(I see my grandma and my mom in her)
There is an even better one but it says "Barber" on it and I didn't want to freak Hope out!
My aunt Karen is getting married in October and she asked me to take a few engagement pictures of her and her fiance Ian. At first I told her no and freaked out a bit because although I LOVE taking pictures, I am in no way a professional, I don't know how to use Photoshop, and I just didn't want to disappoint her with horrible pictures. She assured me that they just wanted a few shots and that I should try it out, and so I agreed. I actually had a lot of fun doing it! Although the pictures are in no way professional, they at least capture a little bit of the love I saw today which made me really happy. We took the pictures at Mount Pleasant Cemetery (in the gardens, relax). Here are just a few of the pictures I took: They hadn't seen me yet The one above is my favourite! She has a pretty iris claddagh ring with an emerald It looks like Ian is dripping from the fountain here Oh wow - the hair and the wall are great together (I see my grandma and my mom in her) Had to include a random bike and basket Ian was trying to make Karen skip - she was having none of it. This made me laugh a lot. Crazy lovebirds... Yes, a bit morbid but I was testing the light and it turned out really well.
There is an even better one but it says "Barber" on it and I didn't want to freak Hope out!
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We went to The Ex on Friday night with Jamie and Hope (who called it a fun fair). I took lots of pictures - brought my 50mm lens and went to town. There were just so many colours! Fair Grounds in the Evening Okay so the first two are actually me just playing with my lens - sun in front Sun behind - much better! We've arrived! This game is always in the same spot each year - Mr. Frog! Gondola Rides With the CN Tower beyond This is one of the few I could do when I was little Row upon row of games and rides and food You could not pay me enough to go on any roller coaster here I remember riding the Polar Express when I was younger Pretty...but so scary Ferris Wheel (warning, there are a lot of pictures of this) Swing set for grown ups! I wish I went on this to get a view from above The "sweet spot" for this game Aliens? Only the start of bright lights to come Shooting water...this was harder than it looked Ring toss! Food & The Farm No thank you, Epic Bacteria. No cronut burger for us! I did, however, eat poutine for dinner and mint chocolate chip ice cream! Matt had 3 tacos - 99 cents each! And then Jamie and Hope arrived. He got a deep fried Twinkie. Gross. To the animals! Hello, Alpaca. Baby turkeys! See you at Thanksgiving! Hen-Turkey hybrid. Don't ask. Ohhhh so many cute piglet butts!!! Since it was promoting farming, this pen was not titled "pigs" but "pork." Sad Cow. I would be too if I was cooped up and milked multiple times a day...bet it's a lot like maternity leave! This goat was great. He was so jealous of the goat in the other pen getting attention! Hope & Jamie Being Silly You steal my camera, I post your pictures. Jamie and his piercing eyes, haha. Dancing? Least blurry of 59 shots. Hope's planning something... At the end of a great dance/rap session. Thanks for the 80 pics. I thought of making a GIF out of all of them. Foot massage! Fair Grounds at Night Lights!!! Oh that's not the end of the ferris wheel... Carousel # 3 Crazy ride I guess? Matt took this. And this. I'm really not mad, I swear. Look how long my hair is getting!!! Minions!!! # 4 Only clear shot I got - it was moving around fast without a great pattern. Hope says "Oh gross. Don't post that picture. I look like a fat disgusting 10-year old boy" I don't see it. I think its amazing. So fun. Just love the colour combo - turquoise and red! The boy. I love this lens! Great end to the night. Hello tiny donut - I will cover you in cinnamon sugar and eat you very soon!
