Beach Bum

I could absolutely love to live close to an amazing beach but then maybe I wouldn't appreciate all these vacations like I do now.  I am totally addicted to going down south.  After my first vacation in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic I was told "You're going to get the itch now"...and it is positively true.  No I did not contract a VD but the itch of going to carrebean islands for vacations.  When I was UBER prego I would sit and look at the travelocity website over and over, torturing myself with wonderful locales that I would definitely NOT be going to anytime soon.  It is going to be almost a year since my last tropical vacation.  I had the pleasure of going to a small resort in Cayo Largo, Cuba.  It is a resort located off the southern coast of Cuba.  It is not a fancy-shmancy resort providing only one pool sans swim-up bar, a bit out of date look and (in my case) cold showers BUT the staff and beaches absolutely make up for it tenfold.  I also LOVED the fact that it was a smaller resort.  You did feel like you had some privacy and didn't have to mill amongst many tourists during your rest and relaxation period. 

Playa Blanca Cayo Largo, Cuba

Main lobby

Bar and stage area

When we arrived there we decided to grab a bite to eat and we were fortunate to meet Carlos, who ended up being our server and buddy for the entire week.  He made sure that our stay there was memorable and that our glasses of preferred beverage never went empty.  One word of caution.  If you plan on going to this particular place beware of the frenchies.  There were a lot of people from Montreal and let me tell you, I was not impressed with their behaviour.  They did not understand the concept of a line up and personal space.  (this is not to say that ALL people from Montreal are like that...just the ones that were there)  Other than that I absolutely loved it there.  Our room was 3 minutes away from the beach which was fantabulous.

A piece of paradise

View from our balcony

  ...Oh yeah...I guess I should say that the regular beach was washed away by the hurricane that passed by there earlier that year so we had to use the beach that was closer to our room.  Bonus you say?  Why yes, yes it was nice to be so close to the beach....the nudist beach that is.  Yup, that was where we were...No, no we did not go nude.  It would have been a bit awkward for me especially since I vacationed with my in-laws and my husband's other family members.  Funny moments include Uncle Lupco saying "Joanne, JOANNE LOOK...they are ALL naked!" (Out loud...in front of the nudists hehe), ride of hellish proportions going to another beach where we all squished into one car (think Fast and Furious minus the kick ass car, Vin Diesel and the NOS) and...well the nudists in general.  Let us say that not a single Brad Pitt-Achilles or Helen of Troy type was present at the beach.  Hell, I would have settled for semi-fit or less saggy...BUT when you see Jabba the Hut sitting on a chair spread eagle with nothing but a traveling mug as a cover for her privates...well that gets a bit disturbing.   At another point while we were strolling down the beach we passed by a man who was less than well endowed (in fact...it looked like there was nothing there and YES i did look...I couldn't help myself...don't worry he did not know as I was sporting some shades to cover my shifty eyes) and I thought "wow this man is either really really confident or really really clueless".  I have nothing against nudists either.  They may do as they please.  In fact, kudos to them for having the guts to show it all off.
The place was really lovely.  Especially the Playa Sirena.  That was the beach we visited with our race car driver for a taxi.  The sand, the water....WOW.

Absolutely amazing spot

Heaven on earth

It is later that we have actually been told and realised that because the sand is so fine (and I don't mean..DAMN that sand was FIIIIINE!) and white it does not burn your feet when you walk on it.  We also visited a Turtle farm where sea turtles hatch and get later released at another location.

Me and my little buddy.

  It was a fantastic vacation and I certainly enjoyed myself.   Drinks and food were good and plentiful, the entertainment was nice and all in all the place provided lots of R&R or party life as you pleased.

Hubby and I enjoying time at the beach

Night of shenanigans

Underwater fun

The Ladies...this was not rehearsed or planned

Playa Blanca in its glory

Having a good time

 In fact this was such a good vacation that I walked away with a little "Something Special' in the end ;) 
Tootles
Ewa
P.S. note of caution-When going down south make sure you bring your travel mug with.  Not to cover your bits and pieces but to have for your beverages.  You're welcome

10-10-10

For those of you who have been there you know what that series of numbers mean.  For those who have not, here is a little glimpse into what happened on that date. 

