Finalizing Plans - Landal Dunimar&Landal Landgoed 't Loo

SO EXCITING! This trip to Holland is coming together nicely! The plane tickets are booked and now the places we're staying at have gotten finalized as well! The plan is to stay in two different places - both a cottage setting. For the first half of the week we will be at Landal Landgoed 't Loo, which is closer to the family we will be visiting. Both places look gorgeous; I could probably sit here all day looking at pictures, but I should probably be more productive than that! Here's some pics of the first place (which are limited because this is all I could find! More pictures to follow when I can take pictures there myself)!

Landal Langoed 't Loo

The second place is called Landal Dunimar and it's closer to Amsterdam! Soo the second half of the week will be used to explore Amsterdam to its fullest! I cannot wait to be there!

Landal Dunimar

We still have some planning to do (figuring out what exactly we'll be doing each day), and of course there's the whole 2 months left of school that I have to get through BUT we're getting there! Countdown check: 61 DAYS!

AliwS

Tim's Count

I'm at 3 out of 7.. just saying. (I've won 2 coffees and a donut) I hope this luck continues! lol

Homework, homework, and wait more HOMEWORK!

SUNDAY FUNDAY! Except for me it really isn't going to be.. I will be studying the day away! Which is really my own fault because I literally have done no homework all week, so this upcoming week is going to be a long nightmare. Tomorrow I have my first midterm in MIT 1200 (which I haven't started studying for and have no motivation to start.. blah) on Tuesday I have a text analysis due in History (but I have bootcamp so it balances out!), Wednesday is a Classics midterm, and Thursday is an English test.. that is just the beginning of all of the school work I have to get done! This month is going to be CRAZY, so I'm sorry if this blog gets neglected for a little bit - although I'm sure my procrastination will get the better of me and I'll blog all of my frustration; YAY for  blogs! 

Now for a little bit of an update of what I've been doing for the past couple of days. For starters I'm proud to announce that I've won two Roll Up the Rims! Woooo - that takes my Tim's count to 2 out of 5. :) Soo far I've won a coffee and a donut - I cashed in my coffee already (for my new favourite apple cinnamon tea..) and I'm gonna give my donut away to someone to enjoy - any takers?

My winning cup!

This reading week has been full of delicious meals, and definitely some things that I normally wouldn't eat, so next week I have to buckle down and get back to my normal (healthier) eating habits! Yesterday was one of those days where I splurged.. For breakfast we made Breakfast Carrot Cake - a recipe that I found on Pinterest! It was super easy to make the best part about it was the cooking time, 1 1/2 - 2 minutes in the microwave! The cake was small but filling and to top it off was a 'banana ice cream' that sweetened and made the cake a little more moistened.

Breakfast Carrot Cake pre-baked 

My addiction for pumpkin is also growing. For dinner one night I had a pumpkin puree mix that I just threw together. It included: pumpkin puree with a little bit of almond milk and a splash of plain yogurt, cinnamon, an apple, stevia, raisins, and a granola crumble! YUM - it was delish.

Pumpkin mixture

Yesterday was also a fun day because I got to see the Vow with some of my family in London! It also wasn't just a normal movie theater experience - we went VIP! Which I've never done before, and I loved it. It was a group of about 15 girls, which makes it so much more fun. There were even waiters that brought us drinks etc.! I went out of character and had a mango Bellini (I don't drink alcohol all that often..), but it was soooo good! The only part of the experience that I didn't like was the actual movie. Don't get me wrong Rachel McAdams is one of my favourite actresses and Channing Tatum is pretty nice to look at, but the ending was horrible! I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but let's just say that I was disappointed and it left me a little depressed. (Ps how much does my sister look like Rachel McAdams!? Even all of the mannerisms are alike - it's freaky..)

Rachel and I in the VIP lounge right before "The Vow"

Mango Bellini 

I ALSO went to Hana for lunch with Rachel and Rah (my grandma). I told you that this week has been  pretty food related. Other than having a new obsession with pumpkin, I have an obsession with sushi as well. Mm so good! Check it out if you're ever in Sarnia - I'm gonna invite myself.. :)

Sushi anyone?

That's pretty much everything! Now that I've taken like 45 minutes to write this post I better get studying.. wish me luck, I'm gonna need it.

AliwS

EXCITEMENT!

