job change...

dylan seems to be a fairly lucky one when it comes to work. only he could break his ankle, be off work, and get offered a new job. i'm happy to say that after nearly three months, at his follow up appointment three weeks ago, dylan got the ok to ditch the walking boot and start walking on his own with "pain being the guide." that following monday, dylan was happily back at work. and shortly after that, he was at his new job.

here is the funny thing. the same thing that happened to me, happened to dylan. his boss left the company a few months ago, and about a month ago he asked dylan if he would like a new job with him at the new company. it took some thinking, but after an an interview, a conference call, and some negotiating, he decided to accept it.

this was his first night back at work after the broken ankle. hooray!

they are currently in the process of setting up a new division that should be ready around march. that new division is the work that dylan did at his old job. until then, he is doing something slightly different that has him working days instead of nights. it is kind of funny, but we both felt that he had more time when he was on nights! his days now starts around 5am and he usually does not get home until around 5 or 6, but sometimes even 8:30! basically, he eats, watches a little tv, and goes to bed around 8:30 to wake up early and do it all over again.

i just think it is so bizarre that within about 2 months, we were both asked by our bosses to go to the new companies they moved to. i guess they kind of like us :) 

valentine's day...

this valentine's day was a good one; we spent the weekend together just enjoying some quality time. we're not big in to this holiday, all i really ask for is a card every year. this year, dylan went a little beyond that.

while walking home from work on friday, i was listening to music on the spotify app. all of a sudden, my music just changed to one of my favourite songs; hall and oates - you make my dreams come true. i knew right away that dylan had changed it from at home on his computer and it put a huge smile on my face. as soon as i walked in the door, i saw a huge display sitting on our cabinets.

 hershey's kisses and twix. 2 of my favourite chocolates.

 nom,nom, nom.

we also went and saw fifty shades of grey on friday night. i had never read the books and didn't really know much about the story line, except what's been talked about in the media the last few weeks. i have to say, i didn't find it half bad and the ending left me saying, "that's where it ends?!"

this is us...

sometimes you just have to stop and take a few selfies. lately dylan has been starting work early (at 6pm), which means he leaves our place around 5. with me getting home around 5:20, it means we've been missing each other. it also means that all the dinners we planned on sunday for the week have either been put on hold or eaten solo. hashtag sadface.

thank goodness it's friday. yes, the week has gone by quickly, but it has also been exhausting and i'm ready for the weekend. 

little surprises...

it's always nice to wake up and find little surprises around the house that make you smile. when i woke up the other morning, i reached over to my side table to turn my alarm off and felt something sitting on my phone. once i kind of woke up from my sleepy haze, i realized it was a single flower. when i walked in the bathroom, i saw a bunch sitting in our sink with a little note. then i made my way into the kitchen and saw even more flowers sitting in a vase.

he's a good one.

lucky 7 + 1...

yesterday we celebrated 8 years together. it's hard to even wrap my head around that number, i mean, that's a long time! it feels like we've been together forever, and yet sometimes it doesn't feel that long.

he wears work boots, i wear heels. it's like it was made for us.

i won a $200 gift card at work that can be used at a variety of restaurants, so we'll be using that to treat ourselves to a nice italian dinner on saturday. other than that, we have no plans except to enjoy each other's company for many more anniversaries to come!

thanksgiving hike...

on saturday morning, we woke up at my parent's house ready for a nice thanksgiving dinner later on. to pass some time, we decided to go on a hike. hamilton just happens to be the waterfall capital of the word (seriously) and since it had been years since we had been to webster's falls, that's where we decided to go.

after we chose the location, i remembered that that place was the very first hike i ever went on, and dylan was the one to take me. the year was 2006 and we took pictures in front of the falls; when i posted them on facebook, a bunch of people joked that they looked like engagement photos. we found that pretty funny, considering we weren't even officially dating yet.

almost there!

misty rainbows.

since i still have the picture of us in front of the falls hanging in my room at my parent's, i took a picture of it before we left so that we could try to recreate it. we had to wait a bit for people to leave the area, and it took a bit to find the perfect rock to place the phone on without it tipping over, but we got pretty darn close! (and thank you to the iphone 6 finally having a timer!!)

the original - such babies back in november 2006.

october 11, 2014. a little older, a little grayer, but we're still cute ;)

the hike was a perfect start to a weekend of stuffing our faces with mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted veggies, pies, and more. and now that thanksgiving has passed, it's basically christmastime, right?

a good weekend indeed...

earlier in the week, we were trying to think of something to do on the weekend to celebrate me finally being done. we considered going to ottawa (but the weather said rain), we thought of camping (but it's not really that warm), and we checked out hotels in niagara falls (fallsview rooms cost $450+ on a saturday night. no thanks), but ultimately, because nothing was sounding that good, we just decided to stay here and spend some of that money we would have spent going away, on ourselves here. we saw two movies this weekend, the first being boyhood, which we both quite liked, and the next being guardians of the galaxy, which dylan loved and i didn't care for (not my cup of tea). we went out for coffee, we went out for dinner, we got library cards (!), and just spent time together in general. oh, and we even bought our first christmas present for someone!

