Over the last couple of months we have been quite busy in our personal lives. We have been back and forth to Ottawa a few times to visit family, our Elara turned 2 years old, and we are expecting another addition to our family. I am currently 5 months pregnant! Our next babe is due in August. It's been a rough pregnancy so far, with lots of morning sickness, which has been even harder while looking after a toddler. I've just been getting through each day and not much more. However, I'm hoping to get back to blogging and doing lots more projects. There is something about the weather getting warmer, and I am finally starting to feel more normal, which is inspiring me to get back on here and get writing. Check back soon!

Do you like our pregnancy announcement? The geek gamers in us thought we would have some fun. 

I didn't get a chance to post last week as we were on holiday! Jeff and I went away for a few days to the island of Curacao. Meanwhile, Elara got to have a vacation of her own with her grandparents. As both Jeff and I's parents don't live in Toronto it was nice for them to spend some time with her. And we got to reconnect as a couple. Win-win all around! 

We spent five days on this beautiful island. It is a part of the Dutch Antilles and is close to South America next to the Venezuela boarder. The website for the country's tourism is a good source for planning a trip here. Curacao has something for everyone to do! Whether is be relaxing on the beach, visiting a museum, or hiking up the hills on the north end of the island. There is also every restaurant imaginable, lots of festivals, and the main city of Willemstad is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Here is what we got up to on the island. There was so much more I would have liked to experience, but we were there to relax too, and you can't do everything! 

Day 1: 
We didn't get into Curacao until 11pm the night before so we didn't do much except settle in and sleep. On our first full day we explored our hotel's grounds and took a walk along the beach and cliff side, and went swimming.

We picked the Curacao Merriott Beach Resort, as it looked great, had good reviews, and was not expensive. The hotel, grounds, and beach of this hotel are all open air, and is just gorgeous. After exploring all over the island this hotel is definitely one of the best in terms of atmosphere and beach area. The room was comfortable, but was a little dated and worn. They could use a renovation to modernize and make the rooms look fresher. The food on the other hand was just OK, and was extremely expensive. We ended up eating most of our meals off site where the food was great. So, it had some pros and cons, but since you don't spend all that much time in your room we thought the hotel setting more then made up for the dated rooms.

Day 2:
On the second day we took a shuttle into the main city of Willemstad. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The buildings are so colourful and are in the Dutch style. There are two sides of the city which are connected by a floating bridge. This bridge opens and closes to allow boats through, which is lots of fun to watch. If you need to get back over to the other side when the bridge is open you can take the free ferry. 

We found a cute little restaurant for breakfast which had amazing food and was only $5 compared to $20 US dollars. After eating, we wandered around the small, pedestrian only, streets and looked at all the neat buildings. There is also a floating market where boats park at the pier and sell their fresh fish, fruits, and vegetables. Lots of fun to people watch as they go about their daily shopping. 

All along the water is the old fort wall. They have remade the wall into restaurants and shops. You can visit the Riffort and lookout from the top of the wall for a great view of the city.  It looked like a museum was in the works when we visited, but it was under construction. We ended up going to one of the restaurants in the wall for dinner. The kitchens are located in the wall and they built docks out over the water for the tables. Can't beat watching the sun go down over the ocean while having dinner!

Day 3: 
We started the day by heading to the Curacao Sea Aquarium. It was fun to watch the flamingos but the rest of the aquarium was just OK. There wasn't a ton to do there (unless you want to swim with dolphins or feed sharks, all of which costs more), and it was quite expensive. Afterwards we walked over to Mumbo beach, and enjoyed lunch at Chill and Grill Beach Bar. They had a great BBQ going, and you can sit at the bar or at tables right in the sand. 

After lunch we visited the Curacao Liqueur Factory and Museum. There was a small museum that tells you the history of the liqueur (which is made from a type of orange) then tastings at the end, all of which was free. There is actually quite a few flavours of Curacao, only the blue one is popular internationally. We bought a tamarind flavoured one, which has a nice sour taste and would be amazing over ice. 

​For dinner we went to a beach near our hotel called Pirate's Bay. We fell in love with this place! During the day it's a private beach and bar/restaurant. However, at night they take away all the lounge chairs and place tables right on the sand, and light strings of colourful lanterns and lights. The atmosphere is wonderful! And the food and drinks were some of the best we had on the island. We definitely recommend this place, and it was great since it was a short walk from our hotel. They also serve breakfast and lunch, and there is a wood burning oven for pizza. As well, the cocktails were actually made with real fruit instead of the fake syrup mix. So yummy!

Day 4:
On our last full day we rented a car and took a little road trip up to the north side of the island. We visited Christoffel National Park for a hike. The landscape is very arid, and the park was full of cactuses (and huge iguanas too). It was so interesting to look around! We saw huge cliffs where the waves rushed up, giant cactuses, and hills in the distance. 

After visiting the park we drove to a few public beaches along the road to do some snorkelling. Lots of amazing fish and coral to see all along the coast. 

