Summer Fun

WOOHOO SUMMER IS HERE!

Always my happiest at the water!

I appreciate all the seasons that we are lucky enough to enjoy as Canadians, but being the water baby I am, summer is my favorite! Even though this summer will be very different for us then all the others we've enjoyed , I am so excited to have fun with our little boy, Knox, and explore all that the summer has to offer with him!

Some of my fondest memories as a child are in the summer time! Camping, playing at the park, swimming at our cottage or having pool parties with friends. My ultimate favorite is my cottage, I can remember spending weeks at a time up there! We would swim, water ski, explore the woods, pick wild raspberries, camp fires, canoeing and oh so much more! I would fill my days so much that by the night I would crash and recharge for the next day. This evolved a little over the years, but I still enjoy all the outdoor fun and even in my last trimester of my pregnancy I was still the last one in the water at the end of the day.

The guys and poochies loving the summer sun!

Even though Knox is still very little ( 7 months ) and wont remember our summer fun probably for the next couple of years, I am so excited to enjoy our first summer with him! We've already been lucky enough to have him in the water at one of our close friends pools and the park is on our agenda whenever the weather permits. He experienced his first bonfire at the cottage in the late spring, he starred at the flames and Glamma ( my mom) danced around with him till finally the warmth of the fire and Glamma's dancing skills lulled him to sleep. 

Our first swim together!

Safety conscious DaDa was feeling a little overwhelmed about summer dangers, so I have purchased Knox's first life jacket, baby bug repellent, sun screen, uv/bug nets, quick drying hats for the water, swim suits and more. I think we are ready...lol

With Knox on the brink of crawling I can only imagine that this will be a busy, but fun summer. I plan on enjoying every minute of it an soaking up my summer off with my boy. I think its so important we pass on what we love to our children and I cannot wait to share all my loves with Knox and get to learn his.

Lotsa Love,

Natasha 

What are some of your summer memories? Any big plans this summer?

2012 Resolutions

Our society seems very attached to making resolutions every year on New Year’s day, but do we keep them? The giant life changing resolutions that we all create for ourselves in hopes that this year will be the year we lose the weight, read 50 books or meet the one. My belief is that is you’re not ready or you aren’t in the right mind set no matter how many resolutions you make you’re going to break them. So even though I don’t believe setting one day a year aside for setting resolutions, I absolutely believe in setting goals and working towards a better change or aspiring to something new and great.

This year I asked my hubby if he’d made any resolutions this year, he replied without thought “no and neither should you, because you never keep them”. At first I was taken back… how dare he say that… and then I tried to think of a resolution made on New Years that Id actually kept and I honestly could not think of one. I have reached many other goals in my life and I aspire to many great things, but to say I’ve completed a New Year’s resolution…I could not.

I think my dreams for 2012 are a little big and can’t really be obtained by resolving to do so. So instead I’ve decided to enter into 2012 with a mindset of how I’d like things to work out, a positive outlook.  Seeing as 2012 will be spent going through ivf and possibly pregnancy Ive told myself that there is a certain way I want to go through it.

I want to be brave and strong, entering into something new and scary. I want to be patient and understanding, knowing that things don’t happen overnight. I want to be aware of me, with hormone injections it can be easy to slip into bought’s of emotions or solely focus on ivf, I want to remain aware of me throughout this process to stay sane J . I’m going to be creating a board that I can put up somewhere visible in my house as my mantra for 2012.

2011 ended on such a high note for Ryan and I, we just want to keep riding that wave. I’ve lost 15lbs and have been eating well, exercising and overall feeling great. My energy is up and I feel overall very positive about what’s to come. Ryan keeps laughing at me, saying “I’ve never seen someone so excited to start injecting themselves with needles.”; this means to me that I am ready to face all that 2012 can throw at me with Ryan by my side. January should be an interesting month with the start of our IVF round, but I like interesting…

So even though I have a ton of things that I would love to accomplish for 2012, resolving to do so has never worked for me in the past. So instead I plan on having a strong and positive outlook and by doing so may be able to achieve more in my year.

Lotsa Love,

Natasha

Do you make yearly resolutions; If so what where they for this year? Post a comment to let us all know. 

2011 in review

I woke up made myself a coffee and crawled back into bed to enjoy my lazy day at home. As I was sitting there I wished my peeps a happy last day of 2011. After sending out my wishes my mind started to wonder back to the start of 2011 and as I traveled back through my year in my head, I didn’t even believe all that had happened. So I figured why not share my crazy year in review with my blogging peeps!

I woke up to 2011 in Costa Rica, realizing that instead of having a nap my mom, sister, aunt and I had slept through New Year’s Eve. While in Costa Rica I challenged pretty much ALL of my fears and phobias. I rappelled down 350ft waterfalls, zip lined 750ft over the rain forest, hiked up a volcano, played in the rainforest with frog’s snakes and all other types of creepy crawlies.  I got stung by jelly fish and almost got tackled by a giant lizard sliding down a hot tin roof. My 15 day trip in Costa Rica challenged me and opened my world up even more then I could ever imagine.

