do with the altitude (I live in the Rocky Mountains after all).

Now knowing what I know about the sun here you'd think I would know better than to run in the middle of the day. But nope! :oP

Since the fiance worked overnight (and slept most of the day away) I decided I would do a midday run. Really Karen? Crazy moi!!!

I thought nothing of it though, got my Nike+ system into my armband, laced up my shoe laces, tucked my key into my pants and I was off! No sooner had I started than the intensity of the sun hit me. In fact I think it was about the 1/4 of a mile point when I became aware of my intensely parched throat! I don't think I'd ever been so thirsty in my life.

Lesson #1: Running in the intense midday sun is a BAD idea!!!

Luckily, I was only doing loops at a nearby park so I ran back home after one mile and decided to get a drink of water. I also decided to have a bit of a potty break! Now usually I carry my iPod in my armband so I don't worry about it. On this occasion I had taken it out but forgot about it dangling off my arm.

Can you see where this is heading?

I was getting ready to leave the washroom when I accidentally flung my iPod into a bowlful of (clean) water. :oO I scooped it out and did a bit of freaking out. Thankfully after some hair dryer action (I kid you not - lol) I was able to get everything in working order and get back to my run.

Lesson #2: Make sure your iPod is well secured before taking a washroom break!!! Trust me on this one!

I returned to my run thinking the quick drink of water would be enough. I. Was. So. Wrong. One mile later I found myself at home again. Fearing this I had left the water bottle outside. Instead of risking a repeat of the horror of my waterless miles I took my bottle with me.

And my God did I need it! I was heating up like no one's business. At one point I felt an unbearable heat all over my body. I kept on drinking my water and it didn't seem to be enough. I can't even begin to tell you how glad I am that I brought the bottle with me on that last mile. Without it I think I would have passed out!

This experience led me to realize that it may be time to invest in a running hat and some sort of portable hydration. The sun here is just out of control and as my mileage increases it's inevitable that I will have to run before the sun starts to set.

Any recommendations on hydration? Fuel belts vs. hydration packs? Any one kind you recommend? I'm open to ideas here! :o)


Eats!

I haven't eaten too much this weekend. I just haven't found myself that hungry. For the most part I've had a very late breakfast and a relatively early dinner. Something about the warm weather makes me eat less.

Yesterday's dinner was outstanding! It featured a beautiful sirloin steak and a mound of roasted veggies!! Since we're going on vacation (wooho!) soon this was a fantastic way of using up a lot of vegetables from our fridge.


I topped this all off with a cold Granny Smith apple later on:


This morning I had was in the mood for a very light breakfast (really wasn't hungry). So I chose to try a new bar.


Want to see the stats?


Overall Review of the Pomegranate-Cherry Optimum Bar? I would NOT buy this again! My first thought when biting into it was "WHY does this taste like medicine!?" I finished it but I'm pretty sure that was because I was hungry. It's a fail.

Before heading out for my run I had 5 (not pictured) almonds.

When I came back I was starved so I decided to head out to buy some groceries. Unfortunately not much of what I wanted was on sale. In fact I think I only saved about $1.50 today. Still I got some yummy eats:


TOTAL COST OF MY GROCERY HAUL? Just slightly over $58. With my money I was able to buy some organic free-range chicken thighs (boneless and skinless), a large container of artificial vanilla, Kosher salt, a massive amount of unsweetened shredded coconut, WW hamburger pita buns, veggie burgers, Rice Works Sea Salt chips (these things are like crack!), brown rice cereal, guacamole, So Good ice cream, and lean bison burgers (lower in calories and fat than beef any day).

While we made dinner we snacked on the brown rice crisps. I have to admit that in between the fiance and I we managed to polish off the entire bag before dinner. Granted neither of us had really had lunch and we were mungry! I probably had slightly above one serving and the fiance had the rest.

