Year in Review:2019

As I sit here and write this, it’s New Year’s Eve. James and the boys went skiing, but I volunteered to stay back and watch Leo. I’ve got Desperate Housewives playing in the background and the dog beside me chewing on his bone and not my shoes. A little alone time is the perfect way to end a busy 2019. After months of being quiet on the blog, it felt good to hammer one more post out before closing out the year.

January

On a very cold and snowy weekend in January, we used Santa’s coupon to take the boys to Edmonton for a weekend of fun at the mall. I think this may easily be Grady’s favorite place in the world! Santa splurged on a theme room and we spent a full day at the water slides. A great family weekend away! 

February

The girls and I go to Edmonton every fall to shop so when the Justin Timberlake concert was supposed to be the same weekend, we bought tickets! Then JT got sick, and the concert was canceled. While at first we were disappointed, the bonus was that we got an extra trip in February for the make up concert! JT quickly became one of my favorite artists and is a frequently played album on my play list. Ironically, I am wearing this sweatshirt right now. What a memorable night!

March

March is always a heavy hockey month for us. Each March for the past three years our team has hosted a tournament in Banff, and this year was no different. Grady’s team made a run in city playoffs, and Cooper’s Team headed to the mountains!

After the hockey season wrapped up, we headed to Maui for two weeks. This was the first year that the boys really appreciated Hawaii, which makes James and I happy since it’s our happy place!

April

In April, I made a trip to Saskatoon to celebrate my BFFs 40th birthday. I love that as part of her celebration she chose to have professional pictures taken of all of us individually, and most importantly, together. When I look at this photo, I still see the girls that I’ve known for 20+ years. Though we’ve aged, we’ve gotten married, we’ve had children, I know these gals will always have my back.  Always. 

May

The highlight of the month for me was attending Grady’s spring camp at Fort Steele. Though I don’t get to spend a lot of direct time with him, I get to watch him with his friends and his teacher and experience first hand what he does at camp.  The fact that he lets me keep volunteering means that I don’t embarrass him quite yet. Soon enough, soon enough…

June

The biggest event in June is this dude turned 11! Enough said.

July 

July was a big month.  Big.  HUGE.  In July, I turned the big 4-0! We celebrated by going on a biking pub crawl and a house party.  We also made a trip to Saskatchewan, had weekend visitors, and headed to Kelowna for our summer vacation! We crammed in ALL the fun.

August

In August I ran my third half marathon and earned a new PB. The next weekend, after burning all those calories running, we headed for our annual camping trip where we consumed nothing but hot dogs, chips, and beer.  My kind of combo!

September

The boys started grade 3 and grade 6. Its the last year they’ll be at separate schools! I’ll no longer have to color code my calendar, all smiles here!

October 

We always look forward to Thanksgiving weekend when my Dad and family come to visit! We watch hockey, shop, and attempt to do a fall walk, weather permitting. This past Thanksgiving we were dog sitting a black havapoo named Lovey which made the weekend extra memorable with all the pee I had to clean up! We’re lucky we got a dog after that weekend… Ha!

November

November may go down in the books as one of the best months ever! We did a family trip to Disneyland, I had a trip to LA with my girlfriends, and we welcomed Leo to our family. It will be a long time until another month tops this one.

December 

This year, because of Leo, we drove back to Saskatchewan for Christmas. We had a great time celebrating with my side of the family.  We are so lucky to have so many people to celebrate with!

2019 was a great year, and though I haven’t had time to document as much of it as I would like to, I will always remember it as a good one.

2019 was great one, bring it on 2020... Happy new year!

2019 Tree Ornaments

Each year, we accumulate new ornaments to add to our 'memory' tree.  It started years ago when I would buy one ornament for each of the boys that represented their interests for that year. Often, it was a different version of the same ornament.... this year included.  Then, I started adding ornaments purchased on vacation, and now I buy them just because… I always write the year on the bottom in sharpie so we know how old it is.  Decorating the tree is one of the traditions that the boys have embraced at Christmas time and I love it! We pull ornaments out one by one and remember when we bought them. Well,Grady and I more than the others, LOL.

This year, the activity of the year with scootering. The kids literally scootered until the first major snowfall in November. They would choose scootering over anything, gaming included, except maybe hockey! It was only fitting that a scootering ornament be added to our tree this year, or two!  I find these personalized ornaments on Etsy.

