Silence

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

It's March 17th already and the day of green eggs, green beer and heck just green everywhere in general. Hubs and I don't plan to do much for Saint Patrick's Day this year since we are busy with the move. Anyone out there going out or having a Saint Patrick's Day party?

It's official!!!

We got the keys to our new home yesterday. We are absolutely in love with it. We borrowed Hubs dad's truck last night and took a couple truck loads of stuff out to the new house and we managed to paint one of the walls in the living room. I started giving the kitchen a quick clean as well. Our new hardwood gets dropped off today and hopefully Hub's friend starts on that tomorrow.

From my mind....

Hubs got home last night from being away on a 2 day course and I'm so glad to have him home. While he was away I was busy packing some of the house and cleaning. It feels so good to get laundry, and dusting done. It's a little tricky right now because while we're busy packing I feel like we have to keep the house super clean because we never know when the landlord might want to show our apartment. This morning we went for a drive by our new house, which is ours 1 week from today (let the countdown begin).

We went to Smitty's for breakfast today and enjoyed a nice breakfast out. Smitty's is one of our favorite breakfast places. We are so excited to be able to start exploring our new neighborhood when the weather gets warmer.

Our Wedding Cake

It's been a while since I last posted wedding details and thought I would post about our delicious wedding cake. When Hubs proposed I knew exactly who I was going to go to for our wedding cake. A cook/baker at work has her own cake business on the side and I've seen/tasted her work and its absolutely fantastic. All her mixes are homemade (not from a box) and she grows a lot of the berries she uses fresh in her own garden. I set up an appointment right away to meet with her to discuss our options and pricing and to book her to do our cake. Just an fyi, we booked her in February 2009 for our July 2010 wedding as she only does one wedding cake a weekend depending on the complexity of the cake, and we were lucky we did. By the time our wedding came around she had over 20 brides calling to book our date. Joanne's owns Tiers of Joy and her work can be viewed on her website http://www.tiersofjoycakes.ca/. 

I was super picky when it came to our wedding cake. I've worked many weddings and seen cakes that were leaning over, cracked or just looked plain sloppy. Not to mention many had no taste, were dry and the fondant was awful tasting. Having sampled Joanne's cakes, her's have none of these problems. Her cakes are delicious, moist and best of all her fondant tastes like sweet marshmallow's. Also, having worked functions I knew I didn't want to go with a grocery store cake (not knocking any one who has, it just wasn't the right place to get our cake based on past experiences) and some of the bakeries around here charge an astronomical amount of money for a wedding cake.

Our wedding cake went through a few different inspirations. Initially we wanted a beach themed cake with shells (when we were planning on a beach themed wedding), then I wanted a cake with ribbons like this one:

Hubs said he felt this one was a little plain for us, so we went back to Joanne and came up with this as our wedding cake:

Our cake ended up being 4 tiers, with the bottom tier being an orange creamsicle, the next tier was a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, the 3rd tier was lemon and the final tier was orange creamsicle again. The alternating tiers had a lace pattern on them, the Brooches on the bows were similar to the one on my wedding dress, the flowers on top were sugar orchids to mimic the flowers in our centerpieces and bouquets and the brown bows and aqua ribbon arounf the bottom of each tier tied in our wedding colors.

We received so many compliments on our cake, how beautiful it was and how yummy it tasted. Many people even commented on how they had a couple pieces even though they generally don't eat sweets. Most of the cake was eaten at the reception with the exception of a few pieces of the chocolate and lemon layer that were left at the end of the night and we brought home (Most weddings I've worked, the majority of the cake is left uneaten and thrown out at the end of the night). We also saved our top layer, froze it and its now sitting in our freezer to be taken out and eaten on our first anniversary.

Another House Update

Hubs and I decided we were going to update the flooring in our new home. There is currently a dusty rose carpet in the living room, a vinyl wood pattern in the dining room and our master bedroom currently has the same floor as the dining room. We decided to go with a 3/4'' thick Auburn Oak engineered hardwood in the living room, dining room and hallway to the bedrooms. We picked out the carpeting thats going in our bedroom and ended up with a neutral colored berber.

We also decided on paint colors. It was so much easier to choose paint when we had the flooring all decided on. For the main living room/dining room area, because its open concept we decided to go with a neutral color on all the walls with one accent wall. It's tough coming up with a color when it's going to be the main color in the whole home. We wanted something with color, yet was still neutral and not overwhelming. Hubs and I finally decided on the following colors:

By Behr

Main Walls in living/dining room- Sandpoint 270E-2
Accent Wall- Wilmington Tan 270F-5
Master Bedroom- Havana Cream 340C-2

Two other bedrooms will be C-I-L Glistening Sea 50BG 62/133 W/B

I also wanted to wish my baby sister a Happy 19th Birthday today!!

Updated 101 in 1001

I've seen this 101 in 1001 days blog "project" a few times before, but have never really paid much attention to it. I've been meaning to start it for a while now, and finally decided to do it. The only thing was that I underestimated how hard it would be to come up with 101 things! It took a while.

