Another Year Wiser

With the wisdom comes many other things... Age, gray hairs, fine lines, belly fat, the list goes on and on. With each birthday that passes, I find myself less wanting to celebrate but more wanting to reflect on the year gone by. Remember when we were young and birthdays meant family dinners because we hadn't started school yet to make friends? This was me up until grade 7. I had the occasional birthday with neighborhood friends, but because my birthday is in the summer, I never had classmates come. Fast forward to the age where birthday celebrations meant nights out with friends and significant others, eating, drinking and celebrating. I've done my fair share of those as well. The past couple of years I find myself more wanting to revert back to the good ol' days where birthdays were celebrated with a gathering of family and good food. 

Today I celebrated my birthday by going to the downtown City Market with my husband. We had a great lunch at Dauphine's Bakery & Bistro, which included the Trio Plate and the Croque Monsieur, both came with fresh farmer's market salads. Jamie got a latte and it came in this massive bowl that neither one of us has seen before. The waitress said that's how it was traditionally served. 
After lunch we stopped into our favorite coffee shop, Credo, for a London Fog w/ Rooibos tea and a latte.Sipping our drinks, we strolled along the market and purchased a variety of goodies! Fresh peaches from BC, more fresh organic peaches, lemon stuffed olives, whole wheat pita with chili hummus, cherry tomatoes, assorted tomatoes, dandelion honey, and elk antler/bones for Khuno. I also dragged Jamie into my new office building to show him where I work now. 

We got home shortly after and I came downstairs to find a hand drawn card from my hubby, inspired by the London's famous, "Keep calm and carry on" fad. Then we headed off again with Khuno to Rivercree for a buffet dinner with my parents, brother and sister-in-law. We left Khuno with Audi together alone for the first time and when we returned home, poor Khuno was so exhausted. 
It's been a while since we had a fire pit night so we cranked that baby open and made some s'mores. My amazing friends came over and brought birthday cinnamon buns with them for roasting on the fire, something that we've never done before. Something about fires that just makes people want to roast things on a skewer! 
This past year has been full of changes. We became husband and wife, went on an amazing honeymoon, witnessed several of our friends get married, and I took on a new challenge in my career. It really has been a year for adventure and I know the next one will be just as, if not more, exciting for our little family. Our next big project: re-shingling the roof. 

366 Photo Project - Photo 48: Europe

Hello. Hallo. Bonjour. Ciao. Hola. We're back from our 4 week long honeymoon and it was amazing. We got to 8 different cities, 12 if you count all the Cinque Terre towns, 13 if you count our 5 hour layover Parliament visit in Ottawa and 14 if you count the Frankfurt airport. We aren't big planners as you could tell from our wedding procrastination and it was no different with our honeymoon. We stayed up late into the night booking hotels the day before we left and figuring out our Italy itinerary. It's a good thing our flight out wasn't till 10:00 PM the next day. We packed for most of the following day and headed off to Europe. Over the next few weeks months, I'll be sharing random photos and any stories that go along with it. This photo was actually taken at the last stop of our trip, Barcelona. The beach there was gorgeous with nice soft sand and beautiful golden flecks throughout the ocean water. We tried writing in the sand a couple times and could hardly snap the photo fast enough before the waves washed it away. You can see in the bottom left hand corner that the wave was already fast approaching! Although I miss laying on the beach, it's nice to be home. Happy Canada Day everyone!