I am soooo excited! My family just planned and booked our vacation for this year - and it's a BIG change from the past years. Normally we go to a cottage about 12 hours away from Sarnia in the little town of Elk Lake. Don't get me wrong I love going up there, but it's nice to have a change every now and then. This years trip is especially exciting, wait for it.. we're going to AMSTERDAM! I still cannot believe that we are actually going! I few days ago I tweeted that I was looking up flights just for fun, but somehow we convinced everyone to just go for it! I cannot wait, and I also can't express my level of excitement through the computer but you get the idea! Now comes the fun part, planning what we will be doing each day, as well as the places we're going to stay at. Some things that are on my list include the Anne Frank House, the Red Light District and perhaps seeing the Royal Palace! One of the other things that we will being doing for sure is visiting relatives there and seeing where my grandparents are from. I'm sorry if this blog gets super annoying with facts and things about Holland, but from now until I leave I'll probably talk about it, A LOT! I'll also keep you updated about our travel plans and arrangements as it gets closer to the date!

See you in 66 days! (not that I'm counting..)

Eeeeeek, did I mention how excited I am!? Can't wait to post the pictures that I take!

AND we're going during Tulip season! How lucky am I!?

Now only if I could hop on the place tomorrow instead of after all of my exams, assignments etc.. Oh well, I guess you can't get everything!
AliwS

Finding a Balance

It's that time of year again! Yes, can't you hear all of Canada rejoicing? It's Roll Uuuup the Rim! I am a little ashamed of this, but I can say that I do get caught up in it all - I've already had two, and lost both.. I'm sure the lineups at Western U Tim Horton's are going to be extra long when reading week is over - and I'll probably be standing among the madness!

Tim Horton's Roll Up the Rim! One of my 'loser' cups

Other than having Tim Horton's on the brain (lol just kidding) I haven't been doing much! Which is starting to stress me out.. I need to start doing some homework on this reading week but it's just too hard when I want to spend time with family and friends and just relax! It's such a hard thing to balance school work and home life - I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed. In the upcoming month I have 4 midterms to study for, 2 novels to read, and an 8 page essay to write, and I'm starting to freak out. I just need to take a few deep breathes and start somewhere I guess..

Reading week has been good to me so far (except for the stress level rising daily). Yesterday I went to go see the movie "This Means War" staring Reese Witherspoon - who I love! It was a good movie, a little unrealistic, but that's why it's a movie! I went with my sister, Rachel, and Katie. It's so nice to be home to see everyone again! I also have been having my fair share of overnight oats! I've tried a few different flavours so far (including the pumpkin from the earlier post). Today I had peanut butter banana oats and the morning before that I had applesauce oats! The base for the applesauce oats was fat free vanilla yogurt and unsweetened applesauce, plus some cinnamon. In the morning I added an apple and a little more cinnamon (I'm a little crazy with my use of cinnamon!). For the peanut butter and banana oats I used the same fat free vanilla yogurt and some almond milk. In the morning I added half a banana and melted some peanut butter so I could mix it through! Both were delicious and I would definitely make them again! I still have a few more mornings at home so I think I'll try another flavour before I have to go back to school - any suggestions?!    

Applesauce Oats

Peanut Butter Banana Oats

I also got to workout again today, which felt great after having a rest day yesterday! I didn't get to workout as long as I would have liked, but it's reading week so I'm not gonna be too upset about it. I'm also getting excited to start swimming when I get back to Western U - I went out to find a bathing suit today with no luck, but I'm determined to find one so I can try out the pool next week (hopefully I have time). That's another thing about all this school work - hardly anytime to workout, but I have to set my priorities straight I guess.  

I think that's the key to all of this stress, I just need to find balance with everything. I hope I can discover it soon before everything is due all at once! This post is getting long so I'll sign off and leave you with this picture of the squash I decided to make the other night! Half of an acorn squash filled with grilled mushrooms and red/green peppers, spaghetti sauce, and sprinkled with some crackers for some crunch!

Experimenting with Acorn Squash 

AliwS

Swimming!

This is a super random post, but I've been sitting here looking up information about swimming for exercise. I love to workout (sometimes) but I am getting so sick of my same routine - treadmill, weights, spin class, treadmill, treadmill.. blah! I want something different and since our rec centre has a massive swimming pool I'm thinking that I'll give it a go! I'm just worried about how to start - will I get a good enough workout in, what strokes do I use, is there a certain routine I can get into, does swimming really count as a good workout?! So you see my dilemma. I think I'll have to do a bit more research about this and let you know what I find. I think this could be a good thing to add to my weekly workout schedule, there are just a lot of things to consider! Plus an extra bonus of this would be the less strain on my muscles (which are super weak and pull often). I think I'm gonna go for it - I just need to figure out where to begin! Let me know if you have some advice!

AliwS

Baking Adventures and Puppies!

