2013 In Review

Here is a quick look back on 2013....

January

Celebrated my dad's birthday
Mom's tumor was shrinking.

February

Said goodbye to the Canadian penny

March

Celebrated Hub's Birthday
Celebrated my sister's 21st birthday
I started a new term position at work

April

Celebrated Easter

May

Enjoyed a 2 week vacation with my hubs, sister and parents in Mexico!
Celebrated Mother's Day
Celebrated my Mom's birthday

June

Celebrated my birthday
Celebrated stepdaughter's birthday
Attended the at-home reception of hubs friends who were married in Cuba
Celebrated Father's day

July

Celebrated our 3 year anniversary
Future king was born... Prince George
My best friend got married

August

Celebrated my 3rd blogiversary
Celebrated my brother's 20th birthday
Finished school
Went to the airshow
Hubs got his bridgewatch ticket

September

Hubs friend and wife welcomed a baby girl
My best friend and her husband bought a house

October

Bought a new purse

November

Hubs and I went to Samana, Dominican Republic
A friend of ours welcomed a baby boy

December

Celebrated Christmas with hub's parents
A friend of hubs welcomed a baby girl
We booked a trip to Halifax
We went to the Santa Claus parade
Joined back up to the gym

Happy New Year!!

Wishing everyone a very safe and happy New Year's Eve. 

Tonight is the time to spend with friends and loved ones to remember the good times and memories of the year gone by. To celebrate the upcoming new year and all that it may hold. 

 

Please be safe and don't drink and drive.

 

2013 In Review

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Hubs and I went to the Dominican Republic.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Not at all, but we are getting a gym membership through Hubs work for like 60% off the regular price. It's going to be full force come January!!

Here are my resolutions for this year:

2014 resolutions:

1. G to the gym
2. Eat healthier

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Hubs friends wife just had a baby girl. One of his friends from work had a baby girl in the summer.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thankfully.

5. What places/countries did you visit? 
We went to Mayan Riviera Mexico and Samana, Dominican Republic.

6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
A little more savings, a better job, more new experiences, adding to our family.

7. What dates from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
August 28, 2013- Graduated with my medical transcription diploma.
July 6, 2013- My best friend got married
July 10, 2013 -3rd Wedding Anniversary
November 2013- Found another spot on my moms brain.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Graduating with my medical transcription diploma with honors!!

9. What was your biggest failure?
Staying in the job I'm in now,not losing the weight I wanted to, not starting a family like I hoped.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
A minor illness that required a minor surgery at the hospital.... won't go into details.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
New computer, new purse

12. Where did most of your money go?
Trips, paying off school.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going to Mexico with my family, best friends wedding and going to the Dominican.

14. What song will always remind you of 2012?
   Get lucky  

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner
c) richer or poorer? Richer and poorer

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Excercising, eating healthier.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Sitting on the couch, being unhappy with my job.

18. How did you spend Christmas?
With hubs visiting his family.

19. Did you fall in love in 2013?
I continued to be in love in 2013.

20. What was your favorite TV program?
Glee, Grey's Anatomy, Walking Dead, Survivor, Amazing Race

21. What was the best book you read?
A spoonful of Sugar.

22. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Too many to list.

23. What did you want and get?
A trip with my family down south.

24. What did you want and not get?
A better job, a baby.

25. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Hobbit (The 2nd one).

26. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 27 and spent the day with hubs.

27. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Loosing weight, new job, a baby on the way.

28. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
The same as its always been.

29. What kept you sane?
My Hubs, my family and friends.

30. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Kate Middleton.

31. What political issue stirred you the most?
Don't keep up to date on political issues, my bad.

32. Who did you miss?
My family and best friend who live across the country

33. Who was the best new person you met?
Getting to know someone I met on the July2010 board on the knot.com.

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.
Live life to the fullest, you don't know how precious life is until something threatens it. Parents are precious, don't waste your time with them because one day they wont be there.

35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
     Can't think of one atm.

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas.

I hope your day is filled with good food, great family and friends and wonderful memories. 

From our home to yours!!