While in Vegas, I got a text from my sister-in-law Hope saying "COME BACK TO MEEEE" - I guess she missed me. This was Thursday, so I asked if she wanted to come over with Jamie for a BBQ. I also invited Jessica and Adam. Saturday worked best for all, so that was good. Well I sort of forgot that we were flying home late Friday night and arriving home by 9 AM Saturday morning. Well just call me Martha because we slept until noon, I cleaned the house, Matt got groceries, and we threw together a backyard BBQ in a few hours. It also helped that Jessica made a delicious cheesy french onion dip appetizer and Hope made a yummy apple berry crumble for dessert. We did a fruity salad (from a Comfort of Cooking recipe), grilled bread with prosciutto (from a Barefoot Contessa recipe), and hamburgers with grilled corn. Lots of drinks and laughs with both sides of my family made a really good night. Plus we got to show off our bench seating and string lights! I realize now that we did not invite Meg (I think I thought she was working) - Meg if you were home all sad and lonely I'm sorry and I will take you to dinner this week!!!!! Love you littlest sister!!!!!! Bread, cheese, prosciutto, garlic, parsley, olive oil - assemble & BBQ - yum! (adapted from THIS recipe) Arugula, strawberry, peach, cucumber, goat cheese salad with a balsamic reduction (adapted from THIS recipe) Yes, Adam is wearing a leopard print snuggy! Good weekend - let's do it again really soon!
Matt had to go to Round Mountain, Nevada, for a last minute business meeting, and his work was nice enough to put me up for a few days while he was down there. His meeting was on Wednesday, so we left Tuesday morning, arrived in Vegas Tuesday morning (gotta love time differences), he headed up to Round Mountain (about 4 hours away), and went to his meeting the next day. I stayed in Vegas, and he got back here Wednesday night in time for our third anniversary. We stayed Thursday and Friday and went home Friday night, arriving home Saturday morning (gotta hate time differences). I paid for only my flights and meals, and lounged around while he was gone (probably would have done that back in Toronto anyway). I didn't bring my DSLR, so these are all iPhone photos. Weather check prior to the trip - looks good! No humidity, hot and sunny. Tuesday View at the top of the strip of our hotel - Mandalay Bay Oh yes, that flash of blue above was our rental car - the bright blue Mustang. Very flashy, but just honestly what they had in terms of a mid-sized car. I'm pretty sure the guys at the mine site made fun of Matt for it! Also shown is the famous "welcome to las vegas" sign, and the view from our room of the "beach" Tuesday night solo dinner - went to Fleur in our hotel, sat at the bar, and had an amazing caprese, plus the sea bass, plus some wine. Very proud of myself for going out to eat. Wasn't nearly as awkward as I thought it would be! Wednesday After a Wednesday of relaxing outside by the pool, cooling off with Shark Week and Starbucks Anniversary dinner outfit - trying a new peachy shade. Matt drove around Nevada looking for a florist open at 9 pm. Awww. One of many delectable parallel courses at Aureole. Anniversary sorbet! Happy 3 Years! Thanks, multiple waiters (seriously, we were not left alone for a second! Guess it was a slow night...) Evening wandering - directly beside us was the Luxor And beside it Excalibur "I don't wanna be a princess!" Then New York (fun hotel) Thursday Thursday wanderings - all of the above hotels were not there 5 years ago... Aria was one of my fav hotels - beautifully decorated and the least smokey. Ohhhhh Paris (said like par-ee)... Closest I'll get to France for now! Okay this looks gross, but it was pretty much the best food I've ever eaten. Crepe, with nutella, caramel, creme fraiche, bananas. Wow. I felt so sick after - totally worth it. The Cosmopolitan hotel. Can you say SATC? Caesar's Fountains From Michael Kors in the forum shops - my 3rd anniversary gift - leather! Dinner at Julian Serrano Tapas - wow this was also a great meal. Just one of the great decor areas of the Aria hotel Caprese, done with marmalade and pesto too, in layers Oh we need to get dessert... Jean Philippe gelato Went to see the Cirque show "Ka" - so incredible (though I was terrified the entire time that another person was going to fall off unintentionally) Friday Last day - brunch at Verandah Why is food in the States often in such huge portions compared to Canada? Aquarium and shark reef! Have you ever pet a stingray? They are very soft. Evil lionfish... Jellies! (Hope got stung by a little one on her honeymoon...Jamie wouldn't pee on her...#lovefail) JAWS!!! Schools of fish Wow scary when it goes above your head... Oh yes, we did this. Going to 3 things was cheaper than just one - so we did the shark reef, Titanic, and Bodies. We had been to the reef before but Matt wanted to go again. Titanic was cool to see all the artifacts - my mom would have really liked it. I loved Bodies because it was so science-y and I never went when it was at the Science Centre here (Body Worlds). This one, however, was more explanation of all the body parts versus the bodies in random poses - much more educational. Matt, however, was pretty much traumatized by it. Wimp. Lunch at "Gonzalez Gonzalez" in New York (I missed you when I saw this Dawn!) They called this a "salad" - I ate 2 bites. View of the Mirage The Venetian (great shopping here) Bellagio fountains set to Frank So overall the trip was good for the fact that I didn't have to pay for half of it, we ate great food (but way too much), and saw a fun show.
