Maremy's Blog

MOVED!!

2010-03-26T06:43:00.002-04:00

I should have posted this months ago. We have MOVED our blog. If you're got us on your website, please update your links:

Maremy's Blog 2.0

Thanks, everyone!! Hope to catch you over at our new home...

~Mary~

Fixing Things Up...

2009-11-28T16:08:00.002-05:00

This is a real work in progress right now, but it should look pretty spiffy when it's done.

Cleaing up...

2009-11-25T06:18:00.002-05:00

We've noticed lately a few spammers have been leaving comments on our blog. So, in the midst of starting to delete them, I accidentally deleted a few comments that I did not mean to delete! So I apologize if it suddenly says next to your comment "deleted by forum administrator". I did not mean to delete it! It should really say "accidentally deleted by forum administrator who is doing a bit of a clean-up at 6:20am and is too sleepy to be doing this" ;). So, I apologize if your comment has disappeared!

So yeah, not much of an update, eh? Apparently, Jeremy is cooking up some new thing for this blog. Layout or something....hopefully soon.

So, new things? Wedding reception went well but we're glad it is out of the way, Olie & Zoe (kitties we're looking after for friends) are doing well and we love having them around...hmm...what else? We bought a Nintendo Wii on Friday night! :) Of course, there's more...but I want to leave that to updates we'll hopefully get to soon.

If you've been stopping by to check our blog out for updates, thanks for doing that! I promise there will be more for you to see soon :).

We are alive!

2009-10-05T22:25:00.002-04:00

I realize it's been awhile! Too long, I think, since the last entry. I figure I better do a bit of an update.

You might have guessed things have been hectic! Between moving into our house on July 1st, getting married on August 1st, me getting a new job (yes, I am now the technician at the museum here in Goderich! Not only am I now married to Jeremy...I am his co-worker, too!), and other things in between, it has been a bit crazy. Next on our list? A few things...

One of my best friends, Jessica, arrives on Friday. She's here for our wedding reception on the 17th (I should mention she is taking over is maid-of-honour for Amanda, who is now living in Dubai) and is staying with Jeremy & I. She'll also be here for...
Thanksgiving! Yes, it is this weekend. We have a few family events to attend, which we are very much looking forward to. We're also happy Jessica can attend them with us.
Also on Thanksgiving weekend Jeremy's friend John is getting married in Stratford. We will be attending that wedding on our way to the Baechler Thanksgiving at Jeff & Rose's in Georgetown.
And finally ***DRUMROLL*** OUR WEDDING RECEPTION IS OCTOBER 17th!!! Both of us are very much looking forward to it...

Despite the wedding reception drawing very close (and Thanksgiving even closer), over last week and a bit we've had a bit of chance to sort of relax. Things are slowly starting to feel like normal again after having a very busy summer!

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the new additions we have right now...Olie & Zoe!! They're cats who belong to our very dear friends (and maid-of-honour & best man) Amanda & Anderson. For those who don't know, Amanda & Anderson have moved to Dubai. We are looking after the kitties until they get settled.

I think that is all! If you are saying "you're married now?" or are confused about anything else, don't worry! We have plans to do entries about all this stuff (well, hopefully!). In short, changes will be happening at our blog :) Stay tuned!!!

Happy 27th Birthday!!

2009-08-09T23:00:00.001-04:00

I just wanted to wish my lovely wife a happy 27th birthday tomorrow
(August 10). Sorry about the image. I tried to find a decent teapot
shaped one without a different name on it.

Hope this will do. Love you!

Jeremy

Birthday wishes...

2009-07-29T23:49:00.004-04:00

Happy Birthday, Jere!!!

Love always,

Mare

On a sidenote, I really wish I was talented enough in the baking department to make a Katamari Damacy cake like that! And guess what? That was actually a wedding cake. How cool is that! I know I few people who had a great appreciation for it (a dear friend named Maggi is one :) ). This year, he'll have to settle for the carrot cake I made for him ;). And yes, it was made completely from scratch (grated carrots and all!).

I suppose we should do an update...

2009-06-27T13:18:00.003-04:00

The blog (among other things...)has somewhat fallen by the wayside right now with the move, wedding plans, etc! Rest assured, once we are settled in the new place, there will be more blogging, video gaming, etc!

Since purchasing the house about six weeks ago, things have been crazy! We are now down to just DAYS until the house is officially ours and we can move in! YAY!! You have no idea how happy Jeremy & I are to be out of that little apartment and into a bigger place! And I will be so happy to get all the boxes unpacked that are currently cluttering up our apartment!

We get the house sometime on Tuesday (hopefully sooner rather than later!). We probably won't be doing too much moving on Tuesday since we want to shampoo the carpets first of all. I do, however, plan on moving all my stuff from the kitchen over on Tuesday and getting it unpacked and put away. One of the things I am most looking forward to is organizing everything in the kitchen because there we will be so much more space than what we currently have! YAY!!

The other thing Jeremy & I are both looking forward to is the projector we purchased. I won't speak too much about it since I'm sure Jeremy will do a blog post about it very soon. I will say this though: the picture quality is AMAZING!! The first movie we're going to watch on it is Transformers. We also can't wait to play Rock Band on it, as well as other video games. I'm going to try and post pictures of setting up the home theatre system. I think it's gonna look really good when it's all said and done.

Anyway, lots to still do between now & next Tuesday!! We'll try our to keep you posted as to how our move is going! Hopefully all goes smoothly with it. And we're both hoping for a change in the forecast...right now, they are calling for rain!!

Officially on my games radar...

2009-06-06T07:29:00.004-04:00

This year's E3 saw the announcements of MANY new video games! Of course, this was the debut for Beatles: Rock Band. Jeremy & I are both looking forward to this game!! The Beatles are my favourite band and Rock Band is one of my favourite video games. Two of my favourites rolled into one? ROCK ON!!

But of course, there were other game announcements as well, including a new Tony Hawk game, called Tony Hawk: Ride. Now, I played Tony Hawk: Project 8 like a madwoman when I first got it! I still have it and dust it off on occasion and play it! It was such a fun game. Of course, I was all excited when Tony Hawk: Proving Ground I was all over it! Super excited and thinking it would be wwaayy better than Project 8 was, I got a copy of the game....only to be disappointed that I could not create a FEMALE character! This completely ruined the game for me. I LOVE creating characters in games and I absolutely LOVED creating my character in Project 8.

After watching some trailers for the new game, I can say my faith is renewed in the Tony Hawk series of games! It looks cool and believe me, it looks like a different way of playing video games. Check it out below:

Looks cool, eh? Although I want to hear more about this game before I make a decision as to whether I buy it, I am super-excited about it! I am a fan of skateboarding and actually thought of taking it up a few years ago. Balance issues and being uncoordinated made me decide not to do that! ;) This game, however, looks safe enough. And I can play from the comfort of our home! Yay!!

And a question for our readers: What games are you looking forward to most from E3? Any surprises for me? Please comment! :)

BIG NEWS!!!

2009-05-16T13:04:00.002-04:00

Jeremy & I have wonderful news! We have a house! It is located here in Goderich. We found out yesterday afternoon that our offer was accepted. Whew!! What a big relief that was! Both of us are both really excited.

The closing date is June 30th, so we have about six weeks left in the apartment. I can't tell you how happy I am to finally be moving somewhere with more space and away from our neighbors who: a) have a severe water fetish (they are constantly running water! It's now to the point where we get disrupted by it because it cuts down on our water pressure...) and b)play horrible music really loud! Anyway...they are a whole other story...;)

Our new place has two bedrooms upstairs and one bedroom downstairs. The basement is finished which is exactly what Jeremy wanted to set up the home theatre system. I wanted a place where I can workout (cardio, yoga, weights) and play videogames so I have the downstairs bedroom for that. It will also serve as a guestroom. I know that one of the first guests in there could very well be my best friend, Jessica, from Missouri. She's staying with us while she's here for our wedding. The kitchen is a nice size, so I'll have lots of space to bake!

There isn't much fixing up work for us to do. One of the first things I want to do is re-finish the kitchen cupboards. That will be my big project!

Moving definitely will not be too bad, because we don't have very much stuff! I've already started packing stuff up (books, winter clothes, etc) but I'll really put a push on it now.

I'm sure the next six weeks will be pretty hectic for us! Jeremy was saying they'll probably fly right by. Here's hoping! Lots of stuff to do this week: home inspection, financing, insurance, etc.

I'd imagine once we are all settled, we will probably have some sort of house-warming party :).

I nearly forgot about this!

2009-05-09T11:16:00.001-04:00

Okay, I pretty much did forget! Pictures from Zach's 2nd birthday are up on our picture page. I actually had them posted last week but forgot to mention it on the blog. Sorry about that!

Oh my...

2009-05-09T08:24:00.004-04:00

Yes, it has been awhile! Want the lowdown on what's been happening?

The wedding plans are coming along. I spoke to a potential caterer last night and I think we'll probably go with him. We know we're doing a buffett style meal (I think that makes things super easy!) and we're probably going to do chicken & fish (my family LOVES fish!), vegetables, salad, etc. Basically, all the usual stuff! I've been at one other wedding that had fish (my friend Amanda) and I thought it was the best ever because so rarely is it served at weddings. Everything else is moving along slowly. Next on the list will probably be the gift registry!

We're house hunting! We started looking at houses a couple weeks ago. We've been in quite a few and have a good idea of now what we are looking for in a house! We are actually going to look at another potential house later on this morning.

Last night, Jere & I got in on the 1 vs. 100 X-Box Live beta (available only to Canadians at this point! How cool is that?). It was a lot of fun, particularly when we started off. As more people starting joining in though, we got booted out to the lobby...A LOT! But that's why they call it a beta; I would be surprised if stuff like that did not happen! I'm sure we'll post more on it later. In fact, we're thinking of doing a podcast about it.

Anyway, I just wanted to do a quick update on here because I realize it has been awhile!

Trip to St. Jacobs

2009-04-10T08:44:00.002-04:00

Last Sunday (April 5, 2009), Jeremy and I took a day trip to St. Jacobs, Ontario. It is a small town about 90 minutes from here (it is very close to Kitchener-Waterloo!). It is a beautiful little town with lots of cool shops and a great Farmers Market (we didn't go there because it wasn't open!).

We took the day trip to celebrate our three year anniversary. Both of us had an awesome day! We made a stop at Picard's Peanuts to pick up a few treats (Amanda & Anderson got us hooked on chip nuts from there! Basically, peanuts with a potato shell. They are delicious!). Next we stopped in downtown St. Jacobs and spent a few hours there looking in the various shops. We went into an antique store where I found a 1960's souvenir plate from Florida for $4.00...so of course I picked it up!

Our favourite store, however, was Toy Soup. Yes, it was a toy store but they also had lots of awesome boards games. Jeremy and I ended up picking up a couple games. One is called "Pit" and is a card game that has become a favourite of ours (again, thanks to Amanda & Anderson). We also picked up another fast-moving card game called "Killer Bunnies". We haven't played it yet but I think it's going to be a lot of fun!

After finishing up in St. Jacobs, we went for dinner in Stratford at Bentley's. It was a great end to an awesome day!

Oh yeah, and pictures are posted in our Picasa photo album (just click on the "Our Photos" link on the left side of the screen. Feel free to check them out! :)

Organization

2009-04-09T21:28:00.009-04:00

I've been meaning to do this entry for awhile but just have not got around to it until now. As many of you know, I LOVE tea! I've been reviewing tea for the Tea Review Blog for a couple of months now and am really enjoying it!

The kitchen in our apartment is quite small and space is limited AND I have quite an extensive collection of tea as you can see from the picture below:

I try to store my loose leaf tea in small canisters. If not, I just keep them in the bags they are purchased in. My bag tea was stored in a plastic tupperware container. Basically, the whole thing was really disorganized. At the time (over a month ago), I was trying to think of ways to organize my tea better. With limited space, it was difficult. Jeremy suggested I buy less tea. I'll let you guess what my answer was to that ;).

Now we come to the cool part. Jacki, Jeremy's sister (and my awesome, future sister-in-law!) was up visited so we went over to see her, Alexandria and Zachery. She said she had a present for me! Was I ever surprised when I opened the bag to find a wooden tea chest!! To me, it was an awesome present! Here it is:

Cool, eh? It is perfect for keeping all my bag teas organized!

Immediately upon arriving back at our apartment, I set out to get my tea organized. Below is all of my tea. I told you I enjoy tea ;). The two tupperware containers were full of bag tea. The little containers and bags are loose-leaf tea.

And this is the tea chest when I was finished:

I know, maybe not the most exciting thing to everyone but I was super happy to get all my tea organized! Yes, the chest is absolutely full. Getting all my tea organized made me realize how much tea I have!

What else was I happy was? How thoughtful the gift was! So, big thanks to Jacki for buying it for me! I had actually been looking for a small tea chest like that for quite awhile and was not having any luck finding it. I have the best (future) sister-in-law! :)

How did the muffins turn out?