As if Costa Rica wasn’t enough, March brought us Boston and the running of the brides. Running of the brides is a yearly even where all the designers send their dresses to a giant convention hall at crazy discounted rates. Women line up overnight to wait to all rush in to grab there perfect dress; you run, wrestle, barter and sometimes fight for that perfect dress.  We lined up at 3am for my girlfriend pam and we were some of the first in line, we fought our way to her dream dress and by 11am it was all hers. We explored Boston, visited Harvard, did a photo shoot and partied the night away for my girl Keeks birthday!

With my year being a roller coaster, starting up up up and then eventually racing down it bring us to April and our first appointment with our fertility specialist. We were told after years of trying, tests and emotions that our only options were for me to have surgery or for us to go through IVF. I had a follow up appointment with our DR in May after he got a hold of my medical records and the surgery was taken off of the table because of safety concerns for me. We were left with only IVF, which is a 10-15 thousand dollar procedure with (for us) a 50% chance of success.  We were devastated.

The summer was a blur of  anger, denial, tears and finally acceptance. Accepting that maybe children were not in our future was a hard pill to swallow and clouded what is normally my favorite bright sunny summer season.

Finally in comes the fall!

On one special shopping day in the states, my sister in law asks me if I can keep a secret. She’s pregnant and (other than her hubby no one else knows). This news made me so happy and brightened not only my day, but my cloudy world. She is currently 5.5 months pregnant, everyone knows and she and their soon to be baby girl are doing amazing. (I am feeling her kick as I write this post lol)

In comes my phone call from my mom and sister that has forever changed our lives. The New Hot 899’s Win a baby contest; put us through another rollercoaster of emotions. Entering and Ryan trying to make sure my hopes weren’t too high (to avoid another range of emotional consequences), passing the top 5 qualifying deadline and assuming we did not make the top five, waking up the next day to hear that the top five had yet to be chosen, making top five, voting and then finally finding out that all top five couples had won. We had all won up to 35,000 and up to 3 rounds of ivf. We got our baby hopes back and made some amazing connections through this process. Our family friends, friends of friends and complete strangers stepped up to support our dream of having a baby of our own. Oh and on the same weekend we won the win a baby contest…I turned 30. J

Since then it has been a blur of planning out our treatment, signing forms, media interviews, media profiles and me prepping for hormones and a hopeful future baby. I’ve lost 15lbs and have been trying to mentally prepare myself for what’s to come in the New Year.  We are excited, nervous, elated, anxious and ready to explore 2012. We’re hoping that Charly’s baby girl will have a cousin to play with by Christmas.

Not to mention all the weddings, party's, job changes, accidents and other daily craziness thats fills our lives.

So 2011 was like a girly movie for me, started exciting and happy, had some dark low points and then finishes on a high. Hopefully 2012 is less girly movie and more a baby story.

After over a year of blogging, thank you for following along with me in my crazy life and cannot wait to share all that’s awaiting me in 2012.

Lotsa Love,

Tasha 

Christmas Joy

With Christmas less than a month away, holiday songs are on the airways and all stores are decked out with Christmas items. There are many different views on Christmas shopping and decorating; where do you stand?

I am someone who loves Christmas decorations, decorating the house, Christmas baking and all the sparkly glittery items and of course twinkle lights. I even love the smell of Christmas, baked goods and pine trees…yum! I would decorate for Christmas on November first if my hubby would let me, he would be happy with decorating on December twenty fourth and taking them down on the twenty sixth. I feel that is just not enough time to take in all the sparkly Christmas glory.

Now I’m not so crazy over Christmas that I am playing the music all day long, wearing a Christmas sweater and drinking hot cocoa as I write. But I am a lover of the spirit of Christmas. There is something magical about a warm fire, light snowflakes gently falling outside, curled up eating baked goods and wrapping gifts. I love that it is the time of year that family and friends all come together, travel home and spend some amazing times together. I love all the different family traditions and memories created singing carols and making gingerbread houses at the age of 30.

I have yet to decorate for Christmas, not of my choosing, I work two jobs, attempt to blog semi regularly and have a loving husband, families and friends to spend time with, oh and my dog. So I am hoping to get my decorating done this week…can’t wait!

How do you feel about Christmas? Are you a decorating fiend or a crazy Christmas baker? Are you more of a scrooge then a happy elf? How do you feel about this special time of year?

I love hearing about everyone’s family traditions and stories from Christmas, so hopefully you will share.

