Careful man there's a beverage here...

Last night was our early Christmas. Since we have been opening presents all through December we just had our jumbo stockings to open. The picture above is my stocking after it was dumped out, this picture does little justice as it was pretty much filled with my weight in candy. The highlights included "Hot Tamales" because back in the day at goodlife we used to get them and call them Tam-o-lies and the other highlight was the ring pops, because they are my favorite! It was a pretty great night. We sat around in our house coats, drinking hot chocolate with Kahlua and eating ourselves into a sugar coma. I can safely say that this early Christmas has been the best Christmas I have ever had! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful thoughtful boyfriend in my life.
Today, I am heading home for 5 whole days, this will be the longest we have been apart since we started dating - going to be tough. That being said I am still looking forward to heading home tonight to see my family. The best part is Bracebridge actually has a ton of snow! So it should feel extra Christmas-y.

"Festivus for the rest of us Christmas Hootanany

This Saturday was our Christmas party. We had people over for a little pre-drink, that included a "snakes and ladders" drinking game using a pitcher of white russians and in some peoples case, a little too much Jack Daniels.
Around 11:30 we headed off to Call the Office to see "The Bad Ideas" for the millionth time. I know you are wondering if we managed to remember a camera this time, well the answer is no, I did however snap a few shots of the evening with my blackberry! The night was full of high fives, the question "where did you go?" in reference to Colin's weight loss and people being picked up in fits of joy!
The party was a great success, it felt great to have our very first Christmas celebrated in our home with our friends and top it off with our favorite band!
Even though our Sunday turned into the hangover to end all hangovers and a re-visitation of Jack Daniels in Colin's case it was very worth it!

and you're the prettiest lady in the whole wide world

Today is the birthday of the most wonderful woman in the whole world! My mom! My mom and I are pretty insanely close. I love her like crazy, and would consider her my best friend, not in the cheesy way, but for real! When I think about the opinion I want the most about anything, it is my mom that I trust most. I have four more sleeps until I see her for Christmas and I am beyond exicted to see her, and fill our time doing what we always do - drink a lot of wine, baileys in our coffee in the morning and chatting until our tongues go numb! (side note we really aren't alcoholics). Anyway, I could go on for days about how awesome my mom is and how much I love and admire her, but that would make us both cry ha ha. Anyway, I just wanted to say

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

I had the best day with you...9 months and counting!

Wednesday was our 9 month anniversary, and yes we are the kind of people that celebrate every month-aversary and any kind of anniversary we can. Come on, are you really surprised, based on all our constant mushiness?
ANYWAY, after work on Wednesday Colin and I met up at the Laundry mat since our washer and dryer in our building is still broken (insert shaking fist here). I was dreading the trip to the laundry mat more than anything, I couldn't imagine a worse way to celebrate our anniversary, BUT to my surprise and delight it was actually kind of fun. The place was really huge, they had televisions, a cafe area and a bar section that sold food and yes alcohol. We just put our stuff in the wash and then headed over to Ben Thans for some Chicken pad thai. By the time we had picked up our order and came back, we could switch over our loads, and since the dryers there don't struggle at life, our stuff only took half an hour to dry, by the time we had finished eating we packed up our stuff and were ready to leave. The rest of the night was fantastic and full of googly eyes and appreciation of our own awesomeness.
I can't believe that it has been 9 months already, and they have truly been the most fantastic 9 months of my life. I mean if we can turn a laundry mat trip into a fun date and enjoy ourselves we can do anything!

Tomorrow is our Christmas Party and we are going to see the Bad Ideas play - maybe we will even remember the camera this time!

This is my life right now and I am in love with everything!

It's gonna be you me and the dance floor

I can't believe we now have NO snow, just rain...meanwhile my parents are buried under 180 cm of snow!
Anyway, despite the lack of snow, my weekend was pretty great. After work on Saturday I came home to a wonderfully home cooked meal and a big glass of red wine waiting for me! Colin had done a little Christmas shopping and insisted that I open an early present... I figured why not? Opening presents through December can be a tradition we have! Christmas has officially begun!Colin and I decided to drink before going out, which turned into just drinking at home, and then moved to going out on a hunt for Nachos! What we were not expecting is the UFC fight causing ALL the bars to be packed to the brim, one waitress suggested we stand in the back...umm no thanks. So, we moseyed on down the road to a dive bar to which we found some unpleasant folk, a lot of mustaches and another PACKED bar. At this point the evening seemed more like the twilight zone than a Saturday in London, but we refused to go home with out some cheesy nachos in our bellies. Finally we made our way to Poachers and inhaled a large plate of food before retiring ourselves for the evening! Sunday was pretty fantastic, we simply did nothing but lay around and enjoy our life together! Finally around 6pm we peeled ourselves out of the house to pick up some dinner and Christmas movies.
Tomorrow I have the day off and I plan to do some Christmas shopping myself! All in all, another amazing weekend with my love!