2009-03-17T18:40:00.002-04:00

Remember those apple-cranberry bran muffins I made yesterday? The ones where I used applesauce instead of oil? Well...they turned out AWESOME!

Jere took some to work with him today and apparently, they were a big hit with the staff at the museum. I took some with me to work as well, and they were enjoyed there The ultimate taste test though, rested with Jere. I would say he enjoyed them very much! He's requested I make them again, which is always a good sign :).

I've had a couple as well and I have to say, they are quite tasty. ;)

How we're celebrating...

2009-03-17T18:33:00.003-04:00

So, again...Happy St. Patty's Day, everyone!

Jere and I decided not to go to the bar tonight. We had a good night out with some good friends of ours on Saturday night so we figure that's enough! Plus, if we really want a beer, we've got a good stock of Bud Light Lime, Miller Chill and Guinness on hand here! Oh yeah, and wine, of course ;).

We have decided, however, to take advantage of this beautiful weather right now and go out for a walk! Go see what is happening in the downtown area, have a look at the kittens in the shelter (yes, we're still going adopt a couple of cats once we get a new place!), and just enjoy the beautiful weather!

However you decided to spend St. Patrick's Day, I hope you enjoyed it! It certainly was beautiful weather for it (well, here in southwestern Ontario anyway!).

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-17T07:28:00.002-04:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

How will you be celebrating?

Jere and I don't know if we'll really do much for St. Patrick's Day since we went out on Saturday night with some friends for an early St. Patty's Day celebration. Who knows...maybe we'll walk up to the bar for a pint of Guinness (well, it'll be me drinking the Guinness. Jere will drink Coors a.k.a. water ;) ).

Have a good day, everyone! :)

Something new...

2009-03-16T15:03:00.003-04:00

I am always looking for ways to bake as healthy as possible without sacrificing the taste. So far so good...no complaints from Jeremy or anyone else who has tried my baking. I sometimes use a banana instead of egg, splenda instead of sugar, etc.

I was discussing baking with the curator at the museum here in Goderich on Friday. Her husband is very health conscious and she was telling me in many recipes, he substitutes applesauce for oil. I thought, why not give that a try? So I did today. I'm making apple-cranberry bran muffins for a potluck at work tomorrow (in Stratford). The recipe called for a 1/4 cup of oil. I added 1 tablespoon of oil and a single serving container of applesauce. I haven't tried the muffins yet but the batter was perfect and didn't seem any different from when I normally use oil.

While I won't substitute all the time (depends on the recipe), it's good to know at least in some recipes I can use applesauce instead of oil.

The big thing will be the taste test! I'll let you know what Jeremy thinks of them later...they do smell delicious though (they're baking as a I type this!).

Follow the Leader

2009-03-14T16:58:00.004-04:00

Last August, I posted about a new toy. It was the Garmin StreetPilot c330 GPS system and things have come along way since then. Last Thursday, Future Shop's Deal of the Day was the Garmin Nüvi 755T, regularly $549.99 on sale for $249.99. Here are some of the new features in this model:

4.3" Touchscreen (my old GPS has a 3.5" screen)
Text-to-speech (it will speak street names instead of just saying the direction to turn)
Lane Assist - guides you to the correct lane for an approaching turn or exit (as seen in the photo above)
Lifetime Traffic (ad supported)
Route Planning - With route planning you can save 10 routes, specify via points and preview simulated turns on the 755T's wide screen. In addition, nüvi 755T automatically sorts multiple destinations to provide an efficient route for errands, deliveries or sales calls. It also displays speed limits for highways and Interstates. (nice!)
Optional 3D buildings on map
MP3 player, world travel clock, automatic time zone transition, currency converter, unit converter, calculator and more.
FM transmitter - you can hear audio, including voice prompts, MP3s and audio books, through your vehicle's stereo.
Find Yourself, Your Car - It automatically marks your position when you remove it from the windshield mount, so you can navigate with nüvi on foot and find your way back to your vehicle. Perfect for unfamiliar spots and crowded lots such as amusement parks, stadiums and malls (this would have been helpful last summer at Cedar Point).

There are many more features that will take a while to discover, I'm sure. I'm looking forward to giving this new model a try. I really like the new layout of the map that shows extra things current speed, next direction and speed limit. Check out this review some other handy information.

Brief Update...

2009-03-14T10:07:00.002-04:00

Yes, it has been awhile since our last update! This past week was somewhat hectic. Finally the weekend is here!

Today, we're going to visit a friend of ours in Stratford and maybe do a bit of shopping while we're there. I mainly want to hit Distinctly Tea, and pick up some tea. My excuse for buying more tea is I need some new stuff to review for the tea review blog! Ha ha. I'm so glad Jere supports my habit ;). If only I could just get him drinking tea as well. *sigh*

Tonight, we might head up to Paddy O'Neil's for some early St. Patty's Day celebrating. I need to make up for last year since I was sick (remember, the whole ear drum thing?).

This week is March Break. It's also Young Canada Week here in Goderich and Jere & I will bartending at the arena on Wednesday for that. This year is the 60th anniversary for Young Canada Week, which is very cool!

So yeah, not much exciting has been happening! Just wanted to do an update anyway.

Have a great weekend, everyone! :)

The Venue...

2009-03-01T22:52:00.004-05:00

Maybe this will make it seem like we've actually done a bit of wedding planning. We have a venue for our wedding! YAY!

And we are getting married at...

At the Huron County Museum in Goderich!

Why the museum?

This is where Jere and I met. As many of you know, Jere stills works there and I volunteer there a couple times a week.

We thought that this was the perfect place for us to get married since it has a lot of sentimental value for us.

Finding the venue and getting it booked was a HUGE relief for the both of us.

Now, as I said in a previous entry, we need to find a photographer (my mother is actually helping me with that), caterer, etc.

A Random Update...

2009-03-01T22:39:00.002-05:00

There's been a lot of entries in our blog recently, I felt weird for leaving it for as long as I did. I thought I better do a brief update on what's been happening lately.

Jere is 100% recovered from whatever illness he had. Virus, cold, flu...whatever it was, it was NASTY!

I realize I haven't done the usual "Lost" entries for the past few episodes; I really should try and get back on that! Lately though, I've been pretty much asleep as soon as the episode is over (it's not boring...I've just been super tired!). The episodes have been really good though, particularly last week's episode, which focused on John Locke (one of my favourite characters!).

We managed to get some video games in this week. Yes, Jere and I were introduced to the awesomeness that is one of the newest X-Box Live Arcade games: Death Tank. Described as "worms on crack" by one of our fellow gamers, this game is freaking awesome! About five of us played the other night and had lots of fun and laughs! If you are familiar with the worms games, you will know how much those are. Death Tank is very similar to that! Basically, you are a tank...and you just blow the s&*^ out of the other tanks that are around you using an arsenal of different weapons (you build up money to purchase them). It is fun, believe me!

Jere worked on Saturday and I went with my mom to Sam's Club in London. All the Sam's Clubs in Ontario are unfortunatly closing down and my mom and I went to pick up a few things on Saturday. It was absolutely INSANITY! So insane, I might actually do a blog entry about it ;). On serious note, I am saddened by the closure, as it was a place that I was a frequent shopper at and often times, they had a lot of good bargains. On the bright side, there are still Sam's Clubs in the U.S. so I'm definitely going to keep my membership.

Just to end off, wedding planning has been...well...SLOW! I realize we should be picking up the pace with it. I'm sure we will soon. Well, we kinda have to. Photographer, cater, etc...all will be decided soon! At least we have a venue (more on that later).

Well, until next time...try and stay warm in this insanely cold weather!

Weddings & Video Games

2009-02-24T07:11:00.001-05:00

I think Jeremy and I might be able to get some good ideas from this article. Check it out! Personally, I think this is cool and it's already given me a few ideas ;).

Not overly hyped about it...

2009-02-22T17:39:00.003-05:00

The Oscars are tonight. Neither of us are really hyped up about it.

I find my interest in the Oscars has waned over the past few years. I think it's mainly because I see so few of the movies that are nominated. It used to be I saw more of them but in the past few years, it has become less and less. Whether its due to limited release, having a crappy theatre that NEVER gets good movies (Paul Blart: Mall Cop has been here for three f&^%ing weeks!) OR just no interest in seeing the movie (this has been the case a lot of the time), I'm lucky if I've seen one or two of the movies nominated.

This year, I've seen one of the movies they nominated for Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire. It was good but did not blow me away, did not really inspire me and is not one I need to see again. That pretty much sums it up. Do I have any desire to see the rest of the Best Pictures nominees? Other than The Reader and Frost/Nixon, not really. I don't like Sean Penn OR Brad Pitt so I won't be running out to see their movies anytime soon. I know, I must sound cynical!

One of the best movies I saw last year, Valkyrie, was not even considered! It was the first movie I've seen in a long time that I've actually wanted to go back to the theatre and see again. It was AWESOME! And the other awesome movie, The Dark Knight, is up for a few awards but not Best Picture; I feel like it got overlooked in that category but what do I know? ;)

We'll probably end up watching some of the Oscars. Both of us want to see who Best Supporting Actor goes to. I really hope it's Heath Ledger. He deserves it. His portrayal of the Joker was phenomenal and really carried that entire movie.

So, what will you be doing on Oscar night?

Maybe I'd feel more like watching it if Hugh Jackman hosted as Wolverine and got the claws out everytime someone went overtime with their speech (as said by trixie360 on Twitter). ;)

More McD's?

2009-02-21T18:04:00.002-05:00

Yes, Jere (a.k.a. "the sickie") had McDonald's again today. This time a Big Mac combo with fries!

As he stood in the kitchen, looking all forlorn and asking what he could possibly eat as he was very hungry, I know he wanted a Big Mac. It was written all over his face! ;)

We jumped in the car, drove to McDonald's and got the combo. It was also Jere's first time out of the house since Tuesday afternoon. I insisted Jere come with me, even just for the short drive, to get some fresh air.

The sickie was feeling much better after his oh-so-nutritious meal. ;)

I think we've all been there with being sick. I know I definitely have. You haven't really ate anything substantial in one or two (or possibly more days) and the first thing you crave is something high in calories. What better than McD's? That's about the only time I get McDonald's is if I've been sick. I avoid it like the plague the rest of the time but my gosh, that Big Mac tastes like the best thing ever after having not ate in a few days! ;) Just ask Jere...

On the mend...

2009-02-20T22:31:00.002-05:00

I am happy to say Jere is on the mend...finally! Poor guy has been down and out with this nasty virus since Tuesday afternoon!

It's still hanging around but he looks MUCH better today. He says he's still really tired and feels kinda weak, but who doesn't feel that way after your body has been waging war with germs for a few days?

When did I really notice the difference? I was at the museum here in Goderich volunteering for the afternoon, when I got a message from Jere: "I got THE craving...I need meat!". "The craving" refers to what always happens to both of us after we've been sick; we need protein, preferably in the form of a hamburger, preferably from Micky D's. In short, I brought him home a double cheeseburger when I was done at the museum, which he promptly wolfed down!

I'm glad he's got this weekend to rest up. We don't really have any plans at all so I think we'll just be taking it easy. I'm hoping we can get some gaming in (Gears of War 2, Lego Star Wars, Rock Band, etc. I'm up for just about anything actually...), maybe watch a movie and perhaps check out the Oscars (honestly, neither of us are overly hyped up about the Oscars).

Now here's hoping I don't come down with this nasty virus. I was sick a few weeks ago with a bit of a head cold but it didn't not kick my ass like this virus Jere has.

Hope everyone has a good weekend! :)

Giving it another chance...

2009-02-19T22:57:00.005-05:00

I've been a wine drinker for years. I started out with just white wine, absolutely hating red. I would not touch the stuff. One night that all changed. It was the Thursday night before Good Friday in 2007. We were invited over to Ray & Lara's place. Before going out there, I realized I did not have any white wine to take with me. My mother, however, had a bottle of red. She told me I could take it with me. I cringed at the thought but decided "what the hell?". I became a red wine convert that night.

Soon after, I lost my taste for white wine. I swore it off. No more! I was sticking with red...

That changed in Florida. Marty & Karen (Jeremy's uncle & aunt) are wine drinkers, mainly white wine. While there, Karen offered me a taste of a white wine from the Marlborough region of New Zealand. Using my whole "what the hell?" philosophy, I gave it a try. I did not expect to like it....HOWEVER...I did. It was a white wine called Monkey Bay; a Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough of New Zealand. I LOVED IT!

I decided I would give white wine another chance.

Let's just say I enjoy white wine again. I'm very picky though: it has to be very dry (I always look for a "0" sugar code at the LCBO), preferably a Sauvignon Blanc or a Chardonnay, and usually, not from Canada.

When I swore off white wine, I realize now I pretty judgmental. The only white wine I'd ever had was from Ontario; I never had tried the amazing white wines of New Zealand and Australia. Some people might jump all over me for knocking Canadian wines BUT there are few Canadian wines I enjoy. While I do enjoy a few Ontario red wines (Colio and Cave Spring are my favourite wineries from Canada) for white wines, my heart really lies with those from New Zealand's Marlborough region, like Monkey Bay and Stoneleigh. I also enjoy Australian white wines, like Jacob's Creek.