BUT...We first went in 2008 and we definitely thought we hardly saw any of it. We were wrong - we saw all the best parts. Going back this time I realized how crowded, and hot, and smokey it truly is. Really, you can smoke everywhere, so most hotels you wanted to go in to either see the sights or escape the heat were really just hazy and made me feel sick. Especially if the stores or restaurants were right beside the casino, where people smoked the most. Also it was sad to see people just sit at the slots for hours on end like pod people. I'm not really a gambler, so I guess I don't really get the appeal. There are people on the streets everywhere trying to sell prostitutes and drugs, and it's so busy everywhere. Definitely won't be going back again just to see the sites! The first weekend we were home all summer it was Matt's birthday on Sunday, August 4th. He turned 30, so now he is old like me, haha. Since his favourite restaurant (and mine, too!), is not open Sunday, we went out to dinner on Saturday night. Goods & Provisions is by far the best place for great food and wine - and its in Leslieville, not too far from us. Us 30 year olds... Matt in candlelight of Goods & Provisions Saw this early Sunday morning on Instagram from his mom First Sunday morning stop to Matt's fav coffee place for a drink on the patio - Te Aro Picked up some steaks for dinner and some "boy" birthday flowers Enjoying our patio Plus some Pinot Noir and bread with olive oil dip from Caroline's wedding Yep, BBQing his own birthday dinner. I offered to cook but he wanted to do it! Love our lights Steak and loaded potato and tomato - yum. As good as The Keg! Finished off with some cupcakes from Yummy Stuff. These were oatmeal maple bacon WHAT? A post about home decor? The first since May you say? I know - I'm a horrible home decor blogger. But, it is called "science of married" and a lot of the things I do being married do not involve home decor, haha. But now that I am home from summer travels I want to get back into some of the home stuff, as we usually do in the Fall. i signed up for another Apartment Therapy "Cure" - which is the Style Cure this month. Probably won't get it done this month, as it involves re-styling an entire room, and I'd rather just do some updates, but I'm sure it has a lot of good advice, one I get around to reading it all... So, onto the backyard lighting. You remember that Matt built our bench seating and table from this post HERE, and we ordered some cushions for it, returned them as they did not really work, and ordered some more. We also wanted to put up some string lights to have a little backyard oasis, and this is the process: Way back in June we used string to get a rough idea about the length of the string of lights we would need. We wanted the lights to go from the closest tree to the deck to along the kitchen back wall, and back, roughly 3-4 times. Once it was strung up the way we wanted, I cut it down and measured all the pieces, which ended up being just under 100 meters in length. We didn't get around to putting the lights up until the beginning of August because we were away so often. Matt had made some sort of trigonometric spreadsheet (that's what you get when you marry an engineer), so whenever I say "we" in this post, I actually mean "Matt". I think most of you figured that out already, though. I more had input on the type of lights, arrangement of lights, and height. Matt screwed in bolts and clips to 4 spots along the brick and one larger one to the tree. The clips made it easy to adjust all the wires once in place if we wanted them lower or higher. We originally wanted to get the lights at Target. They had them on sale, but were sold out well before I ended up going to see if they had any. They were also strings of 25 m, and you could attach 3 sets together before overloading. Since they were sold out, we looked at Pottery Barn ones, which were way too much. Matt ended up finding a set of 100 on an eBay "Novelty Lights" site, which were about $90 for the full set of 100. We chose green wire (instead of white) so that the string didn't show at night, and white lights. You can get a lot of variations from this site, and they shipped in about a week. They also included 25 extra lights, as they are quite breakable. We hung the wire first, then added the lights in to minimize jostling. We've had them up for just over a week and none have broken yet! Just one with our patio set - more on this for Matt's birthday post and a family BBQ we had this past weekend coming up!