The weather outside is frightful...

I am pretty sure that all the wishing for snow that I have been doing, has been lost in translation. It seems that the snow gods are confused and seem to have sent ALL the snow up North to my parents house. Apparently the snow hasn't stopped coming down since Tuesday and it is so bad, that they are actually CLOSING towns! Apparently Huntsville is CLOSED! How you close a town, I am not too sure, but either way, they seem to be getting all the fun parts of the snow, and we are getting stuck with the fidget cold. Oh well, at least when I head home it will actually feel like Christmas! Although, I have to sat that it seems that unlike most of the people I know, I am actually really in the Christmas spirit this year, I mean it is coming with a little bit of stress (still haven't gone shopping yet) and then the sad fact that Colin and I will be spending Christmas apart. SIGH. I am heading home on the evening of the 23rd and wont be back in London until the 28th. We aren't just missing Christmas together, but it is the longest we will have been apart since we started dating! I know, I know, there are a lot of people with much harder situations, but still this is my blog and I am going to whine ha ha.
but even though we are going to be apart, I am still excited for our Christmas together, and the Christmas-y things we have already done this year have been pretty awesome. I am also really excited to go home, I really miss my family. Also, when I was growing up, we used to go on a sleigh ride every Christmas eve with a bunch of people, but the last few years we haven't done it, and I was really starting to miss it, but my mom has informed me that this year we are bringing back the tradition! It will be a little different, it is just going to be our family instead of a party full of people, and it will go through Port Sydney instead of through a field - which means it is more of a one horse open sleigh kind of a deal, so no one will be thrown off and into a snow bank, like we used to do. Either way, I am so happy and excited that we will be partaking on the sleigh ride again!

Somewhere over the rainbow way up high the dreams that you dreamed of once in a lullaby

Some exciting news! The morning of December 6th Ortal and Thomas welcomed another baby girl into their family! My little god-daughter Addison is now a big sister to little sister Hyleigh Dolhan! That is 3 girls for the Dolhan gang, poor little Noah isn't going to know what hit him when all these girls hit adolescence ha ha. I am so happy for them I can't even begin to find the words! I just wish them all the health and happiness in the world! <3

When you smile the sun it peeks through the clouds

This is what my Sunday mornings look like...only I am not blond and Colin isn't losing his hair. There is nothing more wonderful then snuggling away a Sunday morning. Tonight I will be introducing Colin to one of my favorite Christmas movies "One Magic Christmas". This weekend has been pretty relaxing and wonderful.

First day on a brand new planet.

Yesterday was my first day training as a "bridal consultant". I have to say it is a whole new world compared to working in MED or really most things I have ever done. My first day was a basic over view of the entire store, where everything is, and how everything works. There is definitely a lot to learn ; I don't want to say that yesterday was overwhelming, because that sounds negative to me, but my brain felt like a little sponge trying to soak up as much information I could. The way they work the training makes me feel a lot more comfortable, they have me shadow one of the other consultants for three weeks, so all of my shifts will overlap with hers and I literally follow everything she does, as I begin to feel more comfortable, I start to step in with some of the tasks with her by my side. The daily experience is pretty amazing, I mean it can be really hectic and based on their horrible hand recordings of everything a little confusing, but watching girls try on dress after dress and then watching their face when they actually find "the one" is a pretty great thing to see. I saw a lot of girls yesterday, Tuesday is the alterations day, so brides come in all day for their first or final fitting, there were a lot of beautiful dresses, but there were defiantly some moments, where I was actually breathless when certain brides came to the mirror. It sure is a change from what I was doing; in fact on my way to work, I stopped to get a coffee and the group of men behind me were talking about GoodLife and complaining about their contract - there was a huge part of me that wanted to turn around and say all the things I had always wanted to say to a member - mostly " GoodLife didn't do anything wrong here, YOU didn't read your contract, it is two pages, not a hard read! YOU are to blame here." but instead I just smiled and thought about how great it is, that I will never have to deal with GoodLife members again.
It is really nice to be working at a job, where what I am doing is actually important to the people I am helping.