basement renos completed (mostly)!

We have finally finished our basement renos, at least stage one. We now have a fully functional office and TV area. It's fantastic! Stage two is the new bathroom and laundry room, which likely won't go into construction for a few months. We need a break! Check out the before and after shots on Flickr!

TWO NEW ADDITIONS TO THE WORLD!

On Sunday, two of my friends had babies! It's good to have more women in the world!!
Congratulations to Lianne and Phill on the birth of their second daughter, Morgan Jade Lambert!



Congratulations to Anne Marie and J.C. on the birth of their very first daughter, Claire Isabelle Laurence!!



Two beautiful and healthy babies!!

i've got the backyard blues

While we were on our honeymoon in Africa, there was a huge storm and one of the large trees that shaded our backyard came down. When we came home we noticed this huge loss! Both of the big trees that shaded our yard belong to neighbours. We lost a huge Norway Maple (Acer platanoides), and the Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) next door is starting to look sickly. : ( I tried to compensate for the loss by planting a Red Maple (Acer rubrum) (15 year old), and a new Bur Oak (3 years old), but right now they are SO small. I am also planning on planting some Alternate-leaved Dogwood (Cornus alternifolia), and some Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus inserta) vines to cover the bare look of the fence, but it is going to be a long time before we have the privacy that we enjoyed before!
Here are some before and after pics:

world of warcraft addiction (it totally is)

Everyone who knows me knows that I easily get addicted to computer games. The latest addiction is World of Warcraft. I am totally obsessed. Luckily I have wedding planning to distract me sometimes or I would be a total addict by now. It is really cool. My sister and her boyfriend play in BC and sometimes I get to play with them. I can “spend time” with my sister in a virtual world. A little geeky, I admit. Anyways, I came across these funny cartoons on the internet and I thought I would post them. They just seem so relevant!

hawksley workman in Mt. Forest

On Saturday night Alex and I went to see Hawksley Workman at The Old Roxy in Mt. Forest. We were supposed to go in March but the concert was postponed. Once again, dear Mr. Workman has blown me away. I never get tired of listening to his music or seeing him in concert. I can't explain the joy I feel knowing that I have discovered one of the best Canadian artists alive today. I crave, crave, crave any new music he puts out. Speaking of which, I picked up a tasty treat at the concert, a new cd called “my little toothless beauties”. I can't wait to give it a real listen. MMMM, hawksley goodness....

my 30th birthday

This past Sunday was my 30th birthday party. We arranged to go golfing at the Guelph Country Club. Afterwards we went out for my favorite treat, sushi! It was a really nice time, but like all big parties, I felt like I barely got time to talk to everyone. I wonder if this is what life is going to be like from now on. Sometimes I feel like I don't have enough time to spend with my friends. And when I do spend time with them, it flies by so fast that there is barely any time to really talk. I want to try to make more of an effort to spend time with people so that I am not always playing catch up. This summer is probably going to be the busiest summer of my life, what with the house renovations, the wedding and the trip to Africa, but I still need time to spend with my friends!! I am glad everyone could come out for my birthday and I am looking forward to this new decade of my life!
You can see some pictures here!

our trip to Mexico

Just thought that I would do a little write up of our trip to Mexico (my conference in Mexico actually). Just for background, we went to the Yucatan Peninsula and stayed in a city called Merida. We were there for the week, the last two days of which I was attending a conference.

It is best if you read this description while looking at the photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/noirs/sets/1833119/

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Merida. We were the only two people from the entire plane to NOT go to the all inclusive resort called The Reef Yucatan. It was pretty funny. When we arrived it was very hot and we were exhausted from getting up at 4 am to go to the airport. We ended up napping most of the afternoon, then we went to a street party. The people in Merida were celebrating the Festival de los Reyes (Three Kings Day), which is like Christmas in Mexico. It also happened to be the anniversary of the city of Merida while we were there, so everyone was partying a lot. We ate some cake and coke, just like the Meridans. It was interesting.

The next day we got on a bus to go to a Biosphere Reserve called Celustun. The big attraction there are the flamingos. It was really beautiful. We took a boat tour and also got to see an Mangrove swamp, a red crab and lots of neat birds. Finally, we went to see some freshwater springs. After the boat tour, we walked to the ocean and checked out the beach. It was a bit windy so we didn't go swimming.

The next day we decided to go to Chichen Itza, since it was really easy to get around by bus. Chichen Itza is one of the biggest Mayan ruins in the Yucatan. We spent the day there. We want to climb El Castillo but someone had fallen the day before so they closed it off. It was pretty interesting to see the ruins, especially to see the cenote. A cenote is a deep sinkhole in limestone with a pool at the bottom that is found especially in Yucatán Peninsula.

The next day we decided to take it easy and explore Merida. We had too many days in a row of long bus rides. Instead we walked downtown, checked out the zocalo (town square) and bought ourselves a really cool hammock. They also tried to sell us some hats but we declined.