Birthday Scavenger Hunt Day 1

It's Ian's Birthday weekend!!!! This is his first birthday married and I wanted to make it really fun but I had no idea what to do.  I was watching a rerun of Ellen where she interviewed Neil Patrick Harris about his 40th birthday. (Click here for the interview).

Our day started with a morning letter:

I made him a breakfast with a lot of bacon, bakery bread and then the hunt started...

"You have the key to my heart

this key leads to where the hunt starts"

Brought him to the car:

 "You drive me crazy like no one can beat

Find the next clue in the backseat"

"Start your engine for a weekend that rocks!

You'll soon see why

pssst... look in the glovebox"

"You fill me up and fuel my fire,

Check your gas tank to see what's going to transpire"

"I'll never tire of you my hottie hunk

Zoom on over and look in the trunk"

"You make my heart race,

you know its true!

So how about a road trip for two?

We have a place to stay 

and be revving things up soon... what do you say?

wink wink vroom vroom"

After this last clue, I ran out of rhymes so from here on out, the hints were mostly pictures. Before we got in the car to go I knew Ian was going to ask me where we were going so I got him a clue to get him to figure it out:

I thought giving him a clue to figure out our first stop would be a great idea! We were in the car for about 3 hours because of construction and dumb morning traffic, and Ian spent all 3 of those hours guessing our first stop.  Next time, he gets the clue when we are maybe 10 minutes away...

We went to Thorold's Lock 7 to the kissing rock and made it just in time to see a boat come in!  Then, when we were on the verge of melting (it was feeling almost as hot as Mexico in August!) we got to the car for the next clue...

Maybe a drop of water was a little under stating our next stop but Ian always talks about how much he wants to spend time in the cool little town in Niagara Falls and see the stores so we went to Clifton Hill at Niagara Falls. 

 He's so gorgeous, eh?!

 Then we took a whole bunch of selfies:

 Then Ian made fun of my "big eyes" in the selfies...

 The parking  at Niagara Falls was INSANE! Either we payed $20 for the one hour and a bit we would be in the town or parallel park for $2 the hour and  a little bit of a walk to the town.  My amazing parallel parking that my dad taught my how to do in china town Toronto: 

 We spent the time walking around and we found an arcade where we got competitive. I just wanted the air conditioning but Ian decided to play against me at a basketball game.  Well things went from competitive to Ian being mad. We played 3 games where I won (by A LOT!) when Ian decided to move on to a football game.  He didn't get the ball in any target while I only missed 3 of my throws.  Ian cooled off at the Guitar Hero and he just HAD to beat me at basketball so we changed the settings of the net so Ian's would be stationary and mine was moving and IAN FINALLY WON (not by much but he still won)

 The next clue was obvious:

 By the time we made it to the Rochester area, we were SSSSOOOOO hungry and thirsty that it was definitely time for the next clue:

 After dinner, it was raining A LOT and we were really tired so I gave Ian the next clue:

 We opted to not go to the pageant but head to the final clue:

For day two, I ran out of clues but we have a theme: country!

My first dress!!!!!

So I have always wanted to learn to sew and make dresses for myself but I had no idea how to read the patterns. Every time I get a pattern, I cut the pieces then turn to the instructions and think they totally made a mistake. The instructions weren't to make a dress but looked more like instructions to build a spaceship! Well my sister in law is moving to Alberta and I wanted to get her something for her to remember me by but I couldn't find a modest dress that looked cute. Then I remembered the spaceship/dress pattern that I had.
After deciding to make this dress, I went with Ian to Fabricland to find the perfect material but it was WAY harder than I thought. 2 hours later, we settled on a yellow floral pattern (Lauren had told us she liked floral and yellow was her wedding colour so it seemed like a safe bet).
   After a lot of mistakes including sewing my own shirt to the dress, it was done!
After taking the dress in to fit the measurements and adding trim to the neckline because it showed WAY too much of the girls, I was FINALLY done my first ever dress!
I made a wire name tag, cute tag for the inside of the dress, and painted a gift box green to put it in and voila! Ready to go!