Just a few of the sites and places we went before and after Caroline's wedding from the iPhone: Driving in Pete's BMW with a Te Aro tea latte and a great book - Little Bee Stopped for lunch in Kingston at Pan Chancho (ohhh memories from uni) RMC arch - you walk through only when arriving and departing RMC for the first and last time. Sweet welcome bag at the hotel from Caroline and Andrew Brunch at Benny's Bakery (delicious) Fairmont Chateau Laurier (had to take it for my mom - always such pretty hotels) View from Parliament of the Red Bull Flugtag (our hotel was just behind it) Had to take some Parliament pictures Ohhhhhh Canada! This never-ending incomplete combustion is just no good for our environment... That guy. Love him. Jessica introduced me to this at the pub - it's pretty much just apple juice, or as I call "apple beer", to which Matt laughs and says "hard cider" - apple beer is a way better name. I don't even remember what this was, but it was yummy. Trying a little ombre eye for the wedding (yep, eye freckle!)
Here are a few iPhone photos from Jamie and Hope's wedding - many of which were taken after far too much wine consumption so sorry for the blurry craziness of them, haha. They are still fun!
After Caroline's wedding, Matt and I headed up to the cottage for the week for some R&R, and it was great! Sunny days, pretty sunsets, great food and wine, and cozy fires all with the husband. Here are a few iPhone shots from the week: Next stop? Vegas!
**Note to all government officials scouring blogs for keywords like "killer" - she is a person named Caroline, not a real killer. It's just a nickname. She's actually the most gentle and kind person ever. That's why it's funny. Please don't arrest her.** Matt and I headed to Ottawa a few weekends ago to celebrate Caroline and Andrew's wedding. They technically got married in Gatineau, but we spent time in both spots (a few pics from weekend wanderings will be in a later post). Had a great dinner on Friday night at the Wellington Gastropub, went for a run, saw all the Red Bull Flugtag "planes" and wandered around the By Ward Market on Saturday, then the wedding took place that evening. Here are the pictures! Gorgeous venue - Museum of Civilization in Gatineau The original point blankets! Sculpture (Matt being arty) Test shot - smile girls! (We all wore blue) Jess, Carolyn and I Matt told Jess not to lean just bend at the knee - I'm jealous of her height!!! PS - It's Jess' birthday today - Happy Birthday!!!! The boys - Matt, Chris, Ian More of Matt being arty Waiting for the ceremony to start The beautiful bride and her dad Personal vows - they were sweet and funny The kiss - I stayed out of the photographers way so this is the best I got, haha Married! Littlin and Killer Yay Caroline joined the club! Chris and Carolyn - so sweet Aww drunken love Ooooh a bit fuzzy and grainy... Matt...put the camera down... Yep, that's my man! Sings always with feeling. Exploring the museum Ohhh the picture is PG-13 - my giant thighs are showing, haha Great pose and his tie goes with the art And my necklace goes with this art Selfies with DSLRs are challenging... And a few iPhone/Instagram shots:
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