Dinner for me was a delicious veggie burger with a side salad and about a teaspoon of light Greek dressing:


Inspired by the ginormous energy bar fail I set about making my own using some whole grains and super foods (guided by the brilliant Heidi Swanson). The end result was delicious and way cheaper than buying overpriced grocery store bars. Usually bars in my town will cost about about $2.50 cents. I spent way less on these beauties:


I couldn't help myself and made one of these beauties my dessert! :o)

It's been a wonderful weekend bloggies and this upcoming week will be crazy!!! On Wednesday afternoon I leave for Vancouver. I'm there Thursday and Friday (the day of my Call to the Bar :oD) and then we fly out on Saturday for just shy of a week in Mexico. It's going to be awesome!!!

And on that note I think I'll call it a night! Until tomorrow friends!

They're HERE! They're HERE!!!! The Manolos are here!!!!!

Hahahaha - can you tell I'm excited some?

I was thrilled when these little babies arrived. Especially 'cause I wasn't expecting them until some point next week. But for right now I'm going to tease you and not show you the shoe pics. Or you could completely ignore everything else I have to say and scroll down to the bottom. I won't mind! :oP lol


Running Towards a Half - Update

Thursday, May 21st

Today's run consisted of a slightly shorter distance. I did two miles at a nearby park and get this THE FIANCE RAN ALL 2 MILES WITH ME!!! I can't even tell you how happy I was with that development. He's doing so well and he's not even a runner. In fact he usually hates it. But seeing me start to train has motivated him. :o)

Now he's a regular workout buddy - doing weights, 100 sit ups a day (sometimes 200!), running, walking a TON (he loves to walk!). Plus he's eating pretty healthfully too!

I think the reason I'm most excited he's running with me is because that way if I'm starting to fade during my half he can jump in and encourage me to keep going the rest of the way (you know - just like Bobbi's hubby).

After my run I came home and did Jackie Warner's Workout. I LOVE this DVD! I'm going to have to review this one soon. You Jillian purists won't like this but I would rather do Jackie's stuff any day! It's awesome!


Friday, May 22nd

And on Friday . . . I rested! :o) As per the schedule. lol I like Fridays.

Today is supposed to be a cross-training day. I haven't quite decided what that's going to mean. I'm tempted to go for a run but I want to be well rested for my long run (yes it's long by my standards at this point). It's only 4 miles but that's 1.5 more than I've run on any single run this week.

I may just call this a stretching Yoga Burn day. We'll see! :o)


Eats!

Unfortunately I don't have many food pictures from yesterday. I can tell you that for breakfast I had an oatmeal pancake smeared with a tablespoon of almond butter.

Then at lunch I had a rather traumatic customer service experience. It was such an unbelievable and horrible thing to have to go through. I was accused of things I had never done. And it came out of left field. After that I was really upset and ate my lunch without taking a picture. But it was healthy and yummy. In fact it was roasted vegetables and a very small (4 oz.) piece of sirloin steak. I'll have to have it again when I'm in a happier mood.

Dinner was a cheeseburger and some stolen spoonfuls of DQ soft serve stolen from the boy.

As for this morning . . . For brunch I ate a fast food breakfast! :oO lol Actually the only fast food breakfast I like.

McDonald's pancakes with a fruit n' yogurt parfait on the side:


You see once in a while the fiance has to work overnight on weekends. He came back at 10am this morning after having left before 8pm last night. I know those hours are KILLER on him so when those overnights coincide with a weekend he gets to choose whatever breakfast he wants.

This morning he asked for McDonald's and I gave in. :o) As long as it doesn't happen too often . . . in fact I think it may be nearly a year since I last had hotcakes from Mickey D's. They were pretty good but not as good as I remember.

That's what happens when you start eating low carb, low fat, good for you stuff. The other stuff just doesn't take the same anymore.Not yet sure whether to be sad or happy about that! :oP lol


Manolos for the Bride

Alright - I know you've been patient. So here is what I discovered when I opened my box (EEEEKKK!!!):


I'm such a tease! :oD


*gasp* You can bet your stilettos I was crazy giddy by this point! In fact I had completely forgotten about my horrible incident earlier on in the day.