What do I love about the New Zealand white wines? It is their slight citrus flavour; it is delicious!

While red wine is still my favourite of the two, I've decided to give white wine another chance...so long as it's from the land down under ;). Seriously though, if you know of a good white wine (as I said above, preferably one that is dry), let me know about it (even if it isn't from Australia or New Zealand)! While we're at it, if you know of any good red wines, let me know as well! I can't promise I'll be able to find it at the LCBO in Goderich (that is a whole other issue!) but I'll definitely add it to my list of wines to try.

What's been happening?

2009-02-19T17:14:00.006-05:00

So far, I've posted two reviews to teareviewblog.com. Although I've only posted two reviews, it is a lot of fun and I'm really enjoying it! I also want to stop by Full Circle Tea & Pottery up on the square and picked some of the small bags of tea to try and review!

What else has been happening?

Poor Jere has been sick since Tuesday afternoon. He's got some kind of nasty cold/flu/cough illness. He slept a lot yesterday and today (he's actually napping again right now) and basically just taking it easy. Hopefully he starts to feel better soon! And hopefully I don't catch it from him.

We had a great long weekend! The trip to Port Huron was awesome. We met up with fellow tehbias, Rudy, briefly at Birchwood Mall to drop a package off to him. We also met his daughters, Heather and Emily. All of them were so nice (Emily & Heather were absolute sweethearts!)! And it was great to meet another person from the site. When the weather is nicer, hopefully we can get together again.

Dinner at Olive Garden was delicious! Jere had his usual soup and five-cheese ziti. I had my usual salad but instead of getting pasta, I decided to try the apricot-glazed chicken with a side of tomatoes, aspargus and broccoli. It was oh-so-tasty and something I will definitely be getting again. I also tried a glass of Robert Mandavi Chardonny, which was very good. And I had a glass of red wine with dinner. Don't worry...Jere was the designated driver ;).

We found some really bargains while we were in Michigan, especially at JC Penny. Jere needed to get a new dress shirt and he ended up purchasing five shirts and a pair of pants! Four of the dress shirts were on sale for $4.97 (they're a brand he's purchased before) and were regularly priced at $34.00. He also got another shirt for $10.00. The pants he got were on sale for $30.00. I also found some new shirts at JC Penny. A new hoodie and two new sweaters. All of them were $4.97 each (regularly priced at $42.00!!). The reason for the sales was because it was President's Day weekend.

On Sunday, we took it easy and had some delicious Chinese food over at my parents place.

Monday was Family Day. We ended up hanging out with our friend, Mark, for part of the afternoon. We haven't seen him in awhile so it was great to see him. All of us had a fun time. We watched a couple episodes of the Simpson's and played some video games. Mark brought over some games for us to try. We ended up trying out Legendary (Mark has let me borrow this one. Thanks, Mark!) as well as Fallout 3. Well, Jere tried out Fallout 3...I just watched. Even after just watching it though, I definitely want a copy of the game.

Anyway, hopefully Jere is better by the weekend! We really don't have anything planned but I don't want to see him sick for the entire weekend. I also hope he's better by tomorrow night since we have plans to go out for yellow perch at the Maitland Country Club with my parents.

Hope all is well with everyone! :)

Taking a passion to another level

2009-02-17T22:24:00.002-05:00

If you look to the left side of the blog, just below our 360 avatars, you will see a picture for teareviewblog.com. Yes, I am now reviewing teas for this website!

A few of you probably know how MUCH I love tea (actually, it's probably more of an addiction but anyway, who cares?). I figure with the six or so cups I drink I day, I may as well take it to a whole other level. Why not review tea?

So, how did I stumble upon this site and get into reviewing? Steph, who is part of teareviewblog.com, started following me on Twitter. I checked out the website, started following her on Twitter and e-mailed her about reviewing teas. And yes, I've posted my first review already! My first review was on a Rooibos tea called Chocolate Supreme. It is a loose leaf tea I picked up from a local tea shop here in Goderich that I frequent called Full Circle Tea & Pottery. If you go here you can check out my review as well as other reviews (I believe there has already been another review posted since I did mine!). My name on the site is just simply "mary".

I plan on doing more reviews since I've been trying a lot of new tea lately. At Full Circle I can get small bags of tea for .50 cents each (usually good for 5 or more cups of tea) so I usually get a few of those when I go in there (believe me, it's often ;) ).

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to continuing to review teas for the site. Oh, and the perks? For every 10 reviews, I get some tea samples to try. Yes, I am definitely looking forward to it! :)

What I did this morning...

2009-02-13T11:31:00.005-05:00

I baked:

Brownies with peanut-butter chips
Thumbprint cookies with jam (sugar-free!)
Choco-banana muffins (this was an egg-free recipe I got from vegetariantimes.com. They turned out AMAZING!)
Peanut butter cookies
Applesauce Spice Bars (actually, these are still in the oven...)

Why all the baking? Valentine's Day! And I just felt like it; I tried a few new recipes and they turned out pretty good!

Now I just need to get some containers and dole this stuff out to people ;)

Tomorrow, Jeremy and I are off to Port Huron, MI for some shopping and a Valentine's Day dinner at the Olive Garden. We thought Olive Garden would be a great place to have dinner on Valentine's Day since it's our favourite restaurant and it gives us a chance for the two of us to go away for the day together. And of course there's all the shopping ;).

On Sunday we're going to my parent's place for Chinese food.

Oh yes, and it's a long weekend here in Canada (Monday is Family Day!). We don't really have any big plans for the day off on Monday but we might hang out with a friend (we tentatively made plans with him for Sunday or Monday afternoon).

In gaming news, since our schedules have finally slowed down a bit, we've been trying to play more games. I started Call of Duty: World at War the other night. What an awesome game! It's set in World War II (again!). I played through the first chapter and LOVED it! I've also noticed I'm much improved at the shooter games; I only died once during the level. My levels of swearing and cursing remain the same though ;) Last night, we popped in Lego Stars: The Complete Saga, and blasted our way through a few chapters in that. The lego games are always fun, especially with two players!

Speaking of games, in a few weeks we're going to be having a retro games night with a couple of our friends! Yes, we're gonna dig out the old systems...the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega, etc. We've also decided to dress up for the occasion so yes, it will be a totally retro night! ;) I'll probably post a list in a few weeks of some of the games we might play.

Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day & Happy Family Day!! Have a good weekend, everyone :).

Something New Part II

2009-02-09T20:32:00.002-05:00

NOT A WEDDING POST YET!!!

;)

Hee hee...sorry!!

This is a follow-up to my post from a few days about the Italian-Style Spaghetti Squash. I mentioned I would do do an entry about how it turned out (I know, this is probably not very exciting for many of you ;) My apologies...). Anyway, it turned out awesome! It is definitely something I'd make again; both of us enjoyed it. Unfortunately, because of the price of squash (it can be kind of pricey), it won't become a regular thing on our menu. Definitely good every so often though!

Jeremy really enjoyed it, which I was so happy about!

It was very tasty and actually quite filling (and very healthy!).

Digging out the "flesh" (I guess that is what it's called) of the squash was a bit messy and by the time I had it dug out, I had to re-heat the squash. I was also a bit rushed in making it since we had friends coming over prior to the party at Ray & Lara's. Next time, I'm going to add minced garlic to it and more herbs.

If you like spaghetti squash though, definitely give this recipe a try! The place I got the recipe (vegetariantimes.com) also has other great recipes for squash!

Another party!

2009-02-08T10:54:00.003-05:00

Ray & Lara hosted an awesome party last night! We played lots of Rock Band and I'm pretty sure a great time was had by everyone!

Be sure to check out the pictures! I just got them posted; just click on the "Our Photos" link on the left. Enjoy! Some of them are pretty crazy, as usual ;).

Something new...

2009-02-07T14:54:00.005-05:00

No, it's not a wedding-related entry! ;)

We're going to try something new for dinner tonight. I am going to attempt to make this.

Italian-style spaghetti squash. I think it looks delicious! Hopefully it turns out that way! I'm sure I'll post about it once we've had a chance to try it. I've never cooked with any sort of squash before (well, except pumpkin) so this is definitely something new for me. I've had spaghetti squash before though, and love it (my aunt Nancy makes a killer spaghetti squash dish!). Jeremy, on the other hand, has never had spaghetti squash before.

I am so thankful he's willing to try it though! Jeremy's always been good about trying out different foods and dishes that I make. Since I moved in over a year ago, I've taken over most of the cooking. So far, I haven't had any complaints ;)

So, what else has been going on? Well, that project Jeremy and I were working on about the Great Storm of 1913 is finally done! We'll post the URL for it once it gets posted online. For those that don't know, one of Jeremy's work projects since October has been to put together an virtual exhibit about the Great Storm of 1913 and corresponding exhibit that Huron County Museum was part of putting together (the other party involved was the Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre). He asked me for help, since I've done a lot of research about the Great Storm. I was more than happy to help. I'm certainly glad I did, because it was a great experience and I ended up learning a lot more about the Great Storm (it's an area of local history I am VERY interested in). Also in doing the project, I transcribed the 170-page Great Storm inquest. That might be posted online at some point too.

Tonight, we're off to Ray & Lara's for a party; there will be Rock Band, Guitar Hero happening, of course. Should be a good time and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures! :)

Tomorrow, we're off to Kitchener to go to Sam's Club and pick up Jeremy's mom. It also gives us a chance to visit with Jacki, Jean-Paul, Alex and Zachery. I know she'll read this at some point today so...see you tomorrow, Jacki!! :)

Oh, and many apologies for not getting my usual review of the "Lost" episode up! I've been battling a cold for the past few days and after "Lost" was over on Wednesday, I pretty much went right to bed. Hopefully I'll get that posted soon.

Test Post from iPhone

2009-02-05T18:24:00.001-05:00

Just testing a post that I'm sending directly to the blog from my
iPhone. I've attached a picture so let's see how that looks too.

Cats and Rats Living Together

2009-02-02T20:24:00.002-05:00

I came across this video on YouTube which proves there is hope for us when we have cats and rats living under one roof. It's hilarious!

"Where'd you get the recipe?"

2009-02-02T18:14:00.003-05:00

The above question was posed to me by Jeremy as we ate dinner tonight. My reply was "I made it up as I went along". Actually, I made it up on the way home. What did we have for dinner? Whole wheat penne with Roma tomatoes, onion, mushrooms & olives. Considering I made it up and it was my first time making it, it turned out pretty good!

I boiled the roma tomatoes in a big pot. As I was boiling them, I cut up mushrooms, onion and olives. I put those in the oven on the broiler setting. Once the water reached boiling, I removed it from the heat, drained the water and mashed the tomatoes. I didn't have enough Roma tomatoes so I had to add tomato paste. This really thickened the sauce up. I added various herbs/spices (Basil, garlic, oregano, parsly, celery seed, paprika, cumin, etc) and heated it up in the microwave.

I stirred the veggies that were in the oven and turned the broiler off; about 15 minutes was all these needed. I did keep them in the oven, however, to keep them warm.

I put the pasta on. I added two tablespoons of Basil to the pasta, along with some extra virgin olive oil and garlic. Once it was done cooking, I drained the water, added the onion, mushroom and olive mixture. The last thing I added was the roma tomato sauce.

The verdict? Jeremy really enjoyed it! It's also definitely one I'd make again. Yes, it's a little bit more elaborate than the usual pasta I make (pasta with diced tomatos with various spices/herbs) and probably more of a weekend thing. I got home at 4:45 today so I had time. We were finished dinner by 5:45 tonight.

As I said in a previous entry, I LOVE baking and cooking. Coming home and cooking a meal like this is actually a huge stress reliever for me. I know cooking meals like that is not for everyone but each to their own, right?

And what's on the menu for tomorrow night? Blueberry pancakes. This time I'm going to make them from brown rice flour. In Florida, Karen made us pancakes this type of flour and they were delicious!

I'll be sure to post on how they turn out...

Baking up a storm...

2009-01-29T22:04:00.007-05:00

I don't know if it was the snow day this week or just that I LOVE to bake whenever I get the chance, but I did A LOT of baking this week. As I type this, I have bran muffins with cranberries baking in the oven. Yummy! Well, hopefully; it is my first time giving the recipe a try.

I always love to try new recipes out. I usually end up modifying the recipes, particularly when it comes to sugar. I always use Splenda when I bake. I also use whole-wheat flour. I have low blood sugar so I try my best to stay away from white flour (it can cause major fluctuations in blood sugar) and if I have anything with too much sugar, it can actually cause my blood sugar to rapidly drop (hence the reason, I keep the sugar as low as possible when I bake). I also add in flax seeds, different nuts (if it will work with the recipe), both of which are quite healthy.

I've heard some people comment they haven't had much success baking with whole wheat flour but I haven't had any problems. I've found muffin tops come out a bit differently but it doesn't seem to affect the taste. Sometimes the dough is a bit drier but that is relatively easy to fix.