Last year we painted ceramic ball ornaments, and this year I bought these wooden ornaments (at Grady's request) that we colored with markers. Grady can be so thoughtful and made an ornament for his dad and his brother, of course not his mom.... insert eye roll. I made one for myself and added it to the tree!We still have half of them in the box ready to decorate next year.

We found this snorkeling Santa in Maui in the spring. I chose this one because the kids snorkeled for the first time and loved it. Though we couldn’t get them on a snorkeling boat, we hope to next time.

The skiing moose was purchased on New Year’s Day 2019, as we left Kananaskis after celebrating NYE with friends. We force the kids to ski at least one time per year and it’s often on this trip. The kids are with James skiing as I type this from the same hotel exactly one year later. Someone had to stay back and take care of the dog.....

This one isn’t actually an ornament but we turned it into one. I bought this on the field trip I attended with Grady’s class in the spring, hopefully I’ll get to go back with Cooper in a few years and buy a second one.

The Friends ornament was purchased at the Warner Bros. store in LA when we celebrated our 40th birthdays together. It seemed only fitting that I bought this one since we’ve been friends for decades and watched the sitcom together while in university.

Obviously, Leo gets an ornament or two on the tree as well! I ordered mine on Etsy before he even arrived home, and my MIL surprised us with one when we brought him home. Lucky dog!

I let each of the kids choose an ornament to represent our trip to Disney. Surprisingly, Cooper chose zero from nightmare before Christmas. Not surprisingly, Grady chose a Donald Duck ornament. I’m surprised this one made it home since he broke the first one he picked up in the store, Oops!

Often, a mom on the hockey team will make ornaments for the players, and this year was no different. We will probably have Cooper hanging on our tree in 30 years as well. There is still a picture of eight-year-old Christy in my girl guide outfit hanging on my mom’s tree in SK!

Last but not least, Cooper got this unicorn ornament from his auntie Bo for Christmas. She nailed it on this one as Cooper was a unicorn for Halloween, and still wears his onesie costume as pajamas. It was hung on the tree immediately!

Some years we add an ornament or two, and others, like this year, we add a lot more. I lost count of how many new ornaments we purchased during 2019. I like to think that that means it was a good year! Our tree is essentially at full capacity but it won’t stop me from buying more! Maybe we just need a bigger tree… 

Meet Leo!

After years of convincing, they finally broke me, we got a dog! Meet Leo!

Ever since I met James, I always knew he wanted to dog eventually. Initially, he thought it was a good idea to get one while I was on maternity leave and I shot that down idea pretty quickly. Now that I actually have one, I am confident that was the right decision! I’ve always been a dog person, my grandma had two boxers growing up, my brother had a dog, my mom had a dog,...but I’ve personally never had one. James had a dog growing up that I saw exactly one time before he passed, I still remember his fluffy white face. I always suspected a dog would be in our future, and as the kids got older we realized the time was now or never.

We decided to surprise the kids. They’ve been asking on and on since James' brother got a dog two years ago. It was in the spring that James started looking somewhat seriously on Kijiji to find one. We had even scheduled a FaceTime call with one pup but before the we could call it was sold. It was a really frustrating experience to try and find one available immediately. In the end, we decided to go with a breeder.

My girlfriend got her pup last spring from Wildflower Labradoodles out of Salmon Arm. Yes, it seems ridiculous to get your dog from BC when you could easily find one closer but we really wanted to make sure that it was a good breeder and she had nothing but good things to say, so we decided to follow in her footsteps.

Leo was born on September 4th and we got his pictures weekly from the time he was born to the time we picked him up on November 18. The timing of our vacation wasn’t ideal as we could’ve picked them up the week we left, but instead he stayed with his mama an extra two weeks before coming home to us.

Let’s talk a little bit about his name. When we started talking about getting a dog in the spring, the boys were all excited to name him Wiener, yes, Wiener. I’m a name person, so this was not gonna happen on my watch. Instead we used the same method we used to name the kids, I made a list of all the names that I liked and then James vetoed them and chose one from the list that I accumulated. I knew that I wanted a real name for our dog and Leo was the front runner almost immediately. So our dogs official name is Leo Wiener.

