It's Saturday, and I got weighed!

Well, it’s time for another installment of Weight Watchers Saturday Update! I imagine this isn’t really that exciting for anyone but me, but hey, it’s my blog so I guess I can write about whatever I want J

So, I had a really great week diet wise this past week. I controlled myself better than normal over the weekend, and then didn’t go over my points every day through the week. I also managed to get to the gym three times, plus one evening I ran/walked outside with the dog, and another evening the hubby and I went roller blading. It was an active week by my standards, to say the least!

The scale reflected my awesome week and I was down 3 pounds, making it a grand total of 15 pounds! I couldn’t be happier with this. I had really struggled in May/June, but things are back on the upswing.

I did some digging around, and this is the only picture I could find of me at my heaviest, it was actually taken a couple of years ago, before I had lost weight for my wedding, but it does the trick, since my starting weight was about the same:

Here I am today, in a similar pose. As a side note, it was kind of awkward having hubby taken a photo of me from behind… It’s not a photo often requested… And this one is SO unflattering I can't even believe I am posting it!!!! Anyway, here it is:

I think the difference in the size of my derrier is noticeable! I am increasingly happy with my body J. We’ll see how I feel about it when I put a bathing suit on for the first time in a year in a couple of weeks!

Fresh spring rolls...

Or fresh rolls? I'm not sure of the exact name, but we like to order these when we go out for Vietnamese food, and I like to buy them for lunch sometimes from the sushi place in my building. Because of that, I am not entirely sure of their country of origin!! Oh well, I do know that they are completely delicious.

I had been craving these all week, and since my husband was going to be gone all day on Saturday, and I was looking for a way to pass time, I thought I could try to make these myself! They were pretty easy, and not too expensive. They'll definitely become a staple in our diet now! The best part? Three of the rice wraps were 70 calories, and they were filled with veggies and a little vermicelli, so I feel like they are pretty Weight Watchers friendly. I will have to try to actually calculate the points value... and report back!

Here's what I needed:
- rice wraps (there are a ton in 1 package, we have lots left over)
- 1/2 package of vermicelli
- a handful of salad shrimp (I hate seafood so these went into the ones I made for my husband)
- 1 avocado sliced
- 1/2 red pepper sliced
- 1 cup of shredded carrot
- 1/2 cucumber (peeled, seeds removed, cut into spears)
- 2 sprigs of fresh mint
- 1 sprig of fresh basil (which I picked from our garden!!!!!!)

I cooked the vermicelli by putting it in a pot of boiling water for about 45 seconds. To prepare the rice wraps, I filled a large pasta serving bowl with hot water. I liked the pasta bowl because it was big enough for the rice wrap to lay flat. So, you have to prepare one wrap at a time by letting it soak in the water until it is soft. Then you lay the wrap carefully onto a damp dish towel. Add the ingredients to the center of the wrap.

I then folded the left and right slides onto the fillings, and then just rolled them up! I put them all on a bed of lettuce on a platter. Since I had done this a couple of hours in advance, I put them in the fridge with the damp dish towel covering them.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without my most valuable kitchen tool:

I didn't stop at the rolls though, I knew my husband would be super hungry when he got home, so I cut up some pita to have with hummus, and made a huge salad for each of us! Oh, and how could I forget about the peanut sauce for dipping??? YUM. I didn't make it from scratch since my coworker recommend the "Thai Kitchen" peanut satay sauce instead. Oh man, it was awesome.

The salad had cucumbers, baby romaine, tomato, red pepper, carrot, croutons, and ranch dressing.  That wraps up my weekend adventures in the kitchen! We really enjoyed this meal and I highly recommend it. This might be start of many good things to come :).

What have you guys been making lately?



Saturday Weight Watchers Update!

I have some great news to share! I went to Weight Watchers this morning and this week I lost 2 pounds! Even with some pretty terrible eating last weekend. I am so psyched about this. I am back under 170 pounds for the first time since just after our wedding. I am at 169 right now, and I was about 165 at our wedding. I am so proud of myself. It feels so great to be in control of something. Weight loss is great that way, and awesome for the self esteem.

This week I managed to go to the gym twice. The first day I took it pretty easy on the elliptical and did 35 minutes. The next day though, I actually ran on the treadmill for the first time in well over a year. I only made it about 2.25 miles, but it felt amazing. I forgot how much I actually LIKE running.  I have been dealing with pretty chronic back pain since I was about twelve years old, and my physiotherapist suggested not running anymore, but I think if I keep the runs fairly short it might be ok. We'll see how it goes! I can't wait to build up some more mileage (probably only up to 6ish miles)!