Yesterday, which was a snow day, I decided to give homemade brownies (right from scratch!) a try. I found the recipe on vegetariantimes.com (I have been looking on this site a lot recently for recipes; they've got some really good stuff on there). It was an interesting recipe. If you're interested, you can find it here. No egg (banana instead) and soy instead of milk (I drink both so I usually have each on hand). I didn't use vegan chocolate chips though; just plain old semi-sweet chocolate chips. Anyway, they turned out quite good! They are not sweet at all, like most of the brownie mixes are. I don't like anything overly sweet and I loved the way the brownies turned out! Jeremy enjoyed them too. He's got more a sweet tooth than I do, so he has the brownies with chocolate sauce, granola and peanut butter (healthy much? ;) ). I will definitely make them again though!

This afternoon, I was working from home. On my lunch break, I decided to bake a loaf of bread. Jeremy had just finished off the loaf of Demster's bread (we affectionatly refer to it as "Dumpsters" bread ;) ). Our favourite bread is this bread we get in Port Huron called "Aunt Millie's". It is the best bread ever! As with many other foods, we can't get "Aunt Millie's" bread here in Canada. Anyway, I made a loaf of whole wheat bread in the bread machine. We'll find out tomorrow at lunch how it turned out!

Tonight, I made Apple-Cinammon Muffins with a brown-sugar/cinammon topping. They turned out pretty good! And, as I mentioned at the beginning of this, I also made bran muffins with cranberries. I think these are my favourite muffins now! When I little, my grandma and I made bran muffins together all the time, and as I was making them, I realized how similar this recipe was to hers. Brought back lots of good memories as I was making them! :) I seem to remember my grandmother adding molasses to her bran muffins though, which the recipe I had did not call for. Oh well...they still turned out really good!

So, in the baking this week I've managed to use up the rest of my flours, eggs, and I'm starting to run low on other ingredients. I don't really mind; baking, as well as cooking, have become huge passions of mine over the past few years. I find it relaxing and is a great stress reliever for me. It was also something I did a lot with my grandma when I was little, so I suppose that is why it is so relaxing for me,

My goal this year is to make an apple pie from scratch. My grandma did that all the time. Unfortunatly, she never wrote the recipe down so I won't be able to use her exact recipe. Hopefully, I can find one that is close! I've also got a pumpkin cheesecake to try to make at some point too.

If you have any recipes you enjoy making (or eating!), please post them in the Comments section. Like I said, I LOVE trying out new recipes! And Jeremy is more than happy to try new stuff too ;).

"Lost" again...

2009-01-28T22:05:00.002-05:00

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen this week's episode (01/28/09), please don't read any further cause there are spoilers.

You've been warned.

Another GREAT episode tonight!! One reason I wanted to do this blog entry was to get my thoughts down right away. As usual, the episode left us with some questions answered but more questions asked.

I really, really enjoyed this episode. I think that is probably because it involved my favourite character of all time: Desmond. Other characters I really like were also heavily in the episode: Locke, Sawyer, and Juliette. I also like Daniel Faraday (spelling?), Charlotte and Myles. I realized tonight I do not like Jack all that much, or Kate. I don't mind Sun, so I hope she's in next week's episode. Oh, and Ben has really grown on me as well. But Jack and Kate? As I said to Jeremy after the episode, "I don't really like Jack and Kate. Jack's a bit of a prick and Kate a bit of a bitch and both of them are annoying" (pardon my french!).

Oh, how I love Desmond though. ;)

Anyway, the time shifting stuff is cool. I'm still waiting for them to run into Doc Brown and Marty McFly at some point ;) Or, after one of the flashes happens and they shift through time, a huge tyrannosaurus rex comes crashing out of the forest or some velociraptors hunt them in the jungle. Like I said, waiting for it to happen...and I'll probably be waiting all season for it ;). But I digress...

It took me awhile to realize when in time they were (i.e. 1954). It wasn't until Daniel started telling the annoying chick with the gun that the island was still here 50 years from now that I clued in.

Now Charles Widmore (spelling?) being on the island in 1954 is interesting. Again, this now adds yet another question. But I suppose it begins to answer the question as to why Charles Widmore has such an interest in the island.

I feel sorry for Locke; everytime he tries to get some info about how to get off the island from Richard, time decides to shift AGAIN.

Why is Charlotte the only one with radiation poisoning? Did I miss something in a past episode that may have exposed her to it? Why is no one else sick? I'm guessing Charlotte is dead...or is going to die. Maybe time shifting will bring her back?

Desmond seems to be going on a bit of a whirlwind journey in search of Daniel's mother. I'm really beginning to think his character is partly based on the Greek hero, Odysseus. The epic poem, "The Odyssey", is about the wanderings of Odysseus after the end of the Trojan War; it actually took him 10 years to get home. I might read the Odyssey again and see if I can find some connections with the character or the story itself. I don't know what it is, but something about Desmond reminds me of Odysseus.

I am very much looking forward to next week's episode even though from the preview it looks like it is more focused on the Oceanic 6.

I will end off there. If I think of anything else during the next few days, I will probably make a post about it. To our readers, if you have any thoughts/theories, please feel free to post them in the comments section!

Lost

2009-01-21T23:39:00.004-05:00

Awesome season premiere!!

That's all I'm saying for now just in case whoever is reading this has not seen the premiere yet!!!

Did anyone else watch Lost?? Thoughts? Opinions?? Please post...

Day 8: The Last Day

2009-01-13T21:34:00.003-05:00

Our last day in Florida!

We woke up early, had breakfast, sat on the lanai for a few minutes and started packing. Around 11:00, Jeremy and I went out for a walk through Grasslands. Our main reason for doing this was to take pictures of some of the rather large houses! We also wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather as much as we could.

We met one of the residents while out on our walk and spoke to her for a few minutes. One thing I've always noticed about Florida (and the U.S. in general) is people are very friendly. She asked if we would ever consider moving to Florida and of course Jeremy and I both said "Yes!". She understood that since she was originally was from the midwest U.S., which has similar weather to ours here in southwestern Ontario.

After our walk, we went over to Lakeside Village again just to pick up a few things.

After that, we went back to Marty & Karen's and finished packing.

We had a delicious lunch with Marty & Karen and after that, we loaded the car up. By the time, we were done that, it was pretty much 4:00 and time for us to go!

It was sad to leave Marty & Karen and their beautiful condo! We had such a wonderful time with them and are very thankful for their hospitality, cooking such wonderful meals for us and making us feel so very welcome! The weather was gorgeous the entire we were there and we visited lots of cool places! It was one of the best trips, I think, Jeremy and I have ever been on together.

And yes, we are very much looking forward to going back to Florida for our honeymoon!

Day 7

2009-01-13T21:16:00.002-05:00

Day 7 was our last full day in Florida.

I ended up going for my morning run early since we were going to Tampa with Marty & Karen. We left for Tampa around 9:30. Our first stop was the International Plaza. This is a very new, very posh mall in Tampa. It is VERY nice! We had brunch at a restaurant called "Too Jays" and it was very good! I veggie wrap I had there was one of the best ones I've ever had.

After brunch, we wandered around International Plaza. We went into a few places while we were. I went into this tea store called "Teavana" and it was the BEST store I have ever been in. They were having a major "end-of-year" sale and I picked up a beautiful tea pot with four small tea cups for 50% off. I also managed to find the bamboo whisk for making matcha tea (I have it a couple times a day) as well as a bowl to whisk the matcha in. Yes, I'm a bit hard core when it comes to tea. ;)

We also went into the Apple Store while we were at International Plaza. Now that was cool! Believe me, both Jeremy and I were uber-impressed with the Apple store (are you surprised I was ;) ). On a side note, when I was looking at purchasing a new laptop a few months ago, I was seriously considering a Macbook BUT they were a little bit out of my price range (hence the reason I purchased the HP laptop, which I am still very happy with!). I got my first close up look at the Macbook Air, which was very cool.

After International Plaza, it was off to Whole Foods. This is a chain grocery store that specializes in organic foods as well as other speciality foods (i.e. gluten free, sugar free, etc). Karen shops in there all the time and I was looking to pick up some coffee (highly recommended by Karen). I picked up three different types of coffee, some different flavoured salts, crackers as well as some organic dark chocolate (my favourite!). They also had a very impressive wine section as well! There are a couple Whole Foods stores in Ontario (one in Oakville and one in Toronto) so I hope to get back to one soon.

After Whole Foods, it was off to Total Wine. The guy I spoke to in there referred to them as being "the Home Depot of wine". Indeed they were! I could have spent quite awhile in there actually! I managed to find a wine I've been looking for for MONTHS and does not seem to be available at the LCBO (surprise, surprise!). It is a Nero D'avola from Sicily.

Our last stop of the day was to this gigantic shoe called DSW! This was the biggest shore store I have ever been in! I bought a new pair of Doc Martens (40% off) and Jeremy got a very cool pair of Tommy Hilfiger slip on shoes (argyle pattern!).

On the way home, Karen drove along gulf shore and we some some incredible houses! We also drove through Ybor, which is a section of Tampa and is very much Cuban. It was really cool and I'd love to go back there sometime!

When we got back, Jeremy and I went to Sam's Club & Wal-Mart to pick up a few things as well as over to Lakeside Village again.

We went on our usual evening stroll (kinda sad, cause it was the last one of our trip!), sat on the lanai for awhile and turned in early (we had a long drive the next day!).

Day 6

2009-01-13T21:08:00.002-05:00

Back to the day-by-day of our trip to Florida...

Day 6 was New Year's Day.

In the morning, I went for my usual run. It was another gorgeous day! Karen made us a delicious brunch with pancakes (made with wild rice flour and blueberries! I am now on the look for wild rice flour), eggs, bacon, fruit,etc.

After lunch, Jeremy, Karen and I went over to Marshall's, which is this discount clothing chain. Karen was looking for a bluetooth headset and getting Jeremy's assistance. I quickly made my way over to the shoe section, where there was plenty of shoe discounts to be had. I kept myself restrained, however, and left the store empty handed.

After we got back to Grasslands, Jeremy and I went over to the pool for the afternoon. It was a little bit cooler than the first day we went but nevertheless, still very nice (and MUCH better than back home).

Before dinner, we took a quick trip to Wal-Mart.

Dinner, again, was delicious!

We went for a our usual evening stroll and actually ended up turning in early (I think New Year's Eve and staying up late tired us out. Crap...we sound like we're getting OLD!) ;).

Why I have a vendetta against peacocks...

2009-01-08T23:38:00.003-05:00

Let me set this up. This video was film when I was around 3 or 4 years old (so, 1985-86) by my dad. My dad was filming my grandpa and I feeding the peacocks at Fort Wilderness (a resort at Walt Disney World in Florida). Wait for the 2 minute and 8 second mark for the "incident" to occur (I swear, I'm lucky I didn't lose an eye ;) ).

Enjoy!! :)

Oh, and I will consider the score settled when I have a cooked peacock on a plate. I have yet to find a restaurant that serves such a dish ;).

And notice how my dad keeps filming AFTER the incident occurs, with all the peacocks gathering on the balcony. It reminds me of the movie "The Birds". Creepy!

Downtown Disney video

2009-01-07T11:19:00.002-05:00

Here's a video of our afternoon at Downtown Disney in Orlando:

New posts...

2009-01-06T22:06:00.001-05:00

Quite a few new posts below. Be sure to check 'em out!! :)

Day 5

2009-01-06T21:53:00.002-05:00

Day 5 was New Year's Eve.

The day started off in the usual way: breakfast on the lanai and a morning run. I actually went over to Starbucks in the hopes of getting a coffee over there but when I got there, their computer systems were down (their power was not out) and apparently, this means they cannot sell anything. I find it hard to believe a chain like Starbucks does not have a back-up plan for when something like this happens. Anyway, on to better things...

Our plan for the day was to go to a winery in Plant City and than over to Downtown Disney.

The winery is called Keel & Curley. If you're interested, you can check out there website here. They are famous for blueberry wine. For $3.00, I was able to sample six wines. I sampled the dry blueberry wine, a blackberry/raspberry wine, keylime wine, a Cabernet Sauvingnon, and a Merlot. All of them were EXCELLENT. I ended up buying two bottles of the dry blueberry wine (1 for me and 1 for Marty & Karen), and a bottle each of the Cabernet and the Merlot. I'm definitely going to go back to the winery next we're in Florida. Besides the wine, I also bought a wine glass.

Afterwards, it was one to Downtown Disney. I haven't been to Downtown Disney in a few years and it had changed quite a bit. Jeremy took some videos while we were there and hopefully he'll have it posted to the YouTube soon (my very talented fiance is in the midst of editing it all together). We spent the afternoon there, looking in all the different shops. It had changed so much since the last time I was there! There are lots of cool shops there: Virgin Megastore (we bought some calendars here), candy stores, cool glassware stores, an Irish pub, a lego store and MANY others. Besides the calendars, I also ended up coming home with some tea, chocolate covered expresso beans and a new mug (I collect mugs).