Merry Christmas Eve

 

Wishing you all a magical Christmas Eve. May the magic of Santa fill the hearts of all the little ones tomorrow morning when they awake to find the cookies eaten and presents under the tree.

 

Mmmm Christmas baking

The other night I made a batch of my famous ginger cookies. Every year I make them for the cookie exchange at work and everyone looks forward to them.

This year, since our kitchen closed early there won't be a cookie exchange (the other kitchen is having one but the sign up sheet was already full). 

Hubs requested some and so I made him a batch. They turned out pretty good.

Congrats!

Wishing huge congratulations to Hubs friend and his wife on the birth of their new baby girl!!!!!

She was born early this morning and was a surprise (they didn't know the sex before hand).

Welcome to the world Abigayle!!

Sidney sparkles Santa parade and sail past

Last night hubs and I had a date night at the Sidney sparkles Santa parade and sail past. We have never been to any of the Christmas parades in our community as we are either away or working late shift when they are on. Luckily this year we were able to attend and I must say I was impressed. There was free hot apple cider, hot chocolate and shortbread cookies being given out by a local realty business. The parade was about an hour long, which really shocked me as I was expecting like 15 minutes or so. The floats and lights were impressive for such a small community. 

After the parade there was a sail past of lighted boats:

Our trip to Samana, Dominican Republic

I know hubs and I talked about not going away in the fall on another trip. Well the weather started getting cooler and we kinda ended up booking a trip (Oops).

Normally we go to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico, but for whatever reason this year, it was extremely expensive. I'm talking almost $1000 more per person then we normally pay. We wanted to go away but not break the bank so we started checking out trips online.

This trip we didn't use a travel agent, we just booked through Air Canada. In the past we have used a travel agent, but when issues arose they did little to help and we decided we may as well cut out the middle man if they aren't going to do anything for us.

We started looking at Cuba and the Dominican.... They seemed to have cheaper prices. We weren't completely sold on going back to Cuba so we ended up going with the Dominican (plus Dominican always seems to be expensive, so it was a bonus that it was cheaper).

In the end, we decided on Samana because of price. It was the cheaper of all our options and the hotel seemed to have what we were looking for.

We ended up booking a 2 week stay at the Grand Bahia Principe El Portillo. It was a long flight to get there, about 9 hours of travel time total, with a stop-over in Toronto. When we arrived in Samana, we got off the plane and had to walk into the airport. The airport is just small (As Samana is still an up and coming tourist spot). Customs was quick, with no hassles and we found our waiting bus with no issues. Just beware that like Mexico, there are people waiting to "help" you with your bags.

The drive to the hotel is only about 45 minutes, which isn't too bad. There is beautiful scenery along the way and its a great photo opportunity.

When we arrived at the resort we had to wait for our room. Check in is 3pm and check out is noon. It wasn't too big of a deal as we went to the buffet and grabbed a bite to eat, and our travel representative did our welcome presentation. (It was nice it was done same day and not bright and early the next morning like most others). My welcome drink was delicious and they brought hubs a cervesa since he couldn't have the welcome drink due to it having banana in it.

When we arrived to our first room we weren't overly happy. It was down in the 23 block which is a bit of a walk from the beach (The resort isn't overly huge and spread out, but we like being really close to the beach), it was a shared room (meaning a door separated us from the room next to us), the bathroom had rust marks and weird paint marks all over the door, and we were close to the disco. We also didn't like that our room only had the 1 sliding look and not a deadbolt. This block of rooms had 3 floors and we were on the 1st floor right by the stairs, so 4 other rooms would be walking by us everyday to get to their own rooms.

We complained to the front desk and they said they would switch our rooms the next day. I guess the resort was pretty busy and everyone would be checking out the next day. We didn't have an issue with this, as at least they didn't try to sell us an upgraded room. The next day we went back to the front desk and a room was ready for us.

We ended up in the 4 block. It was way closer to everything and we even had a glimpse of the beach from our front door. We were on the 2nd floor and there were only 4 rooms in our block.