I am been thinking about my next steps and goals, and I definitely want to keep running. I am planning on signing up for a 10k race in the fall. As far as weight goals, I am planning on getting down to 160 and then re-evaluating, and possibly going to 155. In high school I weighed 145 pounds but I don't think I can possibly get there again, so I think 160 is pretty reasonable. Only 9 pounds to go :)

Has anyone reached any weight loss or fitness goals/milestones recently?

Overnight Oatmeal in a jar...

Since I have been trying to lose weight, I have been eating the exact same breakfast every morning: whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter. It’s 7 Weight Watchers points, which seems excessive given that it’s hardly any food! Anyway, it was good for a while but quickly became very boring (it’s been 3 months with the same breakfast). I started looking around for a better option, and I found it!

I’ve seen a lot on Pinterest about overnight oatmeal and I finally decided to give it a try. It is so simple and oh so delicious. I can make it the night before, which is a definite plus, and it’s versatile, I figure I can try all kind of different “flavours”. This is inspired by the recipe posted on Skinny Taste, but I have modified it to my liking. With my recipe, I figure it’s about 4 points, maybe even less. Here’s how to make it:

All ready to go into the fridge for the night!

1. Put ¼ cup of uncooked quick oats in the mason jar (jar isn’t necessary, plastic container with lid would work fine)
2. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon (more or less depending on your love of cinnamon!)
3. Add ½ cup of no sugar added vanilla almond milk
4. Add one half a banana, mashed
5. Add about ½ cup of raspberries
6. Put the lid on and shake.
7. Leave overnight in your fridge.
8. It’s really that easy.

And all ready to eat in the morning :)

I first made this with regular 1% milk, which worked fine too, but when I did that I had to add about a teaspoon of brown sugar. With the almond milk I didn’t need any extra sweetener. Guys, it was so so so good. I’m thinking even if you don’t normally like oatmeal, you may still like this! I am going to try it with some other berry options.

Besides berries, any recommendations on what I could try? I’m thinking maybe raisins or nuts? What do you guys think?

101 in 1001...

Everyone seems to be doing this, and I think it's a great idea to set some goals for the future. It's also a great idea to make some of them small, so you don't feel like a loser when you can't cross something off  of your list for a while. I decided to do the 101 in 1001 challenge, and I started it back in April. That means I have until December 28th, 2014 to complete and check off everything on this list. Purple are completed, green are in progress. So far I think I am off to a great start! I'll update once in a while with the progress :)