Once I tried on the shoes and figured out they fit perfectly (sorry Mara ;o) ) I decided to take my new favourite toys on a bit of a photo shoot for the blog!

Hello LOVER!!!! :o)


Nearly a four inch heel and easily the most comfortable pair of stilettos I have ever worn in my life.

Clearly Senor Blahnik knows a thing or two about shoes!


And the jeweled buckle FTW! :o)

Le sigh . . . I am a happy girl with these babies! Super excited to wear them when I go out to celebrate my call to the bar ceremony! Oh and I have some yummy food plans for that evening. I'll be sure to take pictures and post them when I return from vacation.


Cool Things you Should Know About

Mara's talented father has designed a line of food blogger jewlery. You can enter to win one over at both Eating Bender and What's For Dinner. Should you not win you can also order them directly through Mara. :o)

Costco is currently selling a Garmin Forerunner at a deeply discounted price. Now I'm not at the point where I need one yet but I have been wanting to know what my heart rate is when I run. I'm tempted.

One of my friends from elementary school has recently begun blogging. She's been detailing her workouts (amongst other things). And I'm loving reading her musings. Follow along with Espirit d'escalier here!

For all you runners - ever wondered how to fuel up on your long run? Amy will tell you how!

The very talented Zesty is giving away a blog makeover!

Ever suffered from chafing while working out (trust me it's NOT fun)? Danica will tell you how to treat it and avoid it for good!


Woooo that was a long one! I'm off to run some errands and enjoy my weekend!


Catch you later peeps! :o)

First Outdoor BBQ of the Season!

Hola bloggies:

I got home late yesterday and I didn't get a chance to blog or read/comment on your musings. Needless to say as a result my Google Reader is just about ready to pop at the gills! :oP

Let's play catch-up!!!

Running Towards a Half - 20th of May

Yesterday's schedule called for 30 minutes of cross training. Apparently this is to allow you to recuperate from your run days and to diversify your workout. Given that weight training is covered off on other days, I decided instead to do some yoga!

As some of you know, Rodney Yee is my main man when it comes to that department! :o) So I did a half an hour workout courtesy of Power Yoga: Strength and Flexibility. It had been a while since I had practiced yoga on a daily basis and boy could I tell! I was TIGHT!!! I'm going to have to keep this up if I want to be limber for my runs.


Today's Adventures

Today has been a l-o-v-e-l-y day! The sun has been out, the sky has been blue, the birds have been chirping. The whole works! Just the picture of early summer beauty!

To start off my day I made one of my delicious oatmeal pancakes. These are completely delicious but I have to admit one is not enough to last me through to lunch. It either takes two pancakes or one with some yogurt on the side.

My morning pancake was plain with a bit of agave syrup but I'll show you the fiance's since his was prettier:


An oatmeal pancake, plain Oikos yogurt, and some thawed mixed fruits (we buy them frozen in bags because they're cheap and there when you want them). Let's say the Oikos yogurt has been a HUGE HIT in the Toronto Girl out West house. In fact I may have had multiple servings yesterday. Yes, that's right - breakfast was yogurt (2) and dinner was yogurt (2). lol But I did have a normal non-yogurt lunch.

What can I say!? Oikos and I have decided to become secret lovers! :oP lol

Half-way through the morning I tried a new product and Odwalla juice which I have to say turned out be a good Green Monster (rawr!) substitute:

Want to see the stats on this bit of LifeFood?

Overall Review on Odwalla LifeForce juice? It's yummy and a good substitute for Green Monsters! In a pinch I'd totally consider buying one again. Still I wouldn't run out to get them BUT I would recommend them!

As for lunch . . . can you guess what I ate? lol No sillies! Not Oikos! ;o) I met the fiance at a local park and enjoyed a meal al-fresco:


Ah . . sushi never fails me! Of course there's not enough veggies in there so I split a tray of crudites (I didn't have any of the dip) with the fiance:

For dinner we decided it was high time we have the 1st BBQ of the Summer Season! :o) Woohoo for cooking that is healthy and involves minimal clean up afteward. I lurve it!