We were back to Marty & Karen's around 6:30. Karen staggered dinner and we had it in stages so we'd all make it to midnight. We started dinner around 7:30 and were finished by about 10:30 or so. To start, we had a salad. The main course Karen & I had was grilled salmon and tuna with beans and mashed califlower. Marty & Jeremy had steak instead of fish (plus the beans and califlower). Desert was a lemon cake with some fruit. We also had hot chocolate after dinner. It was all DELICIOUS!

We managed to make it to midnight but we struggled. All of us were really tired since we'd started our day early.

It was a very happy new year for all of us though!

Day Four

2009-01-06T21:40:00.003-05:00

Day four was a "take it easy" day. As usual, I went on my run in the morning after breakfast on the lanai. For lunch, Karen made us bacon, eggs and salad (again, very delicious; I think she is one of the most amazing cooks I've ever met).

We had plans for a movie and dinner (as Marty and I kept saying) with Marty & Karen. The theatre is over at Lakeside Village, which is a shopping area about a 20 minute walk from Grasslands. Jeremy and I headed over there around 2:30. It was another beautiful afternoon and we both enjoyed the walk over to Lakeside Village.

Karen had given me a coupon for Bed, Bath & Beyond (Jeremy and I have lovingly started calling this place "Bloodbath & Beyond" or "Bitch, Bath & Beyond") and we went in there to have a look around. Despite our interesting names for the place, we actually found a lot of cool stuff in there and since we're getting married and probably buying a house soon, we're thinking of actually registering there for gifts. I picked up a few things there, including a coffee grinder, new measuring cups, and a garlic press. We also checked out Books-A-Million and Gamestop.

We met Marty & Karen for the movie around 4:30. We went to see Valkyrie, which was AWESOME! It was one of the best movies I saw in 2008 and one of the few movies I've seen in a long time that I actually want to go back and see again. I'm a history buff, especially when it comes to World War 2, so this is probably why I enjoyed the movie so much. The movie was also one of those "edge-of-your-seat" thrillers and the acting was all phenomenal. I was particularly impressed with Tom Cruise, who I am not a huge fan of. He was amazing as Col. Staufenburg though, and looks very eerily like him.

After the movie, we went to dinner with Marty & Karen, called Fish City. Jeremy had grilled chicken, Karen had a blackened chicken salad, Marty had BBQ chicken and I had a salad with coconut shrimp, which was delicious!

We ended the day with our usual walk around Grasslands in the evening. It was another great day...

Day Three: Part 2

2009-01-06T21:23:00.003-05:00

I know we're home now but I still want to continue with the posts on what we did in Florida. So, here goes with the rest of day 3.

The first part of day 3, as you already read (well, maybe...), was spent looking around the neighborhood where my family had a house in New Port Richey. Prior to the trip, I had been raving to Jeremy about Checkers, this awesome burger place very near my old house. Checkers is a chain in Florida and I've seen a few in Georgia as well. Now, I am not a big fan of fast food and ever since changing my diet a few years ago, it does not always agree with me (I won't divulge ;) ). I was, however, wanting the Checkers experience since I always enjoyed it. So, we went to Checkers for lunch. We ordered two Checkerburger combos. Checkers was just as good as I remembered it! And Jeremy LOVED it. I know, I'm going on about a fast food burger BUT it was good. Their fries are also super good too; slightly spicy and crispy! It was far better than anything you get at McDonald's, Burger King or Wendy's (just ask Jeremy about that; he had a Baconator on the way home and said it was the most disgusting thing he'd ever had).

After lunch, we went into Sweetbay, which is a grocery store. I was looking for some cookies for my parents and I wanted to check in there. I didn't find the cookies although I found some other cookies (sugar-free!) and picked those up. I also looked at their MASSIVE selection of wine (and bought a bottle of white wine for Marty & Karen). We went into the liquor store that is part of Sweetbay (it's where they have hard liquor). We ended up getting a huge bottle of vodka for $20.00 and I found some delicious Raspberry liquor that was on sale.

To end off the day, we took a drive down the U.S. 19 and I pointed out some places to Jeremy my family and I frequented for dinner. I was happy to see Catches still in business. This was an awesome seafood place we usually went to a couple times when we were in Florida. Also still in business was the strip club up the road from my place. It's great to know some things NEVER change ;). We also went into Gulf View Square Mall and wandered around there.

We were back home again around 5:30 and had another delicious dinner with Marty & Karen. Afterwards, we sat on the lanai for a while and ended the night off with a walk around Grasslands.

Rock Band has Roy Orbison!

2009-01-06T19:31:00.004-05:00

Today six Roy Orbison songs were posted for download into Rock Band! They are:

Claudette
In Dreams
Mean Woman Blues
Oh, Pretty Woman
Ooby Dooby
You Got It

The game is getting some pretty amazing stuff and it's great to see classic stuff like this being added. I'd never have thought that 'You Got It' (one of my favourite songs) would be made available. Here's a video of it (the instrument being played is guitar):

Day Three: My Old House

2009-01-01T08:30:00.004-05:00

I know, I know! I've been a bit behind with the updates but here goes. This is part 1 of 2 entries about Day 3. I wanted to write separately about my old house we saw, since it may be a bit of a long entry ;) My apologies...

We took a drive to New Port Richey, where my grandfather and some of his children (my dad included) had a house. We would go down there, usually twice a year (Christmas and March Break). About four years after my grandfather passed away, the house was unfortunately sold. Now, the last time I saw this house in person was in 2003. I've seen it since on Google Earth street view. On Google Earth, it had appeared as though the house had been painted a baby blue colour and was no longer the white colour it had been when we owned it. Turns out Google Earth does not lie ;).

The drive to New Port Richey was great. I saw all the changes that had been along the route we took to get there once we left the I-75. The area is so much more built up, even in six years; many more shopping centres, housing developments, etc. I did, however, recognize a few things and was able to tell Jeremy about how far we were from the house.

The house was in an area called Mill Pond...an area I remember there being A LOT of older people, not many families and generally, being well-kept. I saw that the economy had taken a toll on this place. It's not trashy and decimated...it is just not the same. But I guess that's what happens when you don't see a place in nearly six years AND the economy goes into a downward spiral.

Seeing the house was not as hard for me as what I had envisioned. I felt somewhat mellow when I saw it. Also, as soon as I saw the place, I decided not to go knock on the door. Jeremy had asked if I wanted to do that and I said I would see when we got there. When I saw the outside of the house and realized the lanai was gone, I couldn't do it. The place had already changed too much for me on the outside to see what had been done to the inside. I want my memories of the inside of that place to remain as they are with the wallpaper on the walls my dad had hung up (and yes, it was nice wallpaper!) and everything else that was there as we had left it in 2003. Jeremy kept asking if I was sure but when I kept saying no, he said he understood and that he was likening it to his old house on Highway 21; he wouldn't want to see that on the inside either.

So yes, the house is a babyblue colour. It also had LOTS of Christmas decorations on the outside. We found out from the neighbors across the road (they were outside and actually stopped us to find out why we were taking pictures, which we explained) that an old lady lives there, so it isn't the owners who purchased the house from my family (they were an young couple around my age).

When we went around to the clubhouse, which my old place was right across the street, I got confirmation that yes, the lanai was gone...and so was the orange tree and grapefruit tree. This was actually the point when I said to Jeremy that we didn't need to knock on the door.

I'm not angry about the changes that were made to the house because that is what happens. Six years is a hell of a lot of time passing and I expected changes. It was good to see the old place again though. It brought back lots of good memories and I so thankful for the time I was able to spend in that house, especially with my grandparents.

I was sad to see how run-down the area had become; it was once such a place you had to keep the lawn mowed and gardens weeded or else the board would get on your case about it. We also saw a few foreclosed homes, which is pretty much what told me the economy was hitting this place hard. The shuffleboard courts were also very run-down; it looked like up keep of the place is not really a priority anymore. There are also lots more families living in the area too (not that I'm saying there is anything wrong with that!) but it shows how the area has changed demographically. I saw a lot more younger people there than I did retirees; when I was there, it was the other way around.

My apologies for such a long-winded entry! I wanted to get all my thoughts down though about seeing the house and Mill Pond again. Be sure to read part two of our Day 3 (which will be up soon...hopefully!) and have a look at the pictures! :)

2008-12-28T22:48:00.001-05:00

Pictures from day 2 are up! Check 'em out!

Enjoy! :)

Evening stroll...

2008-12-28T22:23:00.003-05:00

Jeremy and I have just arrived back from our evening stroll. It is another lovely evening here in Lakeland, with the temperature around 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) . This has been our second evening taking a stroll after dinner and I think it's something we'll continue to do for the rest of our holiday here.

Tonight, we walked along the golf cart path (past the massive houses yet again!) and than onto Grasslands Drive, along the golf cart path again and finally, back to Marty & Karen's.

It's about 10:25 right now and both of us are ready for bed!

The second day...

2008-12-28T20:30:00.003-05:00

And here's what we did today:

I went out for a jog again around 10:00. I went on a different route this time. The weather was very nice!
We went to brunch at the clubhouse with Marty, Karen, Walter (Karen's dad) and Jeanette (Karen's step-mother). It was great! Jeremy had a mimosa (Champagne with orange juice) which he very much enjoyed! I had a glass of plain champagne and it was quite good! Very dry (so very little sugar). Karen had a glass too (which she enjoyed as well).
We went over to the pool in the afternoon. We didn't go swimming but we did catch some rays from the sun. And we got a few games on Uno in (I kicked Jeremy's ass! HAHAHA!!)
We went for a drive up to "Super Target". It was a very nice Target store and MUCH bigger than a normal Target store. The drive was also nice because the sun was setting at the time. Florida has the most beautiful sunsets.
Had dinner on the lanai (again!) with Marty & Karen. None of us were overly hungry so we just nibbled on cheese, crackers, celery, carrots, cherries & salad (with a delicious cranberry vinaigrette that Karen made).

We are actually just about to go on another walk and than I think we'll turn in for the night. I'll also try and get some more pictures posted (yes, we took more today).

On the agenda for tomorrow: we're off to New Port Richey, where my family had a home for many years.

And to our family and friends in Goderich: we certainly hope the power is back on by now!

The first day...

2008-12-28T08:21:00.003-05:00

Our first day at Marty & Karen's was fantastic!

We both woke up around 10:30 (remember...we had just spent 27 hours in the car!). After breakfast, I went out for a run. It was great! I didn't bother bringing my iPhone with me to listen to music since I just wanted to take in all the different sounds. It was great to get out and walk/run in the sunshine.

We had lunch on the lanai with Marty & Karen.

In the afternoon, I read outside for awhile on the lanai (yes, I've been spending a lot of time out there) and than Jeremy and I went for a walk down to this shopping area and looked around there.

Dinner was around 7pm (we had a late lunch) and was delicious! After dinner we sat outside on the lanai for awhile.

After dinner, Jeremy and I went for a walk. We started walking on the golf cart paths but than ended up walking through some of other subdivisions. Many of the houses here are gorgeous! We're going to go back in the daylight and take pictures of some of them.

To sum up, our first day here was awesome!

Pictures are up!

2008-12-27T23:54:00.003-05:00

I've just posted the first round of pictures from our trip. These are of the drive down to Florida and of our first day here.

Enjoy!

Oh, just click on the link on the left side of the screen to get to the pictures.

We have arrived...

2008-12-27T02:03:00.003-05:00

We have arrived safe and sound in Florida! The trip took us just over 27 hours. We would have made it in 25 BUT we got snarled in traffic for a total of two hours. The first was immediatly after going through Atlanta, Georgia. That one was so bad we had to leave the I-75 and take and alternate route. The second was just outside Macon, Georgia where there was construction. Here we are going along, having been making record time (at least according to the times my parents gave us and from what I can remember from my drives to Florida) and thinking "We'll be in Florida by 8 on Friday night!". Wrong; the traffic jams saw to it that we weren't! The record times? Well, maybe not but we made it to Cincinatti in about 6 hours and 45 minutes (usually it takes 8) and we made it to Knoxville in just under 12 hours (it normally takes 12). Not overly significant but enough to make us think we had it made for us in our travelling times ;).

We arrived at Marty & Karen's (Jeremy's uncle and aunt) close to 11pm. It is now 2:08am and yes, both of us are still up! I will blog more tomorrow about our thoughts on the drive and such...for now I want to get to bed! ;) We had a very relaxing time once we arrived though; drinks on the lenai with Marty & Karen and a good conversation.

Oh yeah, and the weather is NICE!! ;)

Christmas Eve 2008

2008-12-24T22:36:00.001-05:00

Pictures from Christmas Eve at Jake & Lou's (Jeremy's parents) are up in the Photos section. Be sure to check them out!!

More snow please!

2008-12-24T09:31:00.002-05:00

I'm kidding of course. I think we've all had our fill of snow...and it's only December 24th!!! We are only three days into winter.