1. Start blogging (Started in May 2012)
2. Take a photography class
3. Take a cake decorating class (Completed in April 2012 at Michael's)
4. Blog every day for 30 days
5. Go to NYC (Went for our 1st anniversary in May 2012)
6. Plant a vegetable garden (Planted a veggie garden with my mom in June 2012)
7. Sell 1 item a month from our Etsy shop
8. Lose 20 pounds (get to 160 lbs)
9. Maintain weight for 6 months
10. Refinish a piece of furniture
11. Reupholster an old piece of furniture
12. Go to Las Vegas
13. Take a knitting class
14. Knit a winter hat
15. Take one photo I am really proud of
16. Take a photograph of a rainbow
17. Say “yes” to something I wouldn’t normally
18. Host a dinner party for 8
19. Go a week without buying anything
20. Read 100 books
21. Don’t say anything negative for one day
22. Complete a 365 day photo challenge
23. Try a sport I've never tried before (DH and I are playing flag football this summer 2012!)
24. Donate money to a charity
25. Kiss in the rain
26. Make spaghetti sauce from scratch
27. Bake and decorate a birthday cake for someone (Baked my husband's birthday cake in June 2012)
28. Try a new recipe once a month for a year
29. Find out my blood type
30. Go to the gym 5 days a week for a month
31. Take a cooking class
32. Send a hand written letter
33. Spend a weekend without the internet
34. Make bread without the bread maker
35. Train Leroy to come when called
36. Learn how to cook fish!
37. Finish the photo wall going to the basement
38. Go to a wine tasting
39. Make homemade ice cream
40. Watch Gone With the Wind
41. Carve a pumpkin
42. Figure out what to do with my wedding dress
43. Send in the paperwork and get my PEng
44. Have a blog post published on a well known blog
45. Have my blog redesigned to have a more personal style
46. Make a meal with all ingredients bought at the farmer's market
47. Throw a surprise party for someone
48. Go on a girl's weekend with my sister
49. Have a will written
50. Try being vegetarian for one week
51. Write 100 thank you notes
52. Meet an internet friend in person
53. Go on a picnic
54. Go camping with the dog
55. Go to trivia night
56. Be professionally fitted for a bra
57. Send at least 3 letters to the editor of our local paper
58. Move my blog to self hosted
59. Give up Facebook for a week
60. Try 10 beers I have never tried before (Rickard's White)
61. Go to an exercise class that makes me feel awkward
62. See 45 movies in the theatre
63. Go for a ride in a helicopter
64. Get a promotion
65. Eat at 10 new restaurants
66. Host Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner
67. Make a surprise visit home to see my family
68. Spend 1 day a week television free for 6 months
69. De-clutter our house
70. Go to a comedy show
71. See The Nutcracker at the NAC
72. Do something nice for someone anonymously
73. Go to a spa
74. Go to a Green Bay Packers game
75. Give a 100% tip
76. Have a booth at a craft sale
77. Take a spontaneous road trip
78. Create a scavenger hunt
79. Decorate Christmas cookies
80. Finish bathroom and back room in basement
81. Finish the fence in the backyard (Last pieces went up in May 2012!)
82. Buy a mouse pad for my desk at work
83. Learn how to use all of the applications on my Mac
84. Grow and use 3 varieties of herbs (halfway done - have grown basil, oregano, and parsley)
85. Organize all of the documents/photos on my computer
86. Finally load up my digital picture frame
87. Go to a drive-in movie theatre
88. Have someone guest post on my blog
89. Go on a date night once a month with my husband
90. Get 5,000 views of my blog (484 of 5000)
91. See the Best Picture Oscar winner from the last 10 years.
92. Enter a photo contest
93. Complete a crossword puzzle
94. Host a poker night
95. Buy a bigger TV for our basement den
96. Plant a tree
97. Read a novel in french
98. Make homemade jam
99. Write a letter to myself to open in 10 years
100. Write a list of 101 things I have already achieved in life
101. Celebrate finishing this list!

Update: Always a struggle...

See Part 1 here!

Well, we're back from NYC and I am back to update you on the weight loss situation. I went on the trip with every intention to be reasonable and not stuff my face. That is not what happened at all. What is it about vacation that makes you feel like you deserve to eat candy every day? I literally ate candy every. single. day. First it was big feet (my favourite!), then it was M&Ms from the M&M store in Times Square. I am not proud of myself even a little.

For meals I didn't do very well either. I tried not to go overboard but I still had french fries and burgers, and a fully loaded baked potato with my steak dinner (yum!). For breakfast I ate a bagel and cream cheese every day at the hotel, and some days I also added a chocolate croissant. Just writing all of this out makes me embarassed and ashamed!!!

We did end up walking a TON. Our hotel was 1.5 hours of walking from what I would call the main "area", which was Midtown I guess. We didn't take the subway because we wanted the exercise. The only day we didn't walk was Monday, since it was pouring rain. I was hopeful that all of the walking would help balance out the poor food choices.

When we got back, I didn't weigh myself for a couple of days. I drank a ton of water and went back on the diet, aside from eating our wedding cake from the freezer. On Saturday I skipped Weight Watchers again. We had plans with my parents and I just didn't want to make the trip there. I vowed to go the next week. Then I ate out A LOT with my family. And didn't exercise at all. The next Saturday came and I skipped Weight Watchers yet again. Then again.

I finally went to Weight Watchers this past Saturday, 4 weeks after our trip. I gained 0.5 pounds. Not too shabby given how awful I have been doing! This weekend was bad too, but I am determined to hit the gym this week and get myself under 170 come Saturday!!!! Will keep reporting back :)

Tails & Toes

On the right sidebar you can see the link to the Etsy shop I have with my mom. Technically we started it last summer, but we didn't really put in effort until a few weeks a go. We gathered up everything my mom had made (I'm more of the marketing person, she's the creator - for now, I am trying to learn!) and tried to take some more professional looking pictures of everything.

We are focusing on baby and pet stuff, but we do have a few aprons thrown in there. Basically we're trying out a few different things to see what might be popular. So far we are getting a ton of views of our shop/listings, but no one is biting the bullet and purchasing something. It's interesting, as an engineer I have very little experience in business, so this is a really great learning experience. I've been putting a lot of time into figuring out how exactly you make a business successful. I've taken to twitter and facebook (go like our page! http://www.facebook.com/TailsToes) and now I am posting about it here. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Our Backyard Transformation...