the thing that had me feeling the most spoiled this weekend was a little purchase we made. i've been thinking of buying a new purse for work, something a little more structured and an upgrade from what i had. we're constantly checking out our new favorite store, lxr & co, but they hadn't had anything that caught my eye, until this weekend. we walked in and they had a whole new case of louis vuitton stuff that was just brought in. my eyes immediately fell to one purse in particular. the sales associate took it out, i scanned it over, checked out the condition (very good), asked how they authenticate things and such, and then told them we would think about it. it's the exact pattern and and size i've been wanting for a long time, so for them to have it there was kind of fate. after a quick wander around the mall, went back to pick her up.

 speedy 25 damier azur.

 i think the speedy 25 is the perfect size in proportion to my 5'2" frame.

this particular bag is from the 48th week of 2011, according to the date stamp inside. it's missing the little lock and key, which i may eventually buy on it's own, but we'll see. thanks to birthday money and dylan filling in the rest as a grad gift, this baby came home with me. he spoils me rotten, and i cook him really good dinners (most of the time), so we're basically even ;)

a shout-out...

...to dylan. for working so hard, especially lately. this past week he clocked 80.5 hours and has regularly been working ~55-60 hours/week in the last week weeks. now, not all of this is straight working, some is overtime pay, but his hours have been crazy and we've kind of been on opposite schedules. he's been starting mid-afternoon lately (usually a nights guy), working anywhere from 8-12 hours, getting home, going to bed, and getting up and doing it all over again with time for breakfast and coffee in between. and don't forget to add travel time in there too, going from home to the shop at work, getting his work truck, and then heading out to where ever the job may be that day/night, and then back again.

so thanks dyl. keep on keepin' on and being the best in the biz ;)
we (that's me and our fluffy daughter) love you :)

surprises...

there's nothing better than a sweet surprise, something that puts a smile on your face and make you feel happy for the rest of the day. exactly that happened the other day. dylan has been starting work early lately, usually leaving about 3pm, so he's not there when i get home from classes. i had the tv on in the living room but was sitting on our bed (we can see the tv from there), working on a powerpoint presentation while also listening to music. it was just after 7pm, dylan texted, asking what i was doing and i told him. a few minutes later i thought i heard a knock on our door. i got up to check, looked out the peephole, and since it was just a random person, i wasn't going to answer it. but then i saw the pizza and figured, "better tell this guy he has the wrong unit."

i opened the door and he starts taking the pizza bag out of the bag, and then it went something like this:

me: oh, you have the wrong unit!
pizza guy: nope, unit ****?
me: yeah, but that's wrong. i didn't order pizza.
pizza guy: that's what it says.
me: yeah, but i really didn't order anything...
pizza guy: umm here, read the receipt. *hands me the receipt*
me: *scans receipt to look for phone number or name or something. then i see "write 'i love you' on the box' and then dylan's name.* ohhhh, my boyfriend ordered this for me!
pizza guy: here ya go. just sign the receipt. and he told you to tip me $50. *haha nice try*
me: closes door, walks back into our place all giddy and bring the pizza to bed (gasp!)

and then i opened the box and there was another surprise - a heart-shaped pizza! thin crust, extra cheese, black olives. just the way i like it.

he's a good one, that dylan.

toronto islands...

i've lived in this city for just over 6 years now, and yet i've never made my way over to toronto islands. i really didn't know what was over there, but with the help of google, i found out that it's made up of multiple islands, there are beaches, a few restaurants, a mini theme park for kids, a few bed and breakfasts, and even some houses! a small group of people (i think there is about 280 small cottage-like homes on the island) actually live over there. when i saw how nice the weather was supposed to be, we decided to spend saturday over on the islands.

we left our place around 2:30pm or so just after dylan got in from work (he got a call from work friday evening asking him if he could go in for overtime for 6am, and so he did) and got himself ready. i expected the ferry to be busy, but holy cow, was it ever. we were in line to buy tickets for probably 45 minutes, and then waited about another 15 minutes for the next ferry to arrive. adult return tickets are only $7; i was surprised at how cheap. we chose to get off a centre island and made a bee-line for the kayak rentals because we weren't sure what time they let the last rentals out at. we went with a tandem kayak (because neither of us had done this before) and for 1 hour, it was $34. we found that to be a pretty good amount of time to kayak around and get ourselves into the rhythm.

here we go!

what a view.

if someone would have stopped rocking the kayak, i could have gotten a straight picture!

i must say, i'm surprised how much i actually liked kayaking; i think it's the only sport i've ever really liked and felt that i could potentially do. now, whether i would be able to get myself around in my own single kayak is a different story, but we did pretty good! and hey, it's quite the arm workout!

as for the island(s), let me just say that i grossly underestimated the size of it. all of the islands combined are about 570 acres. we decided to walk from centre island over to hanlan point (all are connected by bridges and walkways) to catch the ferry home at that dock and little did we know, it was a good 5km away. we just kept walking and walking and by the time we got there, we were beat. then, as luck would have it, we couldn't fit on the first ferry and had to wait another half hour for the next one.

we'll definitley be planning another day trip out there, this time for more beach time and to check out some of the homes.

info from wikipedia