Not familiar with the 101 Things in 1001 Days project? Check out this website.
The Mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria: Tasks must be specific (i.e. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable, or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (i.e. represent some amount of effort on your part).

Start Date: November 1, 2010
End Date: July 28, 2013

Marriage & Family
1. “Date night” with Hubs once a month (4/33)
2. Surprise my husband with a gift just because
3. Get married (Completed July 10, 2010)
4. Talk to home every weekend (13/132)
5. Plan a trip to Halifax (Completed Feb 2011 for trip in June 2011)
6. Buy a house (In the works Feb 2011)
7. Have a baby
8. Visit Hubb's family for Christmas (Completed December 23, 2010)
9. Celebrate 1st wedding anniversary

Mind, Body & Soul
10. Lose 10 lbs
11. Go a week without weighing myself
12. Complete some form of exercise at least 3 times per week
13. Read at least one book per month (1/33)
14. Give up soda for a week
15. Learn a new recipe and cook it at least once a month (4/33)
16. Get a hobby
17. Get my first massage (Completed Nov 20, 2010)
18. Have another manicure or pedicure (Completed February 15, 2011)
19. See a sunrise and sunset in the same day
20. Hike a really large hill (Completed Nov 2010)

21. Go on our honeymoon (Completed Nov 15, 2010)
22. Do something for myself at least once a month (5/33)
23. No dessert or cookies at work for 2 weeks
24. For one week, go to bed at 9:00 p.m. just to read
25. Clear the dinning room table off to eat dinner there again (Completed Jan 22/11)
26. No tv for one week
27. No eating after 8:00 p.m. for a month
28. After baby, get back to pre-pregnancy weight

Home Is Where the Heart Is
29. Decorate our future house
30. Finish our wedding album
31. Buy a new vaccum (Completed December 27, 2010)
32. Get a new bedroom set
33. Get a new dining room table
34. Empty entire fridge, clean it, then put everything back in
35. Reorganize kitchen cabinets and paint them
36. Defrost freezer twice a year (0/6)
37. Buy a new house (In the process of being completed)
38. Bring in the feeling of Mexico

All Work, No Play
39. Upgrade our camera (Completed Nov 4, 2010)
40. Get a new washer and dryer (Completed Sept 2010)
41. Stay on top of the house cleaning (4/33)
42. Start a wedding planning business
43. Help Hubbs with his business

44. Get my ideal job
45. Get another term at my current job (Completed Jan 20/11)
46. Take 3 courses at work

Hit the Open Road
47. Take a spontaneous road trip (2/3)
48. Travel to a foreign country (Completed Nov 15, 2010)
49. Visit Newfoundland
50. Visit friends in Winnipeg
51. Go camping at least once each summer (0/3)
52. Have a picnic in the park we got married
53. Visit the Buchart gardens in the winter
54. Visit Hubbs friends in Alberta

I ♥ Food
55. Update my recipe book with new recipes (At least once a month (4/33)
56. Go out just for dessert
57. Go out for breakfast (3/5)
58. Don't eat out for an entire month
59. Make homemade pasta
60. Try something new at least 3 times a year (3/9)
61. Make banana bread with all the banana's in the freezer

Friends Are Forever
62. Email my best friend once a week (2/146)
63. Send Christmas cards each Christmas (1/3)
64. E-mail friends at least once per month (1/33)
65. Catch up with an old friend
66. Have a party or dinner party
67. Send birthday cards to all friends/family in 2011

Pinching Pennies
68. Save for a house (Completed February 22, 2011)
69. Set up retirement savings

Cha-Ching
70. Pay off all debts
71. Pay off LASIK Surgery (Completed February 22, 2011)
72. Buy a second car
73. Budget for a vacation

Pay It Forward
74. Clean out closet and donate to charity (1/3)
75. Donate to Christmas charity
76. Buy something from a thrift store that supports a charity
77. Donate money to a children's charity (1/6)

Just for Fun
78. Go skiing
79. Go to the beach
80. Go to the fall fair
81. Buy a pumpkin from a pumpkin patch and carve it
82. Go to a local museum
83. Take pictures on all our excursions
84. Have a Christmas cookie exchange (1/3)
85. Decorate for Christmas

Hobbies & Skills
86. Blog once a week at least (3/33)
87. Learn to cook more things
88. Get some family tradition recipes
89. Make a scrapbook
90. Read a book a month (1/33)

Capture the Memories
91. Print photo's to hang in locker
92. Print photoes of each year's events and put in photo album
93. Get photos printed to hang in home
94. Take more pictures
95. Complete 101 in 1001
96. Send more pictures to family

No More Procrastinating
97. Pick pictures for wedding album (Completed Jan 24/11)
98. Clean out email accounts
99. Start an excercise routine

101 in 1001
100. Start a new 101 Things in 1001 Days list once this one is completed
101. Get friends in on this project