My parents come to visit about twice a year, and every time we decide on a house project we want to accomplish. See, for now my hubby and myself are not very handy. We can’t do even a sliver of the things my mom and dad are capable of, so we enlist their assistance! Hopefully over time this will change a little. My hubby is really keen to learn, and always tries to help my dad so that he might be able to do whatever task in the future. Anyway, this trip we decided to work on the landscaping in the backyard. I really wanted to plant a vegetable garden and test out my green thumb.

Here's what we started with:

My dad built us two raised garden boxes, one is about 4 feet by 8 feet, the other is small, only about 2 feet by 4 feet. I planted all of the vegetables and herbs in the larger bed. Also in the large bed, two lilies, a clematis, and sweet peas. In the smaller bed we planted a peony (relocated from the front yard) and a hydrangea. It doesn’t look like the peony is going to bloom this year though L Oh, and I almost forgot!! Next to the large bed we planted a rhododendron. I am really hoping it blooms this year, but I think it might be a bit too late. Anyone know?

For the beds my dad used mini ties and nails. He marked out the wood and cut using a reciprocating saw. Once all of the pieces were cut him and hubby nailed the beds together using …. Nails. It was pretty simple. He was done both beds in an hour or two, and then we went to work dumping many many bags of dirt inside. The whole thing was a pretty good workout! For vegetables I planted: one large tomato plant, one cherry tomato plant (which is supposed to produce both yellow and red), four green pepper plants, a habanero plant, and a banana pepper plant. For herbs we’ve got chives, basil, oregano, and parsley. We bought a trellis for the clematis, and the sweet peas. Hopefully they’ll like this system and climb like crazy!

Here’s the yard once we had everything planted:

And here it is today, 2 weeks later. You can see the sweet peas are starting to poke up through the ground, and the clematis is starting to climb! We have a few green tomatoes, and the herbs are doing well too. I really hope to see some red tomatoes, and some signs of peppers in the next few weeks. 

And over by the deck, the peony and hydrangea are doing pretty well. We also planted some nasturtiums to fill the space in between with color until the hydrangea blooms. Like I said above, I'm pretty sure the peony isn't blooming this year since we disrupted it by moving it from the front yard.

So that's our backyard makeover for now! I'll come back with some more updates once it gets even fuller and we have some yummy red tomatoes. Gardening with my mom was so much fun!! It was a great activity to do while my parents were visiting, and we got to spend a ton of time outside. 

Just to wrap up, here's a side-by-side to compare more easily:

Football Birthday Cake!

This year for my hubby’s birthday I decided to bake him a cake in the shape of a football. I’ve always wanted to try a character type cake, but since we have no kids, and really don’t know anyone with kids close enough to us for me to do this, my husband became the guinea pig. Whatever. Twenty-six year olds can have kid cakes too, right?

I’ve been into baking since I graduated university 3 years ago, and it stems from my mom being so awesome at it. She has a small wedding cake business, and I just thought it was so cool. I took the Wilton’s cake decorating class at Michael’s, and I really learned a lot. Before taking the class I baked very yummy cakes but had very little idea how to decorate them. I took this back in April, and this is really the first opportunity I am getting to put what I’ve learned to practice, even though character cakes were only a very small portion of the class on the very first day… Oh well, it’s fun!

Since a football is brown, I decided to decorate it with chocolate icing, instead of coloring the icing brown. Thus, I decided on a chocolate cake as well. I got this recipe a while ago from Wife From Scratch, it’s one of the best chocolate cake recipes I’ve tried! It filled the football pan and made 6 extra cupcakes. I have used it before to make a 2-layer cake and had some leftover for a couple of cupcakes.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch process
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup neutral vegetable oil, such as canola, soybean or vegetable blend
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray your pans with Pam for Baking. If you don't want to use the special Pam, you can grease and flour your pan(s)8-inch round cake pans. 

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine them well. Add the oil and sour cream and whisk to blend. Gradually beat in the water, vinegar and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs and beat until everything is well blended. Pour into your pan(s).

The football pan took a freakishly long time. I would say it was an hour before a toothpick came out clean. I think it was because it was so deep. Regular cake pans should take about 30-35 minutes. Let cool in the pans for about 20 minutes. Remove cake from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

The football pan was a little bit annoying in other ways too. I couldn’t get it to sit flat, so the cake ended up baking kind of lopsided. It didn’t really matter too much since it gets turned outside down on the plate anyways, so I wasn’t super concerned. After baking, I let the cake cool and then put it onto the “cake” plate, which was actually a turkey platter. Hey, it is oval, so it works! I wrapped it in the saran wrap and came back to decorate it 2 days later.