Of course, with it being the first bbq of the summer we didn't have anything to start the fire with. So as we fiddled with our hibachi my hunger pangs became more like screaming hunger pains. Thus some nibbling was in order:


I ate about half a bowl of butter-less popcorn. Then the fiance busted out the serious crack. I mean snacks! lol :oP


Yes - I may have stolen some of these nuts too. What can I say? The fire was taking a while to get going and by this point I felt like eating my arm. lol :oP TMI? Prolly!

Note the lovely cashews:


YUMMERS! :o)

Eventually with the help of some fire starter we were able to cook our chicken breast skewers which were promptly incorporated into one of my ginormous salads!


I kind of over did it on the snacking so I only ate about half my actual dinner. But it was oh so yummy! I can't wait until the next time we bbq it was such a fun evening! Sitting on our porch bbqing, drinking cold bevys, listening to some music, and rocking my new sunglasses.

Oh what's that? You'd like to see them!?!? lol :oP


That's right! I pan to be styling on the beaches of Mexico!!! :oD I'm pretty well in countdown mode at this point.

That's it for tonight bloggies - now I have to head outside and get in my 2-miler for the day.


Hasta Luego! :o)

Running Towards a Half Marathon

Hola bloggies!

I wanted to take a departure from my usual food blogging to talk about one of my HUGE goals for this year - to run the Royal Victoria Half Marathon on October 11th, 2009!

This will not only be my first half but also my second race ever (I ran a 10k last year). To that end I've decided that this calls for a proper training regime. I didn't really follow a solid plan when training for the 10k but I don't think I can get away with the same for the half.

So I've decided I'm going to increase my mileage. Slowly. But. Surely. :o)

You see I've not run much lately. In this part of the Rockies it's been cold for the most part, ridiculously windy, and rainy off and on. Not really running weather. But the time has come . . . by my calculations I'm 21 weeks from the race and thus I'm planning for 20 weeks of training.

This is the plan:

First I will complete an eight week 10K Novice Training Program

Once I've upped my mileage I will complete the twelve week 1/2 Marathon Novice Training Program


And to make myself all the more accountable I've decided I'm going to start sharing my progress via my Nike+ (time to dust off my old friend) widget on the side. Look for this little guy (If you're reading this in Google Reader, you'll have to pop on over to the site to look at the widget. Go ahead! I'll wait!):




I'm doing this in the hopes of keeping myself accountable and also so you bloggies will help cheer me on! :o)

And so it begins . . .


PS: Today's schedule called for a 2.5 miler - so I happily obliged!

Woohoo for Long Weekends

Hello everyone!!!

I'm back! :o) I had a wonderful long weekend. I spent pretty well every moment wandering around both British Columbia and Idaho. Yes. Idaho. Turns out Idaho is a beautiful (!) place!! Most people think I'm crazy when I say that but it's true! lol

Oh and look what I came upon in my Idaho explorations:

After an eternity of hearing all of you wax poetic about the beauty of Chobani/Fage/Oikos I finally found some of my own!!! :o)

You better believe I squealed like a kid in the grocery aisle. I picked a couple up (one for the fiance and one for me) and walked with my treasures to the grocery checkout. lol I was one thrilled cookie!!!

And I LOVED it! :o) Loved it so much I bought a Styrofoam cooler, filled it with ice, and bought 10 more to bring back into Canada!

So you shouldn't be surprised that the beloved Greek Yogurt made an appearance this morning:


An Oatmeal Pancake (a new favourite and the best pancake wannabee yet), with Agave Nectar, and a tub of Oikos. Happy happy happy! :o)

This week is a short week (wohoo!) and next week is full of excitement. I only work 2.5 days, then I drive to Vancouver with the fiance. There I'll meet my mom, attend my fancy schmanzy Call to the Bar ceremony, have some yummy eats and wonderful runs, then take off to Mexico!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited, I can barely stand it!!!! :oD

Yummy Things From my Backyard: Pesto!

Hola peeps!

