Week off, wedding-weekend in Toronto

Nolan and I decided to take last week off to enjoy a break, to finally paint my office, and do some more clean-up outside. Since the weather was pretty miserable, the outdoor stuff was put on hold (indefinitely??)! However, we were able to paint my office, and it is now the exactly same colour as it was in the old house. We liked the colour there, and we had some left-over paint, so easy choice! The painting itself was pretty painless; the cleaning up and moving of all the books and other stuff took a bit longer. But we did it, and it makes me feel good! We also had to do some running around before the big weekend in Toronto (picking up a suit, getting my hair cut, etc).
The 'big' weekend in Toronto was for Carrie and Brad's wedding (Carrie is Nolan's sister). We left fairly early on Friday to pick up Nolan's parents. We offered to drive so they didn't have to worry about the weather, busy highway and crazy city driving.
Once arrived in Toronto, we dropped the folks off at Carrie's place, and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Metropolitan, which was quite nice and the location was great. Friday night was dinner with the MacAfee's, in a nice and quaint Italian restaurant. We walked back to the hotel, and when we got back there, decided that since we were in Toronto, we really should enjoy it! We were a stone throw away from Dundas Square, so walked around there a bit and ended up at the Elephant Castle on Yonge Street. It had been so long since we actually went out and had a beer, and with good music playing in the background, great beer from the tap, and no worries of having to get up early the next morning, we just simply enjoyed it.
So, the next morning we slept in and explored the city a bit more. It's quite a bit different compared to Ottawa, also much bigger :)
After lunch we got ready for the wedding, and made our way over to the Distillery District, the wedding venue. The wedding was small, but nevertheless wonderful. Carrie looked beautiful and happy, and they definitely make a great couple. We didn't take any pictures, so I can't share any right now, but hopefully we'll be able to fetch some from some other people later on! But all in all a great time.
The next day we were invited to a brunch as well, which was also nice (although we were both pretty tired from a short night...), before we headed back to Ottawa.
By the time we got home, we were totally worn out, and pretty much headed straight to bed!
Now it's back to routine and work, and running! We decided to sign up for another marathon next fall, so if you have any suggestions for fun marathons, let us know! This past year we barely ran any races (I just ran the Peterborough half marathon in February, my last race...), but are planning to do the opposite next year, with hopefully many events. Should be fun, and will hopefully get us back into better shape!

Toronto!

This past weekend we were in the Toronto area, due to the AGM of the Ontario Woodlot Association. I’m on the executive, and am also the chair of the business development committee, so a busy weekend! Nolan dropped me off at the hotel in Milton on Friday afternoon, after which he went back to Toronto to spend the night and next day with Tina and Riley. I, on the other hand attended a very successful, albeit long business development committee meeting. By the time the meeting was done, I was done as well! First a long drive, then a long meeting. But it was all worth it. The next day was the actual conference and AGM, which was interesting. It always provides great opportunities to network, as well as to catch up with people you see about once a year. Every year, there is a silent auction in support of the AGM, and last year Nolan tried to get a miniature wooden skidder, but in the end someone else got to take it home. This year, they had a very similar one, and I decided to bid on it. Luckily for us, I was able to offer the highest bid, which was well under last year’s highest bid J

The highlight of the business meeting was, of course, the election of the board members. I was once again elected to the board, and on top of that, I received the highest number of votes (together with the current president!). I have to admit I stand out a bit with most members having reached retirement age, and male…

Nolan picked me up at the end of the meeting, after which we went back to Toronto (again), to visit Carrie. She lives really close to downtown (you can see the CN tower from her window, which is about 3km away…), and we walked to a nice little Mexican restaurant on

Queen Street

. The food was great, but the margaritas and sangria made the night! The next morning we left fairly early to drive back to Ottawa. The weather was awesome, lots of sun, which made the drive so much easier. All weekend, and most of last week, it felt like spring was in the air, so nice! But today we got a brutal wake-up call that winter has not forgotten about us just yet. As of yet, we received about 10 cm of snow, covering the grass that had just started to appear again. Ironically enough, we are getting our summer tires put on the car today. Maybe not so wise?!

The Invisalign is going really well. It’s an adjustment that I have to take them out every time I eat, which can be a bit of a hassle at events such as last weekend’s, but nothing too crazy. And most of all, they don’t really hurt, which is nice.