October 10th, 2010.  The date I married my best friend.  LuLu, you will always be my wifey but I mean my other best friend, my husband Daniel.  Now, before I go on...no, we did not pick that date because of the cool coincidence of the triple ten.  Daniel and I started dating October 10th 2006, he proposed to me 3 years after that on October 10th,2009 and so keeping with all our dates we knew we wanted to get married exactly a year after on October 10, 2010.  Our original idea was to get married on a beautiful hot Caribbean island but that got kyboshed due to some restrictions and us being sticklers for the date.  With 7 months to our wedding date we finally started to plan one in Canada.  For 7 months of planning time and our easy going nature I believe we didn't do too bad on the whole event.  My whole mindset going into that big day was...i don't care if the church lays in ruins around us, I am marrying that man and that is that.  This made my stress level low (now everyone around me...well that was a different story).  The day came and it truly was a wonderful day for me.  Now here's my 5 cents of knowledge I will impart on anyone who would like to listen. 
1.   The Dress

Counting down the minutes

With a helpful hand from momma

My dress was Coco by Maggie Sottero.  It was diamond white, taffeta, strapless, slim A-line gown with corset closure.  Three stores and 30 dresses later I have found "The One" I was going to walk down the isle in to meet my husband.  My advice is this:  Do not hesitate to try on as many dresses as you need to because you need to know with your whole body that the one you have on is THE ONE.  I love my dress and wish I could wear it again and again haha (crazy lady talk here).  After trying so many dresses on and thinking "Holy shit if I have to try one more bloody dress on I will wear a paper bag and call it a day" I tried on this little gem of mine.  My reaction...cry like a friggen baby.  That's when I knew "say yes to this effin dress already".  I would like to thank the ladies of Everlasting Memories for making my experience such a wonderful one. 

2.  The Flowers

love

This was the best deal for me out of the whole wedding (minus the husband of course).  Our theme was black, white with green accents.  For the flowers we decided to go with orchids.  B-E-A-UUUTIFUL flowers and the best part is...they last a long time.  I wanted Hydrangeas but I soon learned that unless they are immersed in water 24/7, they die a fast and wilty death.  Research your flowers, that's fo sho.  We also decided that for our wedding we will try to use as many local businesses or ma and pa shops as possible.  Our flowers came from Bev's Flowers in Bowmanville and I was extremely pleased with the service we got.  Not only did she provide us with great advice and excellent customer service she also helped us out with a last minute additional boutonniere (and by last minute I mean and hour or so to the wedding).

3.  The Cake

Waste of money.  Take that 500-1000$ or however much you'd like to spend on this pastry and spend it on something else.  I loved my cake but I cannot eat a whole bloody cake by myself and that's pretty much what's going to happen unless you make that cake part of your dessert at the wedding.  If you talk to people you will see that most of the time the guests, don't eat the cake.  Have something you can cut into as per tradition but honestly, don't bother with much otherwise. 

The Perfect Pair (Pear) Cake :)

4.  The Bridesmaids

Pick 1 or 20...this is your show and you can do whatever the hell you want.  Don't look at what's proper and what's not, just go with what will make you happy.  With that said, you probably want to go with your closest girlfriends for this one.  Don't feel OBLIGATED to ask one to be the MOH over any other.  Don't listen to bitching girlfriends whine and bitch about how they should be in your wedding party or why they weren't chosen to be the MOH.  I say to those ladies "get yo own wedding". 

The wedding gang (minus Raquel who's behind Daniel)

5.  The Guestlist

Absolutely up to you.  Whether you are a person who wants to invite everybody and their mother or "who the hell are you to me?" person this one is totally up to you...obviously.  Let your parents be involved slightly but not too much.  This is your day and don't forget that.  Do what feels good.

6.  The Venue

You want to go with something that is worth your every penny.  Customer service, food, people all that counts in your choice or at least it should.  ASK about bridal suites and who has the key to those because I had a random lady and her daughter breastfeeding her little baby in MY suite...where I had all our purses and gifts and such stashed WTF??? That I wasn't too pleased with but otherwise I loved my venue. 

7.  Advice

Some is good, some is bad.  Go with what your gut or your brain tell you.

My wedding was a relaxed, fun and good times kind of a wedding (at least that's what I heard from majority).  I enjoyed every minute and didn't stress about the little things, also because I had such wonderful people help me out and surround me at all times.  It was truly a happy day because in the end I walked off with my wonderful hubby.  This coming October it will be my second year anniversary and I only hope that future years will be just as blissful as these have been. 

My love

* Now, I understand that many things can happen and you never know what life has in store for you but you can have hope that life will work out for you in the end*

Tootles
Ewa

Get ready for the onslaught..