I wouldn't call this resort a party resort if that's what your looking for. It was a great place to relax and enjoy nature, but not the young hip drink your face off place.


   The resort grounds

 
 Another view of the resort grounds


   Giant frog we found one night, it was larger then my hand!

I'll provide more detailed break downs of the resort:

Room:
After our initial dislike of our room we were happy with our new room. The rooms aren't anything fancy, but they are clean. We did get a king bed like we asked, but after the first few days we found it uncomfortable to sleep in. We had to ask for a few more pillows as the ones provided weren't exactly the most fluffiest in the world. We had a decent sized balcony with a patio set. Inside the room we had another seating area. There was storage for clothes in the night stands and the 1 set of 4 drawers we shared. The tv is an old style tv (No flat screens here), but it worked good enough for us. The closet was a slight annoyance as the front door had a stopper on the floor preventing us from opening the closet fully. It could have been slightly larger, especially for 2 adults staying 2 weeks and needing to hang items (I ended up putting multiple dresses on 1 hanger just to have enough room). We had the safe included in our room for free and it was a decent size (Some resorts have tiny safes). It was also nice that the safe was electronic so we didn't have to carry a key with us. We had to ask for an iron as well, since they aren't provided in the rooms.

We did find the room could have used a bit more lighting. The light bulbs were all energy efficient and didn't put off a huge amount of light in the evening, so getting ready for dinner we needed all the lights on to see. A light in the ceiling would have been nice.

The bathroom was nothing fancy. It did have a jet tub that we never used. Nor was there anywhere to really hang wet bathing suits (and they didn't want them hung off the balcony). We ended up hanging them off the patio chairs.

                                           Our room

                                          Another view of our room, sorry its a little dark.

                                          View from our room door

                                          View from our balcony

                                                    Another view from our front door

Staff:
Staff at this resort were really nice. They were always smiling and friendly. In the main buffet Anna was awesome! We always tried to sit in her area. Carlos, one of the managers did what he could to make our stay enjoyable. He always said hi if he seen us in the front lobby. Arondenis, a manager at the Italian restaurant was awesome as well. We found they were among the nicer staff at any of the resorts we have stayed at. There was a bit of a language barrier as many staff spoke little English (and we speak little Spanish) but the Spanish we do know seems to be different then the Spanish they spoke in the Dominican. They did however try their best to make things work.

Buffet:
The buffet was really good. There was a different theme night every night. The food was above normal in standards and even though we were there for 2 weeks we always found something different and weren't bored with the food. They had an egg station in the morning for breakfast, as well as a variety of juice. Lunch and supper had a pasta station and a carving station, along with a grilling area.

I found the desserts to be among the best of the resorts we stayed in. They always had ice cream (hubs loved the ice cream and all the flavors), 3 flavors were available and it changed each meal, as well as popsicles. Other desserts offered included crème Brule, a warm dessert in the evening, and lots of homemade items.

At breakfast they didn't run out of bacon like some resorts seem to. The yogurt was delicious, as was the hot cereal. They always had an excellent selection of fresh fruit. I think I ate my weight in mango while I was there.

My only complaint about the buffet was that it wasn't the largest and at times it was crowded and the resort wasn't even full while we were there. I think they need to expand the buffet to handle the amount of people it serves. Not to mention they are building more rooms so definitely they will need more space.

I also enjoyed that they had tables set up outside so you could enjoy your meals outside! The air conditioning was hit and miss though in the buffet and some days I wished it was cooler as I was sweating just trying to eat and didn't find it enjoyable.

Another small beef is if you want a mixed drink you needed to get it from the lobby bar before heading for a meal. They only provided juice, pop, water, wine and beer in the buffet.

Meal hours were pretty good. Although I wish lunch was 12-3 instead of 1-3 and supper started around 6 instead of 7. If you were traveling with kids 7 is a little late to be eating supper.

There was a vegetarian section and if you had any food allergies, the cooks were great at letting you know what you could and couldn't eat. You definitely won't starve at this resort.