I have never seen James so excited. He made a special trip to Salmon Arm to meet the puppies and choose the perfect one for our family. When he called me after the visit he said there was a smaller calmer one and a bigger rambunctious one that really seemed to like him. I said the obvious decision was the smaller, calmer one, but of course he disagreed, he wanted the one that showed the most interest is it in him which happened to be the wild one. He is already a perfect fit for our loud and rowdy family! 

We decided to surprise the kids with the pup. James went to Salmon Arm to pick them up on Monday, and the boys and I went about our regular day, including a hockey practice that evening. We ate at the rink knowing that James needed some extra time to get the dog into the house to greet us. James was waiting in the family room with Leo expecting that he would run to the door when we came in, but he was wrong. When we arrived after hockey practice the dog bolted behind couch, he was terrified. Grady happened to catch a glimpse of the dog running behind the couch and asked his dad if that was a dog. He asked if we were dog sitting again, and when James said no that was the moment the kids realized that the dog was theirs. Grady came running over to each of us to give us a giant hug and then proceeded to convince little Leo out from behind the couch.

Leo started out as a very timid dog. When people came over he would run away rather than greet them and shake when they tried to pet him. He was scared of everything. Leo had a lot of adjustment to do to get used to our chaotic family.

On day two, the boys had three friends over. So let’s count, that’s a total of five boys in a house with a new puppy. He spent most of his time hiding and on more than one occasion I had to tell the kids to be quiet and go to a different room. Maybe day two wasn’t the day to introduce him to our extended brood of boys…

Our first weekend with Leo, Grady and James went out of town for a hockey tournament. Cooper and I were left in charge of the pup. It was way harder than I was expecting. It was cold and I would spend the majority of my time standing outside waiting for Leo to pee or better yet, poop. Instead, Leo mostly pooped on the carpet in the house. One particular time, I caught him in the pooping position. I grabbed him and I ran him outside where he had a little turd, I praised him, we came inside and found 90% of the poop on the carpet. This whole training a puppy thing is hard!

Here we are, almost 2 weeks into having a dog, and things are WAY better. Leo seems to be a very social dog, he no longer hided from people, and he excitedly greets us when we come in the room. He’s had his first set of puppy classes, and got an 'A' on his report card. We no longer have to stand outside for 45 minutes minutes waiting for him to do his business, most times we are down to under 5 min.

Leo has worked his way into our families and most of all our hearts. Even though he poops on my carpet, he nips constantly, and he gets up at 6 AM sharp, he is the most lovable and adorable dog I’ve ever met. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t threaten to give them back if he bit a hole in my dress pants, but I was only kidding. Mostly. I’m glad that James made the executive decision to add Leo to our family, it is hard to imagine our family without him!

The BFFs Celebrate 40 in LA!

This year, instead of going to Edmonton with my BFFs, we celebrated our 40th birthdays in LA! This is a big upgrade from our usual drive to West Edmonton Mall where we shop all weekend. Instead, our weekend was full of celebrity spottings, tours, show taping, live podcast, and more!

Believe it or not, this trip was actually planned before our Disney trip was decided. Each year on our trip, we pick the weekend for the next year so that we all keep it open. It seems to be the only way to allow six different moms to break away from the family for a few nights.

When my family started planning a Disney trip and the month of November was chosen, we worked it so that I wouldn’t have to fly back-and-forth. It couldn’t have been more perfect as my friends got off the same plane that my family got on at the airport.  

We may have been in the same city but the two trips were very different. 

From the very beginning, we really wanted to go and see some live show tapings. Our first choice was Ellen, but sadly we didn’t get tickets. Sara and I tried twice with different entries using different email addresses and were unsuccessful. Little did we know at the time we’d have many other opportunities during the week that made up for it.  

The first day was jam packed with excitement, so much so that we barely found time to eat! The first thing we did was a bus tour at TMZ where we saw many locations were others saw celebrities, HA!   My favorite part of the trip is when we drove by the hotel where pretty woman was filmed, that is One of my favorite movies of all time, and I think I’m due for a re-watch! I’m really happy we did the tour as we saw many parts of Hollywood that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise, but I’m not in a rush to do it again.

After the tour, we strolled the boulevard for a bit before it was time to get in line for Jimmy Kimmel Live. The thing with getting tickets is that you sign up two months in advance but you don’t actually find out if you got tickets until two weeks before (sometimes less!) and still when you accept the tickets you don’t know who the guest are going to be. The Jimmy Kimmel guests were Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park, among other things) and Camila Morrone (Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend, among other things). I had no idea who are the guest were, but the show was amazing and we walked away with a one year subscription to Disney+! 