Alright...
So it has been a while...yet again.  Now that I have some time off between work and impending motherhood I figured this is as good time as any to finally update my bloggity blog.  I hope you are all ready (what all 5 of you? haha) for what's about to come your way.  I will start off with a little reminiscing about my wedding and hopefully share a few photos (this might come in stages since my regular computer conked out and all my pictures are on there).  After that I will share my Cuba experience with pics of course and eventually lead you into my time as a pregnant woman (this might get a little descriptive as I'm all about telling you the truth and not sugar coating anything).  Remember...I did warn you.  :)  Let's do this in stages so this way I don't overwhelm you, the computer and my blog.
Sooo here we go.
P.s.  You know you haven't posted much on the blog when you log in and EVERYTHING has changed and you have no idea what the hell is going on here.
Tootles.
Ewa

4 months overdue

I cannot believe it has been that long since my last post.  I get wrapped up in life sometimes too much, but I guess there can be worst things right?  I had the pleasure in those 4 months to have my first anniversary with my lovely hubby and go to a lovely trip to Cayo Largo Cuba in November as well as have a lovely Christmas with family and friends and a few "surprises" along the way.  I read some good books, listened to some good music and all in all had a wonderful time.  That's just the quick summary of all that happened.  I missed my writing though and hence, here I am back again.  In the next few posts I will pay a little homage to my wonderful marriage (that sounded a little mushy but bear with me) by posting a few pictures from my wedding.  I will also regale you with stories of my wonderful trip to Cuba.  Show a few pictures and such. 
So with this said, I shall return soon (less than 24 hrs I assure you) to share my stories.

Tootles
Ewa

Zippity-doo-das with my LuLu

I would like to introduce everyone (formally) to my BFF, my Bonnie to my Clyde, my Hip to my Hop, my Maj. Buttons to my Sgt. Peaches....alright you get the idea.  Her name is Lucia Juliao and you can read about her well versed adventures here.  This is one of those friendships that have lasted since the highschool years and I can imagine the two of us growing old together, sitting on a porch in our rockers...rocking back and forth, reminiscing about the good old days.  I imagine our hubbies fit in there somewhere too.  The two of us have agreed to do a little "guest appearance" on eachother's blogs.  Without further ado here she is...
My LuLu

Hi there! Lulu here...we haven’t met yet, but I have been mentioned in previous posts & as I’m just starting my own bloggy, Ews and I have decided to do some guest posting for each other. In Ewa’s Sep 3 post she mentioned my little friend, Blueberry, who you’ll see here...I’ve been asked many times about my little yellow friend. The most frequently asked question is, “Why did you start doing this?” I could launch into a monologue about a social experiment studying the effects of personifying a piece of plastic to see if I can garner strong feelings from normal, mentally-healthy adults (well, pretty much normal) towards an inanimate object. In fact, that’s what my fiancee would like to hear (since it took him only 2 months to grow very weary of the whole thing). But the truth of the matter is that it’s fun, it gets my creative juices flowing and it gets me taking pictures. We bought our first home together on Jan 1st of this year, moved in mid-Feb and spent the next several months trying to figure out how to live together (we’d each lived alone for the past several years) & where to put stuff. I could go off on several tangents here, but my point is that my camera gear was stuffed into a closet and I didn’t even look in its direction for almost four months. This is really disappointing for me since I love taking pictures. I’m most inspired by travel and with the new house (and new mortgage), I knew it would be a while before I could travel anywhere interesting. There really wasn’t much else that felt important enough to pull out the camera for (Sled Island & Calgary Folk Music Festival were still months away at that point). Oh sure, I still kept my little point-&-shoot in my purse and even used it occasionally, but it’s not quite the same.

So, during a weekend visit to Oshawa in June (see Ewa’s June 20 post) I was able to catch up with my bestest bestie, Squirrelly Monkey aka Sgt Peaches (you know her as Ewa). Whenever we meet up (which is much less frequent than either of us would like, due to the 4-hour plane ride keeping us apart and the unjustifiably high cost of domestic air travel in Canada), we give each other little gifts. These often manifest themselves in the form of inside stories we share and/or pretty little things. And this reunion was no exception. I got her a necklace with a decorated Scrabble tile - unfortunately sporting an “F” on the back rather than an “E”, due to the cute design that was on the front. I considered etching a line on the bottom to turn the F into an E, but decided against it, figuring I’d get caught since everyone knows that an E in Scrabble is only worth 1 point, not the 4 points showing on this tile. Well, maybe not everyone, but wordy wordsmith Ewa would surely have smelled a rat.

But I digress...on that fateful day, my dear, darling Ewa gave me (among other fun things) something called an Ugly Doll. I didn’t know what it was, but I tore open the box and then the opaque silver liner inside the box like a kid at Christmas - or like an adult that hasn’t fully accepted adulthood, in June. And there he was: a nameless yellow monster, as adorable as he is compact. Which is to say, very. I really liked the little guy from the start and wanted to ensure I did something useful with him; I love Ewa’s gifts and didn’t want him becoming a dust collector. So I decided to take a picture of him in front of a wicked rainbow that appeared behind our house. The next day we had our first-ever garage sale in the pouring rain and when I got bored I decided to take a picture of Blueberry to amuse myself. And a new chapter of my life was born. Disclaimer: those first two photos are utter crap, since it was cold and wet outside. I forgot to turn on the macro setting, but wasn’t about to go back out for another shot. I figured these were only going on facebook for a laugh, so why bother?