Here’s what I needed to decorate it:

• Wilton 10 inch featherweight icing bag (any icing bag would be fine)
• Wilton cake decorating tip #18 (for the brown portions) and #21 (for the white portions)
• Chocolate buttercream icing
• White buttercream icing
• Template that came with the football pan
• My awesome baking apron (made by my mom!! Here’s a plug to visit our Etsy shop – Tails & Toes)

Head on over to our Etsy store to see more cute stuff!

Here's the icing recipe:

• 1 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 9 teaspoons water
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon meringue powder

Cream the shortening, vanilla, and water in a stand mixer, or with a hand held mixer. Add icing sugar and meringue powder and mix. I only add a bit of the dry mixture at once to make sure it doesn't poof up and fly everywhere. Add more water if the icing seems to thick to spread easily.  For chocolate icing I added 3/4 cup of cocoa powder!

And finally, here’s some pictures of how it turned out!

In which we go to NYC wrap up!

On day 3 of our trip, we walked all the way from our hotel to the southern end of Central Park. We stopped to have a look inside Grand Central Terminal, which was pretty cool. The architecture was just amazing. We spent some time walking around the Upper East Side, just looking at the amazing townhouses and wondering who might live there. We at lunch at a little diner that was actually pretty good, we thought it was funny that it was called “Eat Here Now”, and we complied. I had a spinach salad and my husband had some kind of souvlaki platter. Both were pretty good, and the service was excellent so we couldn’t complain.

Beautiful interior of Grand Central Terminal

After lunch we headed into the park and walked around. The weather was gorgeous, couldn’t have asked for any better! We spent some time just sitting on a park bench and people watching, and then walked around some more. I was wearing new shoes and my feet were absolutely killing me. I didn’t wear my new MK flats because I didn’t want to wreck them by walking around for 7+ hours. I should have worn them. I turned into a big complaining pain in the butt. We had to stop a lot. Anyway, I tried to be a trooper.

 

Mid-afternoon, around 4, we started to feel hungry and decided to stop in at Micky Mantle’s for a snack and a beer. We ended up staying for 3 hours because it was just so relaxing. We sat out on the patio and people watched, and I think we had 3 beer each, plus a yummy spinach dip, and later, some waffle french fries. Around 7 we decided that the sun was starting to set a little, and figured it would be reasonably dark once we walked to Times Square, so we paid the bill and were on our way!

Times Square was cool, but not my favourite place. I am not particularly fond of crowds, and neither is my husband, so we really didn’t stay very long. I did get some decent photos. I made my husband stand guard while I stood in the middle of the street to take some pictures (in a crosswalk of course!). We visited the M&M store too, and I had to get some coconut M&Ms, amazing! Who knew they existed?! That was so exciting.

 

We woke up to insane rain on Monday morning. It definitely seemed like a day best spent indoors, so we rode the subway up to the Museum of Natural History. I would have preferred to go to the MET, but it’s not open on Mondays! Oh well, we’ll be back for sure. Anyway, the subway was interesting. We accidentally got on an express train and ended up at 125^th street instead of 82^nd. Oops. At least it was only a minor detour and we made it safely to the museum shortly after! I forgot to bring my nice camera, so I only took a few pictures with my iphone. Honestly, it was ok, but it wasn’t super exciting. We’re not really museum people, and it was so crowded and confusing. And the good exhibits all cost extra, so we didn’t bother. It was huge though, so we were able to spend pretty much our entire day there, and since it did honestly pour rain for the entire day, that was a very good thing!

 We went back to the hotel and had Chipotle for supper. I had heard about it a lot on the blogs I read, and decided even though it was a chain, we had to try it. It was delicious! We both had chicken burritos, and they were STUFFED full of toppings. I was so full and satisfied afterwards! It was a decent way to end our trip to the big city. We went to bed early since we had to be up for our flight in the morning.

Thanks for sticking around and reading my recaps! All in all we had such a great trip. We both decided that if we were super rich we would definitely move there. The atmosphere was just amazing, and the shopping couldn’t be beat. Maybe one day… Until then, I’ll keep living my normal, relatively boring life, and loving it!

Small kitchen update!