    Outside eating area for the buffet

Pools:
Even though we didn't swim in the pools, they appeared clean and well kept up. No matter the time of day you could always find a lounge chair! There was a great kids area with water slides located on one side of the hotel.

Beach:
The beach definitely went on for miles. It wasn't the white sand of Mexico that we are used to and the water wasn't the clearest. The first week we were there the water was pretty wavy and it was hard to see the coral. Hubs ended up getting scraped up pretty bad and needing to see the life guard on duty. He scraped his leg and got coral stuck in his foot. We weren't able to do any snorkeling as the water was too cloudy to see much. The second week, the water was a lot calmer and you could see the bottom of the ocean. It made for some great snorkeling.

If you wanted to leave the resort part of the beach you needed to sign a waiver as the beach is public and anyone had access to it. We never had any issues with the beach though. The vendors weren't too bad, if we said we weren't interested they would move on to someone else.

Finding a palapa was often tricky. They had plenty of lounge chairs and covers but people would be saving them bright and early and not sit there for most of the day, so if you wanted a good lounger you needed to get to the beach by 9am tops.

It was nice looking out over the beach and seeing nothing but nature, no other hotels or homes.


    Beautiful beach

Drinks:
For the most part the drinks were great. Sometimes they were mixed a little too strong though. I also found they didn't do a lot of blended drinks with ice. If I asked for a pina colada it would be all liquid and not an icy texture. At the bars, they had a serve yourself of pina coladas and banana mamas!

The house wines were some of the better ones I've had at any resorts.

The bars were only open until 6. After that the lobby bar was open until 11 then you had to move on to the disco, which was open until 2 am.

Towels:
We never had an issue getting a fresh clean towel. There were always ample available.

A La Carte's:
The resort had 4 a la carte's (oriental, gourmet, Italian and seafood). Unfortunately the oriental was closed during our stay. We had 8 a la carte meals and we booked them all at the beginning of our stay. We didn't have an issue with booking them and there was lots of reservation times available.

We ate mostly at the Italian. We had a couple of special invites back to eat there by the manager of the restaurant. The menu was good and the starter buffet was a nice touch. We did find that of the 4 times we ate there, it was always a little different so the quality kinda varied a bit. Nothing bad to say about it though. At the Italian restaurant we drank Mama Juanas, which is a Dominican drink made from a local root. A couple of those and you weren't feeling any pain!

The gourmet was a fancy restaurant requiring hubs to wear pants. The food was amazing here! The part we didn't like was the lack of air conditioning. When your dressed fancy to go for dinner, please have air conditioning to keep us from sweating while we are all dolled up.

The seafood was pretty good too. For someone who doesn't like seafood, I really enjoyed the fish and shrimp lasagna. I have to say the dessert here was then best of all the restaurants.

Snack Bar:

The snack bar was open from 11am-6pm. It offered the basics of soup, burgers, hot dogs, fries, pasta, desserts, fruit and a few other options daily. It was an outdoor concept and over looked the beach. It had beautiful views and offered Spanish lessons during the morning.

It was a great place for a mid day snack after hanging out on the beach.


   Snack bar


    Inside the snack bar


   View of the beach from the snack bar. There was a palapa behind the one in the pic that was our favorite one

 
    Left side view from the snack bar


Lobby:
The lobby was a nice place to sit and relax during the afternoon and evening. There was a lobby bar with seating separated from the main lobby. They also had this sectioned off into a smoking and nonsmoking section which was nice. The main lobby part had lots of seating and couches. There was free wifi which offered basic internet access. We weren't able to check our email or download videos, but we could check facebook, facetime and text, so that was good enough for us.

Beside the lobby bar, they offered tea and coffee, and juices throughout the day that you could help yourself to.

The only part we didn't like about the lobby was the privilege club. They liked to hound people to get a free gift for listening to the presentation. We didn't end up doing it until the second last day there, and only did it because it was raining out. It ended up taking 2 hours and was a complete waste of time. They offered to sign us up for $12,000 eek, lol. We did get some rum, vanilla, cinnamon and honey out of the deal (which is why we did the presentation to begin with, lol).