72 Hour Kit: Face Off

Today at church we had an emergency preparedness activity where we learned all about being prepared on case of an emergency. Part of the activity was to bring your 72 hour kit to be judged for a prize. So while I was in the kitchen in charge of the food for the activity, my mom was pretty much selling her kit to the judges. Long story short: she won and I think mine is way better. So now I am leaving it up to you guys! I will post the picture of each bag and a description of what is in the bag under it. I won't say any names to keep it fair and at the bottom is the poll.

BAG A:

*Gym Duffle Bag. *prescription drugs     *complete change of clothes    *flashlight.    *polysporin
*yoyo. *toilet paper  *sudoku book. *pads   *book of Mormon. *water   *deodorant *towel
*perfume. * tooth paste   *advil. * floss. *stand for something book   *purell. * tooth brush     
*manicure set. * wet wipes   *id documents. *cash   *reading glasses. *hand lotion  
*church documents. * 2 cans soup   *1 can ravioli. * 2 cans tuna. *1 can peaches. *dries mangos.
*2 pudding cups. *plastic fork a d knife. * glow stick


BAG B:

*backpack. * whistle. *fleece blanket. *2 plastic sheets. *complete Change of clothes. *plastic mug. *toilet paper. *rope. * hunting knife. *3 sizes of rolled bandages. *church documents on USB.
*glow stick. *4 packs waterproof matches. *prescription drugs. *chapstick. *metal cutlery. *purell *eye drops. *toothbrush. *toothpaste. *flashlight . *hair bands Nd bobby pins. *deodorant. *sunscreen. *gauze packs. *advil. *latex gloves. *tweezers. *tums. * mini splint. * medical tape.
* band aids. *pads. *2 chocolate bars. *3 cans raviolis *3 cans peaches *3 fruit bars. * 3 granola bars. * 3 apple juice boxes. *3 packs instant oatmeal *candy *water. *id documents. *cash. *Sling shot *magazine

Nutella Cookies!

Since joining Pinterest, I have found MANY awesome little ideas that I will probably never do but I can dream right? This was my first ever food 'pin' that I swore I could do because it looked SO easy! Who knew that I would complete the wedding pins before the simple cookie pin!
On Easter weekend, Ian and I went to Whitby where I got the cutest measuring cups from my mother in law, Heather (Thanks Heather!!) and she also bought us two giant tubs of Nutella so it was obvious what the first thing I was going to do when I got home would be.  So after I ate half a tub of Nutella straight out of the jar (I'm totally kidding! I only had one spoon....ish) I made Nutella cookies!
Here's how I (FINALLY) made the Nutella Cookies:

 First off, here are the super cute measuring cups!

 They even stack together perfectly!

Anyhoo, here's how I made the cookies:

 1 cup of Nutella (you will probably need more for snacking)

 1 egg (the egg holder is totally a MUST!....

just kidding but make sure the egg is at room temperature)

 1 cup flour

(can you tell we are working on our food storage

because of the huge sizes of everything I am using!)

 Mix everything together in a bowl very neatly, using a spoon

 The 'very neatly, using a spoon' lasted maybe 30 seconds before I got my hands in there

 Make sure you heat up the oven to 350 degrees

When you have a uniform batter mix, make 1 inch balls and place onto the baking sheet

 Now you have to squish the balls flat using a glass

 They grow a little bit so make sure there is some room between them

Bake them for 6 minutes and dont eat the right when you take them out because you WILL burn your mouth (I learned the hard way!)

TA-DA! Nutella cookies!



Mom's Birthday!

April 3rd was my mom's birthday and I wanted to make her cake. Since she loves ballet so much, I made her a ballerina jewelry box cake with her favourite gourmet chocolate cake recipe. She learned how to make this cake from Bonnie Gordon (Toronto's best cake designer) and I borrowed her recipe. Based off of this experience with a gourmet cake, I'm sticking to boxed cakes :p. I thought it would be so easy because my mom makes them for us all the time (she even made my aunt's 4 tier wedding cake, no problemo). It didn't turn out exactly as I wanted but that cake was SO yummy! Happy Birthday Mommy!!