So where were we? Oh yeah! I was telling you all about how you should plant a garden. Even if it's only in some pots on your balcony. Plant a garden! And then make yummy things with the fruits of your labour.

Case in point? Pesto! Starring the following cast of characters:


It's very simple really - all you need is some basil, garlic, olive oil, and pine nuts! My mom and I made this pesto last summer long before my days of food blogging. Funny thing is while making this recipe I said to my mom "We should be food bloggers!" lol :oP So we took pictures of the process.

None of what follows has exact measurements attached. Basically you should do everything to taste. The quantities that you see were used for the massive amount of basil in the metal bowl above.

First start by taking a healthy amount of pine nuts and toasting them over low heat. At the beginning they should look like this:


When you're done toasting the pine nuts should more or less look like this:


Don't forget to stir the pine nuts often so they won't burn! :o)

Now pine nuts may be a new ingredient for some of you but I promise they're an essential ingredient in traditional pesto and will add a lovely texture to your finished product. Having said that if you can't find them or decide not to use them (did I mention they're somewhat pricey?) then I'm sure your pesto will still taste lovely without them! In theory, I'm sure you could even substitute your pine nuts with other toasted nuts - I hear almonds and walnuts work well.

Put your pine nuts to the side and allow to cool. While that's going on take some raw garlic cloves and process them in your food processor. For our massive pile of basil we used several cloves:


Then put all your pesto in to your food processor and whirl away! This would be the before picture:


Once everything is all processed add the pine nuts to your food processor:


Now this is the part where the olive oil comes into play. If you were just to leave the mixture dry it would not even come close to resembling pesto. So this is what you do - while the mixture is processing pour a steady stream of olive oil into the food processor.

Yes, this will resemble a bit of a free pour but really you just want the oil to emulsify the ingredients (i.e.: bring them all together into a happy happy mixture). It may help you to remember that although it may seem like you're using a lot of oil at this point, you'll use the pesto sparingly while cooking. A little goes a long way! :o)


All of our ingredients made a TON of pesto - we packed the pesto up into little bags and refrigerated some and froze the rest for later use:


When you're finally ready to use your pesto don't forget to add some freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and enjoy!

I highly recommend pesto on pasta, on top of oven baked salmon, with oven roasted veggies, the list goes on and on! :o)

Oh and I can't finish this post without giving a shout out to my mom without whom this pesto making experiment would not have been possible. I can't wait until I go to Toronto again (in late August!). I'm going to love making yummy eats with my foodie parents and documenting it for you lovelies to see!

Hasta luego!!!!

A May Long Weekend Super Tease

Hola Bloggies!

This weekend in Canada in Victoria's Day Long Weekend. You see being the loyalists we are, we still celebrate the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. :o)

We do things like have parades (at least in Victoria, BC they do), picnic, camp, head outdoors, and plant! Yes. Victoria's Day is when a lot of people plant their gardens! Why? Well there's an old adage that says that it's unlikely (although not impossible) that there will be frost after Victoria's Day. Thus you're safe to start planting your garden!

I don't really have a yard so my garden will be limited this year but I did want to encourage all you lovely bloggies to plant an at home garden. Grown kale, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, or even something as simple as herbs in a pot! :o)

To encourage you to do so I'll share a bit of what my mom and I did with the Toronto garden's bountiful basil crop. You don't need quantities as large as what we used. But it did produce the yummiest pesto this side of Italy!!!

Stay tuned for that bloggies - but for now I'm off to Idaho. lol I'm going to drive down there, bask in the sands of the lake at Sandpoint, and go for a run.

See you later - enjoy the sun!!!

A Drive-By

Hola Bloggies:

I'm watching Grey's Anatomy and getting ready for bed. But before I tuck in for the night I want to do a quick recap of some of the goodies I ate while Blogger and I were having our spat.

Ready? Let's go!!! :o)


This was the week I finished off my Jay Robb Whey Protein powder courtesy of Eating Bender. Sniff sniff! :o( *tear*

He will be missed! This stuff is the best protein powder I've had in my life. Not gritty, mixes wonderfully, great flavours, and low in carbs. I've already begun looking at acquiring more.