There was an unbelievable amount of snow outside this morning. After I finished shopping last night, I shoveled the driveway just to get ahead of the snow that was set to fall during the night. I probably wouldn't have done that but my car had to go out for an oil change this morning at 8:00am.

Well, this morning we woke up to MORE SNOW!! To make life even more fun, the plow had been by earlier so we had about 2 1/2 feet of snow built up at the mouth of the driveway. To top it off, it was raining! Awesome!

Jeremy and I shoveled enough to get my car out, and drove it over to McGee's. Jeremy's dad will be over in a bit to clear out the rest of the driveway with the snow-blower. Big thank-you to him for doing that for us (and for all the other times he's done it so far this year)! :)

We're pretty much ready to go on our trip. We got all the packing done last night. We were up a little late but it will definitely make things less chaotic for us tonight and tomorrow.

Finally started!

2008-12-23T11:04:00.003-05:00

I finally started my Christmas shopping last night...at 10:00PM! After Jeremy and I finished playing Bingo with my mom and brother, we took a run out to Wal-Mart and Zehrs. It was a great time to go out there since both stores were relatively empty. I just have a few things left to pick up today and than (hopefully!) I will be done my shopping. The bonus in going to Zehrs that late is our friend, who works in the produce department, had just put out some cherries...so I manged to snag some of those! They're on sale for $3.99 a pound (I bought $10.70 worth; apparently I'm a bit of an addict ;) ).

I also got up early this morning (6:30) and managed to get the gifts I bought last night wrapped! Another thing crossed off my list...with thousands of things left to do (or so it seems). Both of us are feeling a bit stressed from all the stuff we have left to do between now and when we leave. I know we'll get it all done though (well, one hopes anyway...). The light at the end of the tunnel is a nice break from this cold weather!

New posts...

2008-12-21T13:17:00.001-05:00

Three new posts below (one about pictures from the Baechler Christmas). Check 'em out and enjoy! :)

Christmas Traditions

2008-12-21T13:08:00.003-05:00

Christmas is all about tradition.

Jeremy and I established a tradition last year. We decided not to get big ticket items each other and keep things low key. We bought two stockings from the $1.00 store and all we do is just fill them with random stuff for each other; some of it is practical or little things we've for AND some of it is just as a joke. For instance, last year Jeremy thought it would be funny to buy me Michael Buble's Christmas album. I HATE Michael Buble...obviously, this was a joke gift. On a side note, I re-gifted the CD to Jeremy's dad. It has a much better home with him and will be used for its intended purpose of being played in a CD player as opposed to me using it as a frisbee or mug coaster. Jeremy did get me some cool stuff though: bottle of red wine, Andy Williams Christmas album (yes, that I enjoyed!), a mug and a few other things.

We're doing that again this year so I would say that has become our Christmas tradition. We exchange the stockings on Christmas morning.

Now, other traditions? I suppose this has become a tradition: Christmas Eve we have dinner with my parents, usually Chinese. After dinner, we go over to visit with Jeremy's parents. After that, we go home and usually, with Jacki & Jean-Paul (Jeremy's sister & her husband), attempt to take advantage of Future Shop's Boxing Day sale (which begins online on Christmas Eve). Notice how I said "attempt"...it's usually tough to buy anything online at that time (one year, the site crashed on us).

We also have a tradition of NOT having a Christmas tree. I hope that changes when we have a house ;).

So, to our readers...do you have any Christmas traditions? Feel free to post them in our Comments section! We'd love to hear about them.

Christmas Shopping

2008-12-21T13:04:00.002-05:00

I am seriously procrastinating this year! I have yet to start my Christmas shopping. Okay, that's not entirely true; I did buy a few things the other night at Fincher's. I still need to do the bulk of my shopping though.

Every year I say I am going to start early and have it done by December AND every year I start later than the year before!

We might go out later today and do some shopping. Hopefully I can get most of it done!

I'm going to say for next year, I will do my shopping Christmas Eve. That way, maybe I'll start super early ;).

Baechler Christmas 2008

2008-12-21T10:04:00.002-05:00

Pictures from the Baechler Christmas are up in our photo album now. The Christmas was held yesterday in Georgetown and was hosted by Jeff and Rose. Many thanks to them for hosting and for an excellent meal! :)

Oh yes, and I made the resolution of them a bit smaller (by accident) so if you want any of the pictures, just e-mail Jeremy or I and we'll send you a higher res version of the picture.

Enjoy! :)

Dresses!

2008-12-19T07:50:00.007-05:00

Not an exciting entry for the guys but maybe the girls will enjoy this one. As many of you know, Jeremy and I are getting married next October. I decided a couple of weeks ago I'd start looking at wedding dresses and probably end up buying one in the new year. "David's Bridal" in Port Huron, MI was my first stop. Turned out it was the only spot I needed to go to!

My first impressions of David's Bridal were not the best. My mom and I went in there randomly about six weeks ago, thinking we'd be able to look at the dress. The girl at the front desk, who I quickly nicked named the Greek Goddess (that will give you an idea of how she looked...as well as her ancestry ;)), told me I'd have to make an appointment and they were all booked up for that day. I made an appointment, took a catalog with me and said to my mom, "High end much?". She agreed and neither of us thought I'd get a dress there since we just assumed with a place like that, it will be well out of my budget.

I didn't really look through the catalog until a few days before my appointment on December 6th. After going through the catalog, I felt way more positive about getting a dress there! Not only do they have a great selection, but also great prices (yes, even with the exchange).

And how did my first appointment go? Better than I thought it would! It was awesome! First of all, I am so thankful that I had my very good friend Amanda with me. Secondly, my consultant, Jennie, was great! When you first arrive, you fill out a form with all your info about your wedding as well as your top three dresses (oh yes, the Greek Goddess greeted us when we arrived!). Next, I picked out shoes to have on. And here are some of the dresses I tried on (thanks to Amanda for taking pictures with my iPhone):

Dress No.1! Loved it the moment I tried it on.
Simple, light-weight...along the lines of what
I was looking for.

Dress No. 2. Beautiful gown! However, I
found it awkward to walk in and knew
it was going to annoy me to have it on
for an entire day.

Dress N0. 3. My least favourite. I just
didn't like the way it looked on me.

LOVED IT! This was one the one...or
so I thought until my second visit
there the following week.

So I left there without a dress but I knew the style I wanted and I thought I had a dress in mind. One of the things I loved about David's Bridal was the fact you could take pictures! My mom wasn't with me when I tried on the dresses so I was able to take the pictures home and show her. I also made an appointment to go back the following Friday (December 12) to finalize the dress I wanted. As I mentioned under the last picture, I thought that was the dress I wanted but turned out, when I went back, not the case (more about that later!).

So, yes, I ended up having a very positive experience at David's Bridal. The staff there are incredibly friendly and helpful, the dress selection is awesome AND the prices are great (like I said, even with the exchange). They have everything there for a wedding!

And Jacki (my future sister-in-law), let's still go shopping in the New Year! It might not be for a wedding dress but it's still shopping :).

Oh, yeah...am I worried about Jeremy seeing these dress pictures? Nope! ;)

A bit of an update...

2008-12-17T22:53:00.005-05:00

Today was my last day of work at the museum in Stratford until January 5th! I'm looking forward to a bit of a holiday from there since things have been a little hectic with the move to the new site. Upon leaving today though, I felt like all of us got a lot accomplished this week. It still seems like there is a lot to move but, as I said today, it will all come together in the end.

Now, I may have a break from work but I don't get a break from how hectic things are going to get because of Christmas. Guess who has not started her Christmas shopping? ME!!! I always say every year I'm going to start earlier and guess what? Every year I start later than the year before!

I am, however, looking forward to the upcoming family gatherings. Our first Christmas is this Saturday in Georgetown at Jeremy's uncle Jeff's and aunt Rose's. This is the Baechler Christmas. On Christmas Day, we have the Allin Christmas at noon and the Fincher Christmas at my mom and dad's at 5. And after that? That's right: FLORIDA!!! :) With another storm watch out right now, Jeremy and I are very much looking forward to getting a break from the cold and the snow for a week!

I wish I could say we've been on playing some games lately, but things have been really busy! In January, when things hopefully will not be so hectic, we're both looking forward to some major gaming! First and foremost will be completing Gears of War 2. I also asked for a couple games for Christmas: "Call of Duty: World at War" and "Fable 2". I may also pick up Far Cry 2 at some point.

Our wedding plans are coming along slowly but surely. I think things will definitely pick up in the new year on that front. I did get my dress though! Hmm...maybe I'll just do a blog entry about that (not so exciting for the guys that read this but the girls...maybe you'll enjoy that). With that in mind, I won't say anymore about the dress until I write an entry about it.

Anyway, tomorrow is the potluck Christmas Party at the Huron County Museum. Jeremy and I are bringing carrot cake (made from scratch by yours truly!) and a pasta salad. I'll leave it to your imagination to envision Jeremy's role in the food prep ;). Friday is my dad's birthday so we're taking him out for dinner. Also on Friday night...we thought we'd get rock out to Rock Band with our very good friends, Amanda and Anderson! Should be a good time, as always! :)

Picture Links Added

2008-12-14T10:25:00.006-05:00

I've added a direct link to our upcoming Florida pictures. We'll be updating that album as often as we can over the week. I also added a link to my Flickr pictures along the left side of this page. I can snap a picture with my iPhone and send them directly there so it should update within just a couple of minutes of sending.

A New Look...

2008-12-10T20:18:00.003-05:00

Switched up the template to freshen things up a bit.

We're at the two week mark until we leave for Lakeland, Florida! We'll post a link to a new photo album that we'll be updating constantly while we're there.

New pics

2008-11-30T10:31:00.001-05:00

Pictures from the Allin Christmas are now up in Our Photos section. Enjoy!

New Posts

2008-11-30T09:26:00.000-05:00

There are three new posts below! Be sure to check them out :).

Gears of War 2

2008-11-30T09:17:00.002-05:00

Finally! After having the game for three weeks, Jeremy and I started the co-op story mode of this game on Friday night. Gears of War is my all-time favourite video and I eagerly awaited the release of Gears of War 2 on November 7th.

Now, the game has not been completely abandoned on our shelves collecting dust. We've had the chance to get online and play with some of our online gaming friends from tehbias (hello to those of you from the site reading our blog). We've tried a few of the multiplayer modes and it is so much fun! I think my favourite mode and the one we've spent the most time on is Horde. In this mode, you fight wave after wave of Locusts (if you have no idea what I am talking about, read up on the game here ) starting with wave one and going all the way to wave 50! Jeremy and I are at about wave 20. We attempted to try the first few waves are on our own, but soon discovered the Locusts are too much to handle with just the two of us so the next time we played, we had the help of some our fellow gaming friends.

Unfortunatly, we've both been super busy lately and haven't got online to play this game as much as we would have liked. Hopefully we'll be on playing more this week, either to work away at the campaign or playing multiplayer with our friends. Hopefully it's a bit of both! To some of you reading this, hopefully we see you online! :)

The Countdown Is On!!!

2008-11-30T09:08:00.002-05:00

No, not the countdown to Christmas. This particular countdown is for when Jeremy and I leave for Florida, which also happens to be Christmas Day. We passed the one month mark until we leave this past week and believe me, we are SUPER excited!

I know some of you reading this already know about our trip but for those who don't, here's the lowdown. Jeremy and I were invited to go stay with Jeremy's uncle Marty and aunt Karen at their condo in Lakeland, Florida. A big THANK-YOU again to them for the invite!!! :) We're leaving on Christmas Day in the evening and returning home January 3rd. We'll have about a week down there. I know that doesn't seem like a lot of time but believe me, it's well worth it since it gets us away from the snow and cold!

I was last in Florida about six or seven years ago. My family and I went a couple times a year since my grandpa had a house down there. The house was sold after our last trip there seven years ago and we haven't been back since. We always spent Christmas down there. For Jeremy, it's been even longer since his last trip to Florida: about twenty years!

Our plan right now is to leave Christmas Day after we have dinner in the evening with my parents. So, we'll probably be on the road around 7 or 8 pm. We're going to drive all night and we should arrive in Florida the next evening around 8 or 9pm.

We have a few things planned for what we want to do down there. We're going to go see my grandpa's old place in New Port Richey and to Anna-Maria Island where I stayed when I was really young, the place Jeremy stayed in Florida which is in St. Petersburg and, of course, enjoying the (hopefully) warm weather!

Hopefully the weather cooperates so we get on the road on Christmas Day!

Kitty Shopping

2008-11-30T08:49:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, Jeremy and I decided to take a walk to enjoy the nice weather (especially before this winter storm gets here!). We took our usual route of down St. David Street, up to the square, around the square (with a brief stop in a local tea shop so I could pick up some tea), and down East Street so we can walk by the kitty shelter to see the cats, and then home again.

We are seriously considering adopting a couple cats in the new year so we stopped yesterday to see what kittens they had. We want two kittens instead of older cats, simply because we have the rats to consider. The girl at the shelter said that kittens would be easier to introduce to the rats and train NOT to bother them as opposed to an older cat.

