birthday date

This year, my birthday was spread over a week.  Family celebration on Saturday - a week before my birthday (its weird having people tell you happy birthday when its not yet happened!), fancy birthday date on the Wednesday (still before the actual day!) then a simple date and hanging out with Daniel on my actual birthday.  Oh and I got a new lens for my camera so that obviously came along on our date.  :)

I love sushi, 

I love him, 

I love low-key evenings just the two of us - it was the perfect little celebration.

it's my birthday and I'll eat chocolate chips if I want to

...or mix them into warm milk.  because it is yummy...and today, anything's allowed.  :)

letters

dear life,

could I put you on pause for just a couple hours while I take a nap?

dear airline bigwigs,

I would love to find tickets to NC that fit our timeline and don't cost $500 a person - think you could work something out for me?

dear sun, 

please come back - was it something I said?

dear husband,

thank you for supporting, encouraging and spoiling me in BIG and little ways every.single.day

dear brain,

please settle on this canon vs. nikon issue...sooner rather than later

dear birthday,

I'm secretly kind of sad that you're almost here - has it really been a year already?

dear kitchen, 
please figure out a way to clean yourself after dinner - I've been feeling kind of lazy.  and while you're at it, go ahead and throw a couple loads of laundry in, tidy the living room and vacuum
(I may be a teensy bit behind on housework...)

dear new camera lens, 
I am so excited about you!  now if only I could figure out how to use you properly...

dear beach house,
I miss you and the hot, humid, lazy days we've spent together - we need to catch up


dear family travelling abroad, 
please be safe - we're praying for you!

dear readers, 
thanks for putting up with my long list of letters so far

dear gerber daisy, 
you remind me that it doesn't take much to brighten up a room in a simple, but really pretty kind of way

it's "Monday"

I love how long weekends = short weeks.  Sure, it's a given, but it doesn't change how great it feels when I think "Ok, so today is Monday... wait, no it's not, it's actually TUESDAY already!"    ...very exciting.

That being said, our long weekend actually felt long ...meaning it was super busy.  But still good - thank God we had that extra day, though, I really don't know how we would have made it without it.  We...

...spent time with friends

(and stayed up to the wee hours...) 

...babysat 

(overnight, might I add - and what a relief it was to hear the little one crying in the morning, assuring us that he was, indeed, sleeping when he stopped crying after we had put him down and not ...dead.  Can you tell we're not parents? hah)

...grilled pizza 

(again - I just can't get enough!)

...played board games 

(because we're old-school like that)

...celebrated my birthday 

(a week early)

...went to a soccer game 

(where I nearly froze my fingers, toes and FACE off!)

It was lots of fun, but sadly, in the midst of the busy-ness, not many photos were taken along the way...and the ones that were haven't been sorted through yet so instead here's a cool word-cloud of one of my most recent posts that I created using Wordle ...because I just can't post without an image!  (and this world cloud thing is kind of cool, actually)

corn on the cob

yesterday the sun came out to play AND we had corn on the cob with dinner...if that doesn't make it feel like summer, I don't know what will!  :)

lazy days...

when I hear the term "lazy days" I often think of summer...sun kissed skin, running through sprinklers, a tall glass of iced tea in the shade - that kind of thing.  regrettably, we've not really enjoyed those kinds of days around here...yet (here's to hoping!).  instead, we've had these grey, unmotivating days - the kind of days when you can't really tell what time of day it is by looking outside because the lighting doesn't seem to change at all.

but that's (kind of) ok, because it has given me a chance to chip away at some projects.  what projects, you ask?  well, I have an ongoing (and ever-growing) list of things-I'd-like-to-get-done-one-of-these-days and one of those things is printing pictures to put up on our walls at home.  (like I mentioned in this post, as long as we've lived at our place, it really shouldn't look like we just moved in still!) 

so I've been flipping though loads of pictures on my computer, trying to pick out our wall art.  one of the folders I looked through were my sister's wedding photos (taken by Adam Loewen) - it's amazing how looking at a picture takes you right back to a moment in time and allows you to relive it.  that's one of the things I love about photography.  here are some fun ones from that day.

Adam asked us to make a face - apparently Ann and I missed the memo that making a face = look surprised.  

But somehow we still managed to make similar spontaneous faces...we are sisters, after all!

my amazingly talented mum made these - it was her first time cake decorating ...and she's self-taught!

p.s. it looks like the sun might actually make an appearance today - hooray!

two days late

so Mother's day was on Sunday.  and do you think I got around to updating this blog?  nope.  but I still wanted to share a little bit about the mothers in my life...despite being late (story of my life!)

 

*photo on the right by James Moes     

my mom and my mom-in-law are two beautiful, wonderful women.  

thank you ladies for the prayer, support, encouragement, joy, sacrifice, patience, late nights, etc etc etc that you have invested in us.  we have been richly blessed by your influence in our lives.  

you inspire me to [one day] be a great mom too.

simple fish...

this is one of our favorite dinners.  Daniel says he could eat it every single week and not get bored with it (that is really saying something - he gets sick of stuff super fast!)  it is also really quick and really easy to make.  we use salmon because its a favorite around here, but you could probably use any fish you like - its so simple and so good, you really can't go wrong!  I usually throw together whatever veggies I have on hand plus some brown rice on the side.


*Tip:  Brown rice can take time to prepare, so if you're tight on time on weeknights, consider making a big batch on the weekends and freezing it.  I just recently found out that you can freeze rice - now I always have a just-in-case stash for busy nights!  

Simple Baked Salmon

1 large or 2 normal sized salmon fillets 

(we prefer skin-on for added flavor, but either works)

a couple tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 lemon

S+P to taste


- Preheat oven to 375* F 


- Line a pan with parchment paper then place the fish fillet(s) on top 


- Season fish with a squeeze lemon juice (I usually use about 1/2 a lemon), a splash of olive oil and some S+P.  
This step is really a matter of taste - I go heavy on the lemon juice and pepper, use just enough olive oil to keep it moist/get some flavor in there and add just a hint of salt.  Sometimes, if I want to be fancy, I use some lemon pepper too. 

- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until fish flakes easily with a fork.  

 - Enjoy!

we are crazy - but we're ok with that

it seems like every date i plan for daniel and i fails miserably.  he says its because i get an idea and go with it before thinking it through.  and he's probably right - but i just can't help myself sometimes! 

on one of our more recent escapades, i decided we were going to have a picnic on the beach ...on a cold/on the verge of raining morning.  so i packed up some sandwiches + drinks in our little picnic basket and hoped that my persistence would convince the sun to come out just for a little while...no such luck.  

we decided not to let the sun's non-cooperative attitude dampen our spirits and at the very least, we needed to record how miserably cold we were (for future reference/ridicule) 

*note to self:  avoid fits of uncontrollable laughter when there's a camera in your face

it wasn't all for naught though - there was this lady there flying the coolest kite!  we tried to get a couple pictures of her without looking like giant creepers who take pictures of strangers...although that is exactly what we were doing.  

(...it kind of looks like she only has one leg in that picture - i can assure you that was not the case)

here's a closeup of the kite in action - so cool!

we packed it up and headed somewhere warmer pretty quick - but it was still kind of fun in that why-do-we-do-these-things-to-ourselves kind of way.  and it makes for a funny story - do you ever do silly things like that or is it just us?