When we first moved into our house, we had very little in the way of wall art or decor. My parents came to visit, and my mom and I decided to add an accent wall in the kitchen. We used some fun wallpaper. It was a relatively easy task, wallpaper has come a lonnnnng way! Plus the piece of wall we did was very small, it only took three strips of paper to cover it. Here's the result:

This really did the trick for a long time, but something kept bugging me about it. I think it made the little eat-in part of our kitchen seem very dark. We don't get a ton of natural light since we're in a middle unit townhouse, and this wasn't making it much better. I started brainstorming, and waiting for something perfect to come up.

One day I was reading my favourite blog, Young House Love, and they featured the Etsy seller, Articipe. I fell in love with these recipe prints. What a great idea!! I decided I needed to have 3 for the wall in the kitchen. I ordered them, and they sat around for a couple of weeks while I tried to muster up the courage to take down the paper. We've all heard nightmare stories about removing wallpaper, and I was scared. I shouldn't have been! Apparently along with better designs, wallpaper has also come a long way with the adhesive, or rather, ease of removal of the adhesive. I finished in about 20 minutes!

Then we framed the 3 Articipe prints in crisp white frames, and left the wall unpainted. I am really liking the result!

It's already so much lighter. What a huge difference! We're hoping to paint the wall the same taupe brown color we have on the rest of main floor of our house, but I was so excited to get the prints up I settled for the builder beige for now! Here's some more awesomeness:

 Not only is the quality amazing, but Erin was so awesome to deal with. She was very quick with the communication and very friendly. I highly recommend purchasing from her shop! You can get custom recipes/designs, but I stuck with her stock options. Again, I am just so in love!

In which we go to NYC part deux...

In which we go to NYC part 1

On our second day in the big city, we walked all the way up Broadway to Fifth Avenue, and explored some of the fancy shops, went to the New York Public Library, and at lunch at Serendipity 3. It was a 1.5 hour walk, we wanted to get as much exercise in as possible to balance out the food we planned on eating, haha! There was a pretty large farmer’s market happening in Union Square, which I thought was really cool. We thought we might see some celebs there, but no dice. The flowers were pretty though!

I am a terrible (read: brand new) blogger and didn’t get a picture of our lunch, but I did remember to take on of the famous frozen hot chocolate! After seeing some people get theirs, we decided we could definitely split one, and that was a wonderful decision. I think I would have wanted one all to myself if we didn’t have a big lunch right before. We went with the peanut butter frozen hot chocolate, since peanut butter and chocolate are the two greatest loves of my life, aside from my husband, I guess ;)

 After lunch we walked to Rockefeller Center and went in some of the stores around there before heading to the NBC Studio Tour. Oh my god. What a giant waste of time that was!! It was so highly recommended, and we were so excited, and it sucked. We were extremely disappointed. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures, which wasn’t a big deal, but we also didn’t get to see anything remotely interesting, only a couple of news studios. Honestly, it was a big waste of time and money. I really wouldn’t recommend going.

 After the tour we went into a few more stores, notably, Michael Kors, where I purchased my amazingly comfortable flats. They are my new favourite pair of shoes. I have never been so comfortable!! They were definitely worth the splurge. Definitely.

Oh, and I did splurge (at least for me) on sunglasses earlier in the day too, at Bloomingdale’s in SoHo. I love them so much and try to take really good care of them. I usually only buy cheap sunglasses. Before this pair, the most I have spent is $20. And I bought them at a gas station in New Brunswick, so they weren’t exactly… rockin’. Not like my new lovelies J

 After Michael Kors we did something rather embarrassing. We ate supper at TGI Fridays. In NYC. I hang my head in shame… but we were so tired and my feet hurt so bad and it was just right there, and nothing else was really around. It sucked. It was easily the worst food we ate while on our trip. And afterwards we went back to the hotel. I think it was around 7 when we got back, and we just went to bed. I guess the 7 hours of walking really caught up with us, but whatever. We were refreshed for the next morning anyway, which was great!

Only one NYC post left! Stay tuned!

Leroy...

Bad bad Leroy Brown...

We certainly think our little guy is the baddest dog in the whole damn town!! He's got a serious attitude problem, but we love him anyways. I think it's because he's cute. If he were an ugly dog we would dislike him a lot more... Just joking of course. He has a ton of energy and personality though. He can be a handful.

I've mentioned him a lot already, but haven't really talked about him. He's 2 years old and he's a Welsh terrier! Here he is in all his glory...

And here's one of my favorites of me with him, celebrating Canada Day!! He was freshly groomed.

Annnnnnd finally, here's a few of him being super silly. Can't wait to share more amusing stories in the future!