I also indulged in some pasta with meatball sauce courtesy of our local Columbo Lodge. All the proceeds from the sale of the sauce went to help the survivors of the recent earthquake in Italy.

The sauce was SERIOUSLY good - these Italian nonnas know a thing or two about yummy pasta sauces! :o)


I've also started indulging in Old-Fashioned Irish Steel-Cut Oats at home! For the time being I think this will replace Green Monsters as my morning treat. I love how the oats get creamy (regular oats just don't turn out the same way) and make my tummy all warm and happy in the A.M.!

This was also the week I discovered Mary's Crackers (or Mary's Crack as some bloggers refer to these snacks). At first I thought they were a little weird. Gluten free and wheat free means they don't taste like bread at all. But then they grew on me. I wonder if I could replicate these at home. I bet I could! I may have to experiment soon! :oP


For Raw Wednesday I had raw pancakes for breakfast. They're made using flax meal, coconut oil, and a couple of other ingredients. I paired them with some slightly thawed berries. Verdict? Pancakes are best when cooked.

I don't think I'll try this one again although I'm glad I gave the recipe a shot!


Dinner on Raw Wednesday was a Rawsagna! :oD I kind of love the name! In fact it makes me giggle just to say it! lol

It was really yummy but halfway through the recipe I realized it was quite similar to last week's recipe. Next week I plan to branch out and try something totally different! Stay tuned!


I also made a grocery run this week. The veggies and fruit were fairly inexpensive but the health food purchases made the bill go up. Total was just shy of $80. All of that and no meat! lol :o)

Whew!!! That was a quick entry. I'm off to bed bloggies.

Sleep tight! :o)

Maybe Blogger is Still Angry at Me

Hola bloggies:

I decided to check on my blog to see the new entry and realized that it's not listed at the top of my entries. Because I started it several days ago it's featured a bit further down the page.

Feel free to scroll down to the entry called "Water and Mountains Make me Happy" or feel free to click on the hyperlink (the red writing) to get there directly! :o)

A Tropical Distraction

Hola Bloggies:

My blogger account is still on the fritz. Hopefully everything will be fixed by the time I get home from work this afternoon - I have some awesome pictures I want to share with you!!!

But for now I thought I would entertain you with a bit of a Tropical Distraction! :o)

As most of you know I'm going to be a Destination Bride! Woohoo!!! The time for my wedding scouting trip to Mexico (May 30th - June 6th) is getting close and I'm getting more excited. I'm thrilled to bits bloggies!

Today I will be speaking to my dream cinematographers (telephone consultation). They do awesome work and they're also familiar with destination weddings. In fact, two members of the StillMotion team were recently married in St. Lucia. What follows is a trailer they did for their wedding.

Enjoy!!!!

Our Wedding Trailer from StillMotion on Vimeo.

Blogger Interruptus!

Hola bloggies:

I have a wonderful weekend recap to share with you - unfortunately Blogger informed this morning that I have exceeded my storage quota (for pictures) and it won't let me upload anything else. Boo-urns!

I've paid for more storage but unfortunately it will take up to 24hours for me to be able to upload more pictures. Hopefully it will all be good to go this evening! Until then try not to pine too much for me! :oP

Have a lovely Tuesday bloggies! And if you live in British Columbia (Canada), don't forget to vote!!!!

Water and Mountains Make me Happy

Hola peeps!

Blogger and I are getting along again - so I can finally finish the entry I started days ago!! Shall we?

Many apologies for my blogging absence yesterday. You see the fiance had yesterday off and we have come to an agreement whereby I'll try to keep blogging to when he's not around. So I was busy spending time with the love of my life instead! lol :o) I'm sure you'll understand!

Thankfully the fiance also had this past weekend off which lead us to take one of our impromptu trips. This time we drove through a couple of mountain passes, a valley, a serious mountain pass (!) and finally found ourselves in the West Kootenays city of Nelson. It's a hippy dippy kind of town located on one of the arms of Kootenay Lake. It's wonderfully restored and has some amazing food! Plus the views are awesome too!!!