This is definitely an island to see! It's so different than a lot of other Caribbean islands, it almost has a European feel. It's a lot wealthier than some, and tourism is not as big here which means you are visiting a country not just a resort. In fact, on our plane coming in there were only a few of us who were tourists, the rest were all locals coming back from their holidays or visiting family/friends. The locals are very friendly and are very proud of their country. They are also very diverse. We enjoyed our trip a lot, and it was so nice to spend some time in the hot sun and swim in the ocean!

I can't believe it, but an entire year has gone by since Elara's birth. She is already one years old! She definitely is her own little person now; who is sweet, silly, and has quite a suborn strike. I have also been doing a lot of remembering of my own birth experience. Quite a lot of it was hard for our new family as we had a shaky start (you can read more here). However, everyone is great now and our little girl is just so happy with life. 

Elara's official birthday is today, February 4th. However, we ended up having her birthday party this past weekend with family and friends. It was a lot of fun, and Elara held up really well! She got to try some cake for the first time. She didn't seem too sure of it, and hated the mess on her fingers. Although it was great entertainment for everyone else. So much to celebrate, we are so happy with our little toddler now!

Wishing all of you a wonderful holiday from our family! We are certainly enjoying baby's first Christmas. Cheers!

We have been having lots of fun over the last couple of weekends doing Christmasy things. After all, this is baby's first Christmas! Everything is new for her, so everything is double the fun. A couple of weekends ago we spent an evening at the Toronto Distillery District Christmas Market. This is always so special, wandering around with a hot chocolate in hand, looking at all the shops and enjoying the Christmas atmosphere. Elara even had a great time (after a brief meltdown due to hunger at the beginning). We ended up stopping to feed her (and ourselves) at the Mill Street Beer Hall. Not the most child friendly spot, but Elara won everyone over that walked by, and equally she loved the attention. And we got to have a beer! Win win for everyone!

This past weekend we cut down our Christmas tree. We had a lovely afternoon with some good friends looking for the perfect tree (and getting some Christmas photos in as well). We ended up picking a small tree this year, as Elara is into everything, and placing it up on the coffee table. It might deter her a little more then if it was on the floor. We shall see! Can't wait to keep this tradition going each year as Elara gets older. Lots of fun!

It was my birthday this past weekend, and I am now in my 32nd year of being alive! Even though I sometimes have to think really hard about what my age actually is, I still enjoy having birthdays. It's the one day of year to celebrate being you. So here are the best things that happened in the last year.

1. Baby Elara! (This is by far the most amazing thing that happened this past year)
2. Exploring Our Area (We did so much more exploring this year, as last year I was pregnant and didn't have as much energy)
3. Creating New Family Traditions (We have started doing a few things around the holidays, like at Thanksgiving and Christmas, which I think will continue as our family gets older)
4. Our House is Now a Home (We have been here almost 2 years now, and with all our projects, our house is starting to really feel like ours)
5. Bonding with Friends (Having a baby has brought me a lot closer to friends who also have young kids. It's great to be able to share in the good and not so good times)

 Happy Halloween! It's Elara's first Halloween this year, and our second year of giving out candy and decorating the house. We even got to pick our own pumpkin this year. Lots of festive fun!

​We decided to make Elara the Queen of Hearts for Halloween. It actually all started as a joke, as she has a shirt with a collar that wouldn't stay down (as seen in the photo below). I thought it looked like an Elizabethan queenly collar, and from there we thought she would make a good Queen of Hearts. We already had a dress with hearts all over it, all we needed was accessories to make the costume complete! She makes a pretty cute queen, and she definitely rules this house with an iron fist. 

I hope you have lots of candy and Halloween fun this weekend! 

 This past weekend we visited the Evergreen Brick Works. If you have never been it's definitely a neat place to check out. There are great paths to go for hike, and lots of fun little gardens to explore, as well as a store and coffee shop. And every weekend there are a ton of activities. While we were there we browsed through the weekly farmers market and had some lunch sitting out in the beautiful sun by the pond. There was also an Etsy market going on this weekend that was fun to wander around. I even picked up a cute fox bib for the baby. It was a super fun afternoon out!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you had a great long weekend. We had a lot of fun on Sunday as we visited a pumpkin patch, wandered through a corn maze, went on a tracker ride, and picked our own pumpkin. Then in the evening we had some good friends over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Elara had a great first Thanksgiving! 

We decided to spend the long weekend in Ottawa visiting family and friends. We saw so many people, most of whom had not yet met Elara. Practically every meal was spent with someone new. It was certainly busy, but fun too. Elara got lots of new toys to play with, like in the photo above. She was greeted with a play mat at her grandparents place. Elara was a good sport through all the excitement, except for the long trip home. There was lots of crying, and it was definitely a test of motherhood listening to heartbreaking sobs but being powerless to do anything about it. However, we made it! I hope everyone had a great Labour Day weekend!