So yesterday was a day full of baking fun! My parents were having company over so I told them that I would make the dessert - since I had a couple of recipes from Pinterest that I wanted to test out. This recipe was a modified apple pie, with the apple being used as an individual shell. It was rather easy to make - once you got past the initial hollowing of the inside. There has to be a better way of doing it because we couldn't use any of the apple that was scrapped out, so all of that just went to waste - if I make this again we need to look into something to de-core them so we don't have to throw out so much apple! Another little mistake we made was the crust. As you can see from the picture we had to make something up because we didn't have actual pie crust to cut into strips - but all in all they turned out nicely and everyone reported that they tasted delicious, so I'll count it as a success!

Individual Apple Pies pre-baked 

Another thing that I did yesterday was catch-up with one of my good friends from home, Kelsey. Whenever we are together we make the most amazing and different flavoured scones (one of my favourite pastries). Yesterday, as we were standing in the grocery aisle, trying to decide what combination to make, we both looked at the graham crackers and it hit us - S'more! So we bought semi-sweet chocolate chips (which I ended up munching on the entire time we were baking - so good as a sweet snack), mini marshmallows and of course graham crackers! The recipe turned out pretty good, but to modify it for next time we would add more graham crackers and a little more marshmallows because the predominant taste was the chocolate chips for sure - but still they tasted amazing!

Rolling the dough

The finished product! YUM

Today we celebrated my uncle's birthday! After church this morning we headed to my aunt and uncle's house for lunch and family time. We had tomato soup with meatballs (which my aunt makes and is one of my favourite soups), some fresh buns with assorted meat and cheese, coffee, and of course birthday cake! I skipped most the meal (except the soup) because I ate my pumpkin overnight oats before we left our house - and let me tell you it was worth it. They were soooo good! The finished oats had pumpkin puree, fat free vanilla yogurt, oats and then in the morning I added cinnamon and raisins. I will definitely be making those again this week! I think I could eat overnight oats every morning for breakfast without getting tired of it!

Pumpkin Overnight Oats 

The other half of the title of my post is explained with the adorable picture below. My cousin's dogs just had puppies a few weeks ago. This was the first time that I have seen them with their eyes open. They are so cute! In total they had 10 puppies, which is a lot for a first litter! The mix is cavapoo (a king charles cavalier and a poodle). They have 3 adult dogs in their house so it's a little crazy right now with the puppies - making it a total of 13 dogs under one roof! It's gonna be interesting when they're big enough to run around!

"Lucy" one of the girl puppies that isn't sold yet (and that my Rah wants to take home)

That pretty much sums up the past 2 days! I'm still a little full from all of the goodies I had this afternoon so I think I'll wait to have my dinner until a little later - I'm planning on cooking up some sort of squash - acorn or spaghetti I haven't decided yet. Squash is one of my favourite dinner's, I'm just not sure what I feel like flavouring it with - I think I'll have to browse the internet a bit to come up with something. The rest of the night will probably just be more relaxing before I have to snap back to reality a little bit and start some homework tomorrow - as well as a good workout, and some healthy eats! 

AliwS

The Past Week..

Things have been CRAZY for the past few weeks! There are so many assignments to tackle, as well as piles of readings and not to mention the four midterms I have after reading week. I'm trying to keep calm but things are definitely starting to stress me out! I'm hoping that this next week off will relax me a little, although my reading week is literally going to consist of reading all day long! But enough of complaining about my workload - I am in university, I should know better - back to the past week! Since this is the first post of this blog I thought I'd just share what kinds of things I've been up to.

For one thing I'm obsessed with overnight oats, if you haven't heard of them you need to look them up asap - they will change your life lol. I currently have some chilling in the fridge and can't wait to try them in the morning! They are pumpkin flavoured - made with canned pumpkin puree, vanilla yogurt, and rolled oats. In the morning I'm going to add raisins and cinnamon - YUM! I'll let you know how they turned out and maybe even post a picture! 

Another exciting thing that I did this week, as a little Valentine's Day present to myself, was getting my nails done with my friend Caileigh! She was going because she wanted bright and fun nails for her trip to Cuba (so jealous), and I decided to tag along! We decided on shellac nail polish because it literally lasts for almost 3 weeks, which is awesome! After our nails were finished we headed to Starbucks to attempt to finish our essay's (Caileigh and I are in 3 classes together) and 5 hours, a grande skinny cinnamon dolce latte, and a tall new blonde roast later I was finally finished!  

Here's a little snap shot of the finished product 

Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte and Shellac Nails 

Other than my trip to the nail salon and the Starbucks marathon the rest of the week was readings, assignments etc. nothing to exciting! As for what next week brings I'm hoping for lunch dates, some good workouts, and recipes that I've been dying to try! (I don't have a kitchen in my dorm room, so being at home is a treat) 

Have a great weekend,

AliwS