They didn't have any kittens out in the main room yesterday but they did have a lot of nice cats around. We told the girl we were looking at adopt a couple cats and when she found out we wanted kittens, took us into the back area where they keep more of the cats. Anyway, they had a mother cat who had 7 three week old kittens! They were so small and very cute (they'd just opened their eyes in the past week) and will be ready for adoption in the new year.

Jeremy wants a grey cat, which he wants to name Church (know where that is from? ;) ). As for me, I'd like a tortise shell or white cat. I'm not quite decided on a name yet. I've got a few in mind, including Sera and Baird. For those of you familiar with the Gears of War video games, you will know where those names are from ;). If any of you reading this have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. :)

Anyway, we haven't completely decided yet but it's something we're seriously considering and something we're both looking forward to! I'm sure we'll post more about it in the coming weeks.

The New Xbox Experience

2008-11-20T08:11:00.008-05:00

Yesterday, Xbox Live released it's new dashboard, called "the new Xbox experience". Jeremy managed to get in on the new experience before me through a preview he signed up for (which he didn't mention to me until it was too late. Nice, eh? "Oh, by the way, Mare, I might be getting in on the new dash experience early...". Thanks, dear ;) ).

For those of you unfamiliar with the Xbox Live dashboard, it's the home screen of the Xbox and it has different tabs. The original dash was alright but it had some faults. As for the new dash board, Jeremy and I both agree that it is AWESOME! I checked it out last night for a few minutes last night and I like the way things are organized and it is much easier to navigate around than the previous dash was. We now have things like party chat where up to eight people can chat at once as well as play games. One of the coolest things about the new experience? THE AVATARS! These avatars are very similar to the Mii's on the Nintendo Wii. Designing my avatar was a lot of fun.

Check them out to the right! They'll update automatically as we change our clothes.

The first snowfall

2008-11-17T22:56:00.004-05:00

YAY! The first snowfall happened today. Can you tell how happy I am about that? ;)

So, with the first snowfall came my first snow day! I'm a scaredy-cat when it comes to driving in snow AND when I saw the snow squall warnings posted, I decided not to drive to Stratford. I ended up going into the museum here in Goderich to work (I should say volunteer...cause that's what I'm doing there) on the Great Storm of 1913 inquest transcription (it might not sound exciting but to a history buff like me, it's very interesting). I remember looking outside at one point and thinking "I probably could have made it in to Stratford". I looked outside 5 minutes later and I could barely see across the road! That was at about 9:30-9:45 this morning. It continued like that for the rest of the day!

There are still snow squall warnings posted so I don't know if I'll make it in tomorrow. Yay!

Jeremy and I were actually quite disgusted with the first snow fall of the year. Honestly, we sounded like a bunch of 70 year olds earlier tonight that way we were complaining about the snow!

Arghh...I hate snow!

Crazy Halloween Shenanigans...

2008-11-07T23:28:00.003-05:00

Check out our crazy Halloween shenanigans in the photos section. We had six of our friends over for a Rock Band Halloween party last Saturday night. Everyone had a blast and there were quite a few memorable moments, such as Anderson deciding the bush on the neighbors front lawn would be an awesome place to have a nap ;). Hilarious...

Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Shoes

2008-10-19T09:01:00.004-04:00

A sad thing has happened. These well-weathered shoes you see pictured have been thrown in the garbage. Let me tell you a bit about these shoes.

I don't know exactly when I got them, but I am pictured wearing them in 1995 during a trip to out to Alberta. They certainly weren't new then either so my best guess dates them back to around 1993. Over fifteen years ago.

I wore these shoes to school, work and pretty much any other time I left the house. After they were a little too old to be wearing to work, I still wore them when I was out and about because they were really comfortable and easy to slip on. I really should have replaced them about seven or eight years ago. They've went through countless re-lacings (the laces pictured are only about a year old) and the insides are really bad. In fact, there are detached pieces that sometimes slide around. It got to the point four or five years ago where I couldn't wear them in the rain anymore because of a hole in the sole of the right shoe. Well, that and the sole themselves began detaching from the rest of the shoe.

They were expensive shoes. I believe they were purchased at Wuerth's for about $150. About six months ago, I bought a pair of $9 blue slip-ons at Wal-Mart, and since then they all but supplanted them. Mary's been begging me to get rid of them for some time, and although I had intentions of doing so a few times, they've sat in the closet - until last Thursday.

We were gathering up items to take to the local landfill so I grabbed the shoes and took some final pictures. We loaded the truck and were off. When we returned, we came inside and I laughed. I had forgotten to throw the shoes in the garbage bag after taking the pictures. They had lived to see another day!

Mary promptly walked over and threw them in the garbage can outside...

So I had mall security called on me today...

2008-10-17T15:37:00.008-04:00

(No, I didn't go nuts in a store or anything like that)

Mary and I took her brother back to Stratford to catch the train this morning so we decided to go to Masonville mall in London to try on some winter coats. After we finished that we were wandering around checking out some stores. Mary went into Bulk Barn to get some stuff and I was next door in The Source.

I was talking to the associate just outside of the store regarding BlackBerrys and I hear what I think is Mary's name mentioned over the PA system. I'm pretty sure I heard correctly so I head into Bulk Barn to let her know I heard her name. She's got some items already so I decide to head to customer service and see if I heard correctly.

On my way, the lady comes on the PA system again, and yes, it's definitely Mary's name and that she's to come to guest services located beside entrance #1. No problem, I head right there. I show up and say,

Me: "Hi. I heard Mary Fincher's name over the PA system. She's my fiance. Is there a message I can pass along?".
Her: "Oh, she left her credit card in a store."
Me: "Suzy Shier right?"
Her: "Yes."
Me: "Is the card here then?"
Her: "Yes. We just need her to come here with some photo ID to claim it."
Me: "No problem. I'll go get her and we'll come back in a few minutes. Thanks."

I went back to Bulk Barn and after Mary was finished we headed back there (about ten minutes later). She goes into guest services and I sit out on the bench just outside with the bags. Apparently, the lady called mall security (who was waiting there for me) in case I came back. Mary heard her say, "...and he said he knew the Mary Fincher girl and where she was." Mary spoke up and said that I was her fiance. The security guard left guest services and gave me a look on his way past the bench.

I guess she was just being careful.

Delicious!

2008-10-13T18:24:00.004-04:00

According to Jeremy, I made "the best pizza" he's ever had! Yes, the pizza turned out AWESOME! I was actually surprised AND very pleased! I know, it's sad...I'm really excited over some pizza I'm made BUT it turned out better than I expected!

The dough took about 90 minutes to knead/rise in the bread maker. After that, I took it out and kneaded it for another 5 minutes. After that, I put it on the pizza tray. Here's what it looked like:

After that, I put it in the fridge and took it out at about 4:30. At 5:30, it was ready to go and baking in the oven! The toppings were very basic: Olive oil and tomato sauce, peppers (frozen), a few carrots, mushrooms and Parmesan cheese. It took about 12 minutes to bake. Both of us were really hungry by the time it was finished so I unfortunatly did not get pictures of it completed as a whole. Here is what I did get (just a few slices) but I think it gets the point across:

And it was DELICIOUS! I loved it cause it was not greasy at all and it didn't have a lot of cheese (I have problems eating dairy and a lot of cheese usually is not great for me). The whole wheat flour I added along the the Italian Seasoning (added to the dough) made it very tasty! We both agreed that it is something we'd definitely have again. It was very easy to make, that's for sure...and MUCH cheaper than ordering from New Orleans or Pizza Hut (and again, way less grease!) or buying a Delissio pizza from Zehrs.

One final picture of Jeremy enjoying dinner:

Pizza!

2008-10-13T09:36:00.002-04:00

Today, I am going to attempt to make home-made pizza. The dough is being made in the bread machine as I type this. Hopefully it turns out alright! I went out on a limb and modified the recipe slightly; the recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of bread flour but I added 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of bread flour. Hopefully that does not ruin the dough!

As for the pizza toppings? We're going vegetarian with this one! We've both had so much turkey over the past two days, we feel like we just need some vegetables today! ;)

I'll try and post a picture of the finished product! :)

Thanksgiving

2008-10-12T10:02:00.004-04:00

The Baechler Thanksgiving was held yesterday in Shelburne at Darry & Karol's. A big thank-you goes out to them for hosting AND for a wonderful meal (it was delicious!). It was also great to see everyone again. I've posted the pictures in our album (link is just on the right hand side of the page under "Our Photos"). Enjoy!

Since it's Thanksgiving, I also wanted to say thank-you to Jeremy's family for always making me feel very welcome! Whether it's just having dinner with his parents or being at a family gatherings with the Baechler's or Allin's, I've always been to feel welcome and like I'm one of the family. You have no idea how thankful I am for that! :)

Jeremy and I are also very thankful about how happy people are about our engagement. It's always nice to hear stuff like that. We are very much looking forward to getting married and seeing everyone at our reception!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! :)

We have a date!

2008-10-10T11:52:00.001-04:00

Jeremy and I went and put the down-payment on the reception hall this morning!

OCTOBER 17, 2009

Details to follow...

Banana Bread!

2008-10-05T21:17:00.003-04:00

So, my bread recipe book arrived from Amazon arrived a few days. So far, I've made two different types of bread from it. The first bread I made was called "Herb and Crunch Wheat Bread". This one was basically just whole wheat bread with basil and thyme in it. The recipe also called for dry-roasted sunflower nuts but I left those out. It turned out to be quite delicious, not only for sandwiches but also for dipping into tzatziki (we had a couple friends over on Friday night for Rock Band and that was when we tried the bread with the tzatziki).

The second bread I made was (Jacki, you'll be happy about this! ;) ) banana bread. It also turned out really good! What we both liked about it was the banana flavour was not over-powering like it often is with store-bought bread and it was not overly sweet.

Both of us are very pleased with the bread machine! It was definitely well worth the money. I'm going to make more whole wheat bread tomorrow night. There's lots of recipes in this bought I picked up and I'm hoping to give more of them a try at some point. Here are a few I'd like to try soon:

Pumpkin Seed Bread
Mediterranean Herd Bread (Basically the same as the Herb and Crunch Wheat bread with the addition of oregano)
Herbed Vinaigrette Bread
Cinnamon Honey Wheat Bread
Pumpernickel Bread
Pumpkin Bread (very appropriate for this time of year!)
Cranberry Whole Wheat Bread

Hmmm...sounds like I could be very busy with all that! ;) With Thanksgiving coming up this weekend, I might try to make some rolls as well.

In other news, we've been playing lots of Rock Band II (it was released a few weeks ago). It's a GREAT game! Guitar Hero: World Tour comes out in a few weeks, so we'll be picking up that as well. We've also done a bit of wedding planning, too. Nothing too detailed yet but we may have a date very soon!

Done!

2008-09-28T16:05:00.004-04:00

And the bread is all done! And yes, we took pictures:

Me just before taking the bread out

The finished product! I had a little trouble
removing it from the bread pan but in the end,
it turned out pretty good!

I think it's pretty good for my first loaf of bread. The middle is indented but I'm not too concerned about that (it's my first loaf).

Jeremy and I did a bit of taste test and it's really good! We're gonna try it out on sandwiches tomorrow for lunch.

I ordered a this book from amazon.com today so hopefully it will arrive later this week. I'm hoping it has a recipe for banana bread, since that is one of our favourites. Another one I want to try is cinnamon bread. My aunt made that when we stayed with her at the end of August and it was awesome!

Making bread...

2008-09-28T13:58:00.002-04:00

Wal-Mart is having its anniversary sale this weekend. One of the advertised items was a Black & Decker bread maker: regularly $80.00 marked down to $45.00. I went out and purchased it yesterday.

The bread machine has 10 different settings, depending what type of bread you are making:

Basic (I can't see myself using this setting much, because it's for recipes that use white flour...something I don't bake with. Yes, I am all about the whole wheat flour).
Rapid-Bake 1
Rapid-Bake 2
Sandwich: this is the setting I'm using for my first loaf. Thinner crust and lighter texture.
Whole Grain: I'll probably use this one a lot.
Sweet
Quick Bread: breads that include baking powder instead of yeast.
Dough: I can see myself using this setting a lot. Apparently, it's for dough to make coffee cakes, rolls (Thanksgiving is just around the corner), pizza and other breads baked in an oven. Basically, this setting gets the dough ready for you. Why do I feel like it's cheating or something? ;)
French
Preserves: Not only does this thing do bread, but you can also make jams and preserves. I'm sure I'll give it a whirl at some point.

My first loaf is baking as I type this. It's cracked wheat sandwich bread and is being baked on the sandwich setting. The machine was very simple to use. Just put the ingredients in in the order listed: liquid first, followed by dry and finally, add the yeast. Pop the bread pan into the machine, punch in your settings and away it goes! It does the mixing and kneading for you. See why I said it feels like I'm cheating or something? ;)

Hopefully my first loaf turns out okay! I find out in about an hour...

More pics...

2008-09-05T19:10:00.001-04:00

I've added another photo album to the Our Photos section. This one is of our friend Lara's 40th birthday party. Enjoy!