What I found interesting that was for a one hour show, we waited in line for an hour, then we were seated, and waited probably close to another hour before the show started. But because Jimmy Kimmel is live, the taping of the show was actually only an hour.

James took the picture below of our TV screen the same night that it taped. While all six of us were at the show, only Dee and I were on air for this scene. James couldn’t spot us in the crowd during the show, but we could see ourselves given we knew where our seats were.

You may think that after Kimmel we decided to head back to the hotel room, but you would be wrong. Instead 4 of us headed to a live taping of Kaitlyn Bristowe’s podcast, Off The Vine. This was a last-minute addition to our agenda. We literally bought tickets the night before the show.

Believe it or not, this was my favorite part of the LA leg of the trip. While some of you may not know, Kaitlyn Bristow is a former Bachelorette and I listen to her podcast quite regularly. Interestingly enough, she wasn’t my favorite person on the stage that night. Her guest was Nick Viall , a former Bachelor, and also one of my favorites. He has a pod cast, The Viall Files, that I sometimes listen to though admittedly it is not my favorite. The best part is, that when we bought the tickets we didn’t actually know who the guest was, you can imagine the squealing from all of us when we found out Nick was the guest. On top of that, Blake from Bachelor in Paradise was the guest DJ, and Demi even made an appearance.  It was a super fun night filled with wine, laughter, and a whole lot of fan girling!

After a very hectic first day in LA we toned it down a bit for day two. The main event was to attend a taping of the Kelly Clarkson show which is brand new this season. I remember watching American Idol the year that she won and love her music so it was exciting to see her live.  She starts each episode by singing a song and that day her song was Bitter Sweet Symphony bu The Verve.  I remember this song well from my younger years and in particular for being in the movie Cruel Intentions which even she said she thought of when she sang.

Her guests were Kristen Bell, the voice of Anna, and Ne-Yo, who I'd never heard of. I really enjoyed the taping of her show and the format. The guests stayed on stage as the next guest was introduced and she engaged with both of them at the same time including a cooking session with Ne-Yo. Kelly Clarkson was very “normal“ and exactly how I would expect her to be.

There were some differences between the taping of this show and the live Jimmy Kimmel show. The breaks were substantially longer and she had an entire team come out to prep her for the next segment.  This included lint roller’s, make up people, hair people, and entire entourage fixing her up for air. It was interesting to see how scripted the show.  There was a woman standing out of view that had potential questions that Kelly should be asking her guest to lead them in a certain direction. It wasn’t just the show that I enjoyed, but seeing the whole process behind the scenes.

After the taping, a few of us headed to a taping of the sitcom, the Connors, and the other half of us headed back to Melrose Ave. to browse some shops and had a little fun with all the murals along the way. See picture above.

Sunday morning, our Uber was booked for 7 AM, which meant a very early start to the day. We had a Warner Bros. tour booked for 8:30 AM to maximize our last full day in LA. The highlight of the tour by far was sitting on the couch of the friends set. The show was such a big part of my adolescence and I watched it for years with these exact girls, so it just felt right to experience it with them.

Deena picked us a great hotel in Santa Monica right on the ocean, which Arnold Schwarzenegger dined at every morning... though we only spotted him once. We looked at the pier every morning as we hopped in our Uber and headed to our destination saying we were going to visit the pier soon.  Finally on our last day, a mere two hours before the sunset, we headed on a walk to the Santa Monica pier. It was a beautiful night, the sunset was beautiful, and the pier was crowded. Now that I’ve rekindled my love of roller coasters I actually wanted to go on the roller coaster at the pier but we were afraid the line would be too long so I passed. It really was a great way to say goodbye to LA.

This was a perfect trip for us. From celebrity watching to just the right amount of shopping, it was perfect! I have no doubt we will be talking about this experience for years to come. There’s always something about spending time with my oldest friends that makes my heart happy. Not everyone can say that they still spend time with their best friend from kindergarten or their roommates from University, but I can say both! I am so fortunate to call all of these women my friends. I think the Golden girls said it best when they said “thank you for being my friend“.

Happy 40th birthday to us all!