Anyway, the only strict rule I set for myself once I realized this might go on for a while was that this is not a 365 project, meaning:

a)   If I feel particularly creative one day and I shoot several photos, I can ‘bank’ them to post on other days when I’m too busy or unmotivated to do it.

b)   If there are any days when I don’t post at all, that’s ok. I’m not cheating because

c)   there are no strict rules.

(yes, I realize that c is negating a & b. It’s a joke, don’t take anything too seriously. Seriously, don’t). I tried doing a 365 project in May 2010, but it just ended up being a source of stress and I rally didn’t want that to happen with Blueberry. So there you have it. That’s my long and drawn-out story of how Blueberry came to be in my life. Maybe next time I’ll tell you about how he got his name (but probably not, because it’s not a very interesting story. One of those “it’s funny if you are me or Ewa” kind of things)

See all of Blueberry’s adventures here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150813887165454.734023.636470453&l=eca8c4d524&type=1

So you're an adult...what to do now?

• Morning wake up call - 6:00 am
• Get ready, make sure I bring my music books with me and get in the car and go to piano teacher's house for 7:30...
• Get there 5 mins late (dammit)
• Get started on my Grade 9 pieces.  This is when they get picked to be played and start my journey into another year of playing and learning piano.
• ....take one look at the pieces...aaaaaahhhh shit....
• There's no bullshitting now.  Pieces are hard and my fingers will have to behave which means practice, practice, practice.
• cry a little to myself.

This is it ladies and gents.  This is where I have to pull my socks up and really make this whole piano business work.  No more slacking or anything of such nature.  I do love playing, however, so this should not be too difficult for me.  For fun I have found sheets music for Adele's song "Someone like you" and some sheet music from the movie Amelie (2 things I ADORE!).  I am really not in the business of caring if I annoy my neighbourinos with my playing.  They have loud voices, cussing, and annoying tendencies....I have my piano to do that for me (I wish all neighbours were annoying as me).

Today I started my day at 6 am and only now, at 12:00 am am I close to finishing it.  This is pretty much my life in a nutshell.  HOWEVER, I got to see my friends Val and Bri (who is battling cancer) as well as Victoria and Kyle.  Bri is a strong woman and if anyone is going to beat cancer, it would be her.  She is one strong cookie and I absolutely admire her and how she holds herself up in this battle.  Val is pure awesomness and absolutely wonderful human being.  We got to chill at Coffee Culture and talk and laugh together, which was Uber fantastic.

We chilled with Kyle and Victoria afterwards and had an absolutely wonderful time together as per always.  Speaking of another wonderful couple, Matt and Aggie hung out with us on Friday.  We love these two as well and always enjoy our time together.

I <3 my friends and count myself a very lucky person to have these wonderful people around me.
Hope others can be as lucky as I am.
Tootles
Ewa 

Here's to good times

Alright, so since I mentioned in my previous blog I guess it is only fitting to tell you (selected few who care to read this) how my brother-in-laws wedding went. 

The newlyweds :) Rich & Michele

IT WAS FAB!  I honestly had a lot of fun :)  I don't know if it was the lack of sleep or the Monster filled shots but I was a ball of energy....OR energizer bunny as people called me.  It could also be the fact that when you are the bride, you don't get to enjoy the whole party aspect as much as when you are just the bridesmaid :)  I got to dance, drink, take pics and such with everyone...something I felt like I did not do enough of when I was the bride because everyone fights for the attention of the bride.

The bride and us <3



Groom and I



The ceremony was wonderful, the party bus was awesome, the hall (Mississauga Convention Centre) was beautiful inside and out and the dancing and booze plentiful.  

The awesome part of the reception was a photo booth.  I believe EVERYONE had fun with that and koodos to the bride for thinking of it :) I wish the new couple nothing but happiness in their future together. 

In my last blog I wrote how I love and adore my hubby...it could also be due to the fact that he spoils me like crazy.  Before the wedding, we went out and he bought me (or us as I would like to think) an SLR camera. 

Self shot...a must :)

I finally get to enjoy this little toy and see why in fact it is a wonderful camera. 

I also decided to honour one of my very best friends with a little photo story of two little characters bestowed upon me by her.  Now to understand all this random stuff I guess I should say that my dear friend made a little photo story of a little character (Blueberry) that was given to her by me.  She is a wonderful photographer and a very funny gal to boot....which makes the photo story totes awesome.  So here's a story of Patrick and his Chick friend.



Patrick and Chick...boozing it up on a Saturday evening



Patrick outdrinks Chick any day

Pee break

Patrick pays ultimate price for all the boozin

Chick tucks Patrick to bed

Goodnight buddy..sleep tight

   The end :)

Hope you enjoyed it.

Tootles everyone

Ewa