She said YES!

2008-09-01T08:36:00.001-04:00

Mary and I are thrilled to announce that as of last night, we are ENGAGED!!

New Photos...

2008-08-29T11:22:00.002-04:00

A couple new albums in Our Photos section:

* Alexandria's 4th Birthday Party
* Trip out to Ball's Bridge and the Maitland Trail

Enjoy!

A Rock Band Party...

2008-08-16T14:21:00.006-04:00

I know, I know...it's been awhile since an actual post not relating to birthdays or when some muchanticipated pictures are going to be posted! ;)

Things have been a little busy. Last Friday (August 8th), we celebrated both our birthdays by having a few friends over for some Rock Band. Our challenge before we had six people over, however, was SPACE. As some of you know, our apartment is not very big. Luckily, we have a sectional couch. My knack for interior design (ha ha ha ;) ) plus a willing person (Jeremy) to help me move the pieces of the couch resulted in the space we needed to host a Rock Band party.

Me in our living room after moving the furniture. Notice all the space!
And all the instruments are set up and ready to go!

Our second challenge came when we were playing Rock Band. This is a FUN game. Couple this with a few guests who are slightly intoxicated and/or very excited about playing (as was the case with one of our friends), and things can get a little rowdy! Trying to set up a band AND pick out a song to play became a hilarious challenge. The guitarists would push all the buttons causing menus to go backwards and forwards...the drummer would drum, having the same effect as the guitarists...and it would always end with Jeremy or myself (or both of us), shouting STOP to our overzealous bandmates. It provided a good laugh though and, in the end, many songs were played and fun was had by everyone! I managed to belt out Baba O'Reily and Won't Get Fooled Again and of course Jeremy did More Than A Feeling. And who can forget Anderson's performance of Enter Sandman with him singing "take my hand!" over and over at the end with Ray saying "someone take his fricken hand!". Well, maybe it's a "you had to be there" moment but it was hilarious nonetheless.

Anderson on the drums. Amanda (Anderson's wife) and Lin (Kevin's wife) watching/dancing.

Lara and I on vocals (we ended up having to get really close so the mic would pick up our vocals. We were pretty much hugging by the end of the song. It washilarious!). Ray and Kevin on bass and guitar. Anderson on drums.

I think it was the best birthday party I've ever had. And you can be sure we're going to have another Rock Band party again too. Hopefully this will happen when Rock Band 2 is released. With this game, only the band leader can control the menus and, unless the band leader is overzealous and/or intoxicated, this will make game set-up a MUCH smoother process! ;)

Happy Birthday, Mare!

2008-08-10T09:44:00.003-04:00

Happy 26th birthday, Mare! Love you,

Jeremy

Vacation!

2008-08-04T20:46:00.001-04:00

Jeremy and I are back from Cedar Point and we had an AWESOME time. Pictures and video to follow soon!!

Happy Birthday! :)

2008-07-30T09:14:00.005-04:00

Love you lots,

Mare

Another kudos...

2008-07-09T18:24:00.003-04:00

Kudos to the Park Theatre in Goderich for next week's movies. Starting Friday, July 11th, we can see:

Hancock
Get Smart

AWESOME! You go Park Theatre.

Why get Hell Boy 2: The Golden Army, set to open on Friday, when you can get movies that have been open for over 3 WEEKS?!

And how about some Wall-E? Honestly...it's summer and what kid wants to see Hancock or Get Smart?

"Getting Smart" the Park Theatre obviously isn't.

I hope Gananoque has a half decent theatre. Jeremy and I are headed there this weekend for a wedding and we're hoping to catch either Wall-E or Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

Canada Day Photos

2008-07-06T09:40:00.002-04:00

Photos from Canada Day 2008 are online in our Picassa Photo Album. Just click the Photo Album link on the right side of the page. Enjoy! :)

More Gas Numbers

2008-07-04T09:08:00.003-04:00

Let's have another check at the gas situation now, shall we? If you'll remember from June 7:

Price of gas on the way to Port Huron: $1.26 - $1.29 per litre
Price of gas in Port Huron: 3.94 per gallon; 1.04 per litre
Amount of fuel pumped: 9.495 gallons; 36.08 litres
Cost of fill-up: $37.40

Estimated cost of this fill-up in Ontario (@ $1.27 per litre): $45.82
Money saved by filling up across the border: $8.42

Here's some updated numbers from yesterday's trip. Even though we filled Mary's parent's van, I'll keep the quantity the same so it's an accurate comparison:

Price of gas on the way to Port Huron: $1.35 - $1.39 per litre
Price of gas in Port Huron: 4.11 per gallon; 1.08 per litre
Amount of fuel pumped: 9.495 gallons; 36.08 litres
Cost of fill-up: $39.02

Estimated cost of this fill-up in Ontario (@ $1.37 per litre): $49.43
Money saved by filling up across the border: $10.41

It's getting even cheaper to fill up over there! Unbelievable!

Any Rhyme or Reason...?

2008-07-02T12:16:00.003-04:00

Here's a little rant about the Park Theatre here in Goderich:

These guys seem to keep outdoing themselves when it comes to failing miserably at picking movies. Granted, I'm not familiar with what contractual obligations they're bound to regarding the time period certain movies must stick around, but they've got to be able to do something! There is no reason for a movie to be taking up one of the two screens for three weeks, especially in the summer! The latest example:

I opened this week's Signal-Star hoping to see the movie I've been wanting to see since last Friday - WALL·E. Guess what? We get one new movie (i.e. just opening) which is Hancock. Okay, it's new...that's good. But, it's going to have FAR less draw than WALL·E. Second, Kung Fu Panda is sticking around for its third straight week! They should be turning these movies over quicker. It's summertime and there's at least one new high-profile movie coming out every week. Keeping one movie around for more than two weeks is just letting higher profile movies sail right past.

It's lovely what no competition does, isn't it?

Rock Band is getting more AMAZING songs!

2008-07-01T13:40:00.009-04:00

The developers of Rock Band have done an amazing job of cranking out additional songs to download and play. An announcement on The Who's website yesterday confirmed that long-awaited songs of theirs were on the way!

Release date: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 (Xbox LIVE® Marketplace and PLAYSTATION®Store)

TRACKS: The Who 12 Pack
“Amazing Journey”
“Baba O'Riley”
“Behind Blue Eyes”
“Eminence Front”
“Going Mobile”
“Leaving Here”
“My Generation” (LIVE)
“Real Good Looking Boy”
“Sea & Sand”
“Summertime Blues” (LIVE)
“Who Are You”
“Young Man Blues” (LIVE)
(All tracks utilize the original master recordings)

Price: $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) per track or $19.99 (1600 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) for the entire collection of tracks.

Baba O'Riley is one of my favorite songs. Can't wait to play it!!

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

Sally, take my hand
Travel south crossland
Put out the fire
Don't look past my shoulder
The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
Let's get together
Before we get much older

Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Oh, oh
Teenage wasteland
They're all wasted!

Rest in Peace, George...

2008-06-23T19:46:00.022-04:00

George Carlin
1937 - 2008

A sad news day. My all-time favorite comedian, George Carlin, passed away yesterday from heart failure at the age of 71. I had the good fortune of seeing him live twice. Even though some of the material was stuff I'd heard on CD, it was still well worth it hearing him perform it in front of me.

As far as I can remember, I started listening to his comedy part-way through highschool. What Am I Doing In New Jersey? and Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics were the first two specials I heard. I borrowed the cassette from a friend and loved it. In retrospect, I guess his material wasn't exactly age appropriate for me. I don't believe I advertised the fact to my parents that I had this stuff either. :) Over the years, I've collected a number of his shows on CD, such as Jammin' In New York (his favorite HBO special), Back In Town, You Are All Diseased and Life Is Worth Losing. My sister got me two LPs of his earlier comedy for Christmas a few years ago. Nice to have! His last HBO special, It's Bad For Ya, was recorded on March 1, 2008 (it has yet to be released on CD). I watched it the day after and thought it was great. He was in fine form right to the end.

I remember a few years ago lending a portable cassette player that sitting around to my uncle Wayne so he could listen to the radio while he was in the hospital. It had a tape in it of some Carlin stuff (probably New Jersey and Parental Advisory). I guess he came across it and had some good laughs!

It's sad he's gone, but at least there's hours of comedy to remember him by. Think I'll throw on Jammin' In New York right now...

Playing with Lego...

2008-06-22T11:20:00.006-04:00

Who ever thought playing with Lego at the age of 25 would be fun? Well, not really playing with real Lego. So, what exactly do I mean? Jeremy and I have spent a lot of time lately playing our way through Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. And what a great game it is!

The game covers the first three Indiana Jones adventures: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and the Last Crusade. Each adventure has six levels. Even after finishing all the adventures, I was only about 60% of the way through the game. There is A LOT to do in this game. I still have characters to unlock or buy (this is done by using lego pieces you collect while playing the game). I also have more artifact pieces to find in each level.

Lego Indy going after the Idol in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

As you complete each level, you unlock free play in it. This means you can go back to that level and you have the use of 10 different characters, which you switch between using the right or left bumpers on the 360 controller. Each character has different abilities. For example, a scholar character can read hieroglyphs, which allow you to get into secret areas. Small characters have doors they can go through, again to get into secret areas. If you want to collect all the artifact pieces, you have to go back through the game in free play. Many of the artifact pieces can only be collected this way, using a character's special abilities.

My only big complaint about this game is the camera angle, especially when playing with two people. I stopped counting the number of times of would go to jump and end up falling to my "doom" and small, literally, into many Lego pieces and lose many of the pieces I'd already collected! And this was all because of the camera angle (okay, maybe it was me as well just not taking my time...).

I racked up lots of achievement points playing this game too (I'm into the 300's so far). The one thing I loved about this game is you can get many of the achievements by just playing through the game. I still have more I'm trying to get, including the ultimate achievement: complete the game 100%! One of my friends is sitting at 99% right now! He just can't seem to get that 1% he needs.

After having so much fun with this Lego game, I'm going to pick up Lego Stars: The Complete Saga (it was released a few months ago) and in September, I will pick up a copy of Lego Batman. I'm sure they'll be just as fun as Lego Indiana Jones was! I'll end this entry with one of the trailers that was released for Lego Indiana Jones. Enjoy!

Graduation

2008-06-22T11:13:00.003-04:00

I meant to post about this earlier (well, I've already got the pictures posted!). On June 12, I attended my graduation ceremony at Fleming College in Peterborough. So now I am officially graduated from the Collections Conservation & Management Program! YAY!

My parents and Jeremy were able to come along to the ceremony as well, which was awesome! I'm so happy they were all there. My parents were also able to see the lab I worked in at the school (Jeremy's been there before and seen it) and they were able to meet some of my classmates as well.

There was only 9 of us who attended the ceremony out of a class of 17. A lot of people said they couldn't get the time off work. One of the best parts for me, however, was not the ceremony itself; it was seeing my very good friend Jessica, who came all the way from Missouri for the ceremony. I also got to see my other good friend, Jeff. The three of us spent a lot of time together during the CCM program. We also got to meet Jessica's dad, Chris, which was great!

All of us (my parents, Jeremy, myself, Jessica, Chris and Jeff) all went out for dinner the night before to one of the pubs in Peterborough. Jessica, Jeff, Jeremy and I all hung out afterwards as well, and celebrated by drinking a bottle of wine. ;)

Although the trip was VERY short (we only stayed for one night), it was still a GREAT time and I said, awesome to see two of my good friends! Be sure to check out the photos in out Photo Gallery (link is just over to the side).

New Photo Album

2008-06-20T08:45:00.002-04:00

I've uploaded some new photos from my graduation to our Photo album section (the link is over at the side). I'm awaiting more photos from my friends as well so there will be more added soon (I hope!).

On this day one year ago...

2008-06-10T17:31:00.004-04:00

... my favorite show, The Sopranos, ended. I still remember watching that final scene in the diner thinking the entire family was going to get it. I can't hear "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey without thinking of the last four minutes of the show. Regarding the ongoing debate about Tony's fate, the two theories go:

Theory No. 1: Chase is using the final scene to place the viewer into Tony's mindset. This is how he sees the world: every open door, every person walking past him could be coming to kill him, or arrest him, or otherwise harm him or his family. This is his life, even though the paranoia's rarely justified. We end without knowing what Tony's looking at because he never knows what's coming next.

Theory No. 2: In the scene on the boat in "Soprano Home Movies," repeated again last week, Bobby Bacala suggests that when you get killed, you don't see it coming. Certainly, our man in the Members Only jacket could have gone to the men's room to prepare for killing Tony (shades of the first "Godfather"), and the picture and sound cut out because Tony's life just did. (Or because we, as viewers, got whacked from our life with the show.)

Theory #2 summed up my thoughts perfectly at the time, and still does. Someone wrote a massive article that is apparently a 'definitive explanation' of the end. This person seems to agree that Tony did, indeed, get shot (thus, black and silence followed by the silent credits).

Anyway, just thought I'd commemorate the anniversary!