                                         Main lobby

                                         Drinking part of the lobby (Turtle area was outside)

                                          Turtle area which was surrounded by the lobby (picture above this one)

Shopping:
There was a main gift shop which really didn't have much in it. There were toiletries, food, alcohol, clothes and other trinkets. It wasn't as good as some other resort shops we have seen. There was also shopping located close to the front entrance of the lobby. Prices seemed a little high and we didn't end up buying anything. Nothing said Samana on it, and if it did it was just written on the item with a marker or pen :(

Maid service:
Our room was always keep very clean. They didn't do towel animals like all the other resorts we have been to which disappointed us a little bit. If we put our make room sign up and left the room was always made upon our return with the exception of 1 day. We received nightly turn down service and new towels twice a day!

                                         Nightly turn down!

Guest Services:
This is where you booked the a la cartes. The girls working here were really nice. If you needed something they would get it for you. They wrote a letter in Spanish outlining hubs allergies so we could take it to the restaurants with us.

Excursions:
We only ended up doing 1 excursion while we were there but I'll save it for another post. The one thing I didn't like was the excursions seemed to be only offered once a week, so if you didn't do it then you missed out if you were only there for a week. I like having the flexibility to book an excursion most days of the week.

Travel Representative:
The travel representative we had when we first arrived was awesome! The second week it was a guy and he never introduced himself or made himself known to us.

Some pictures on the way to the resort:

  

 

 

 

Catch up

I haven't really posted to much since the end of October. As a matter of fact, I only had one post since the end of October and that was with regards to the battle I won for putting up our Christmas tree before December 1st.

Hubs and I have been pretty busy lately. Remember the trip I mentioned we were going on? That's right, we were laying on the beach in the beautiful and sunny Samana, Dominican Republic for the first 2 weeks of November (Hence no posts). We really enjoyed our time away, and visiting a new country! I'll post a separate post with a review of the resort and the D.R after.

When we got home from our trip, lets just say the weather definitely had gotten colder! We are now scraping our car windows in the morning before heading to work! When we left for our vacation the weather was still really nice here, but I guess I can't complain for it being almost December!

For Christmas this year we aren't decorating too much. Hubs and I put up the Christmas tree and decorated it. Other then that, I put a table runner on our dining room table and one on the living room table with some glass vases filled with ornaments. Pretty low key, but when we both work and aren't planning on having many visitors, we didn't see the need to go all out.

My best friend just moved into her new house and I have to say its beautiful! She will be celebrating her first married Christmas in their first home!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

We put up our Christmas tree after I won the battle

Happy Halloween!!

It's Halloween today!! Doubting we will have any trick-or-treater's tonight but I am ready just in case!

Please be careful if you are driving around tonight, watch for excited kids!!

If you are out partying, please don't drink and drive.... no costume makes you invincible.

Banana bread pudding

At work we always seem to have bananas in need of being used or else they will go bad. Banana bread doesn't use enough bananas per loaf, and can be time consuming to make in large batches. I decided to look for other uses of bananas and came across this recipe for banana bread pudding! It's a great way to use bananas and bread that's getting old. I add more bananas then the recipe calls for, and I've made it with white bread and raisin bread the second time. It's always a hit with the diners and staff at work! 

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/banana-bread-pudding 

TOTAL TIME: Prep: 10 min. Bake: 40 min.

MAKES:6 servings

Ingredients

• 4 cups cubed day-old French or sourdough bread (1-in. pieces)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 3 Eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sliced firm bananas (1/4-inch pieces)
• SAUCE:
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Place the bread cubes in a greased 2-qt. casserole; pour butter over and toss to coat. In a medium bowl, lightly beat eggs; add milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Stir in bananas.
2. Pour over bread cubes and stir to coat. Bake, uncovered, at 375° for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.
3. Meanwhile, for sauce, melt butter in a small saucepan. Combine sugar and cornstarch; add to butter. Stir in milk and corn syrup. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture comes to a full boil. Boil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat; stir in the vanilla. Serve warm sauce over warm pudding. Yield: 6 servings