When we checked into the hotel (The Prestige) we discovered that there were a bunch of kids staying there for a band competition. Thus the hotel upgraded us for free (woohoo!!!) to their prestige level. It was a tricked out suite with a jacuzzi tub, huge flat screen TV, and a little flat screen in the washroom! lol I loved it!

Oh and there was a balcony which featured this:


What a view, eh!? I took this picture early on Sunday morning. When no one was awake and the lake was perfectly still.

Some more of the view:


I loved my trip to Nelson! Being near water again was good for my soul. It kind of reminded me of being in Victoria.

Now this is the part of the recap where I should probably explain that I indulged in a rare junk food treat this weekend. While in Nelson we hit up this Italian place that I had tried on a previous visit (when nothing else was open). They make THE best calzones. I had a Greek Vegetarian Calzone and opened it up so I could show you it's yummy-factor:


Well worth the calorie expenditure! :o) lol Not too worry though, I upped the healthy quotient by sharing a Greek Salad (sans dressing) with the fiance.


After my picture taking session on Sunday morning we headed out for a lazy and relaxing Sunday breakfast at a local hot spot: Oso Negro. It's a coffee shop that sells some baked goods and limited breakfast sandwiches. One look at the surroundings however and there's no doubt that it's THE place to be on a weekend morning.

While I waited for my breakfast sandwich to be made I nibbled on a bit of the fiance's breakfast cookie - featuring hemp. Now I know this may sound silly but I wasn't entirely convinced that this cookies was high-proof! :oP lol


When my sandwich arrived I was thrilled to see how big it was! lol What can I say? I woke up kind of starved!!!!


After breakfast we headed out on an excursion to a long-retired but beautifully restored paddle wheeler. Once upon a time it traveled the river from Idaho to Canada bringing passengers back and forth. Pity a service like that doesn't exist anymore! Nonetheless when we heard about the restored boat we decided to check it out!

On our arrival at the S.S. Moyie I was excited to see not only the beautifully restored boat but the stunning scenery too!


In it's heyday the S.S. Moyie turned the now sleepy town of Kaslo into quite the prosperous Port, as evidenced by the beautiful architecture on the main street:


The fiance and I had a wonderful time exploring both the boat and the town. We met some interesting characters too! In fact we had two random older people just come up and say hello and start talking to us. They were the most fascinating conversations!!! The first gentleman was originally from Cypres and was trained as a ship engineer in the Navy. He told us about his travels around the world, life on a Naval ship, and how he finally ended up in a small mountain town in Canada. The next lady was very old, probably 80 something, and she told us how she was originally from Alberta (Canada) and trained as a nurse so that she could see the world. When she finished her schooling she worked in Halifax (Nova Scotia), Toronto (Ontario), and San Francisco (California). She told us how she had many adventures and eventually settled down in the beautiful town of Kaslo.

Go figure! Those two conversations were amongst the highlights of my day. In fact I think I'll remember them for a long time to come. Moments like that make traveling worthwhile! :o)

Once back in Nelson we found ourselves in sweltering heat and so decided to indulge in a light dinner salad, accompanied by a glass of an ice cold beverage:


By this point it was getting late and we started our trip back home. In order to change things up we took the free (!) ferry across Kootenay Lake. Sure it's the slower journey home but it's definitely worth it for the views alone.

Check out the magnificence of my ferry journey home:


My pictures don't even come remotely close to doing the views justice! Let me put it to you this way - I have traveled all the way to the Norwegian Fjords and seen how beautiful they are. They were indeed wonderful but this particular area of Kootenay Lake is just as AMAZING! :o) I highly recommend it!!!

Instead of stopping along the way to eat dinner we headed home and had dinner courtesy of some left overs from my lunch the day before (pre-impromptu trip). But these weren't your average left overs - they were kind of special given how they started out:


And that bloggies was my random weekend trip! :o) Stay tuned for a recap of my week's highlights, an exercise video review, and tales of my half-marathon training!

See you tomorrow!!!