I think that with anything in life we can make what we want of it! We can focus on the stress of travel, cost of gifts and time spent decorating or we can focus on time spent with family, the joy on a special someone’s face when you found that gift that was meant for them and memories made decorating the Christmas tree. I think as we get older most for us lose the magic of Christmas, so in my opinion get it back. Stop rushing around without stopping to take in all the splendor of the holidays, stop worrying that you didn’t get enough gifts or spend enough on a person, because that’s not what it’s about. Try and remember what it was like for you as a child and go back to that sparkly, new, happy place. Let go of the cynical views of the commercialization of Christmas and enjoy the JOY!

Because trust me, it’s never a bad thing to have too much joy in your life, so share the sparkle! 

Lotsa Love,

Natasha

Summer Loving

Party Weekend!

With May creeping to an end and the ridiculous amount of rain we have been getting, I cannot do anything but dream and wait for summer. One of my favourite places in the world is my family’s cottage, this summer will be the 25^th summer we have had there and all the memories that go with it make it a treasured part of who I am.

I fell in love with water and the stars from the same dock that we dive off of today and even though  I’m older and don’t have to wear flotties anymore (sometimes do when to many margaritas are involved), I still get that childlike glee when I know its cottage time.

Bailey and Bella rescuing sticks!

As an adult it has become a big part of my friends summers as well; birthdays, sad days, much needed getaways and even honeymoons and anniversaries have been spent at the Sinclair/Kearney cottage. It’s one of those places that morphs and becomes part of your soul, when your away to long you miss it. The hammocks, bonfires, gorgeous view, clean water and always great food, drink and company.

So seeing as it is now mid-May and the rain has kept me from going up to my cottage(roads are washed out), I am itching to go. It doesn’t even matter to me if when I’m there if it’s raining or if the sun is shining you can barely drag me away from the water. My mom calls me her fish, even a near drowning water skiing incident when I was very young couldn’t keep me away from the water, my mom tells me that once she knew I was ok she was terrified that it would cause a fear for me of the water, but no soon as I recovered I was back doing cannon balls from the top dock and choreographing water routines with pool noodles.

Girls weekend,
 we found my dads hat collection!

The scratches and bruises from playing in the forest, forts and ropes off of giant rocks into the water, our 50 ft. water slide called the silver bullet, crazy day long trips to secret passages to other lakes and late nights by the bonfire is just scratches of the surface of memories I have shared with family and friends. I cannot wait to someday have children and introduce them to their lifetime of memories there as well.

View from the top dock!

So I urge you Mr Sun please come out and dry up all the rain so we can open my cottage and I can be reunited with my favourite place to play and relax. I cannot wait until I get to pack up the car, get poutine on the way (of course), stop at the depeneur, watch the excitement from my dog build as we get closer to the water and she can smell the cottage and finally arrive to the magical place that has very much help build who I am today.  

Cannonball! 

Lotsa Love,

Tasha

V Day

Valentine’s Day; a day so many look forward to and many more dread, a day when hearts can be filled with joy and happiness or loneliness and heartbreak. Today is one of those holidays that can inspire a multitude of feelings all dependant on what your relationship status is, how you feel about it, and if your partner remembered the holiday or not.

 We are taught from a very early age that Valentine’s Day is about love, candy and sending someone a card asking to be your valentine. Well what if you don’t have or want a valentine?  We get programmed to think that this day has to be perfect, romantic, special, but why?

 I have seen so many happy couples fight over Valentine’s Day every year, when on any other day they are perfectly happy.  What about this day makes us so crazy? Is it that we want to prove our love, show it off, are our expectations to high or are we lacking that specialness in our day to day lives? Shouldn’t love be celebrated every day, when did we put a price tag on it?

 What if we expressed our love daily and made every day the day of love? Do like Saint Valentine and hand write expressions of love to your sweetheart, hopefully not from a jail cell ;).

 Now I am not bashing Valentine’s Day, I think it is great that the world has a day dedicated to love. It would be easy, seeing as I’m married, to gush about Valentine’s Day and how special we should make it, but I don’t know that I feel that way about it. I’m more of an everyday love kind of girl! I love flowers, chocolates and gifts, but to me they are more special on a day that everyone does not feel pressured to give them. Like when my husband just surprises me with something special because he was thinking of me, that means more…to me. WARNING- Not everyone feels this way.

 Maybe I feel this way because I can remember what it felt like in high school and not get a candygram or be the only single girl in my group of friends and have to hear about all the things my girlfriends were expecting and then how excited they were or disappointed they were with the outcome. I think the ones in love sometimes forget that the whole world necessarily isn’t.

So for all you singles how about making it a day to love you, your family and friends. For us in relationships express your love all the time and give your partner a break, nobody’s perfect. Enjoy the day and the meaning behind it, but don’t stress about perfecting it. Go with the flow, enjoy love, no matter who you’re loving. Because I am pretty sure that when Saint Valentine died so young lovers could marry he did not envision people turning this day into anything but an expression of happiness, freedom and love. He would want this to be a happy day, so let’s make him proud. Whatever you end up doing today, just go with it, because sometimes when we expect nothing at all we get everything we wanted!

For, you see, each day I love you more, Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.

Rosemonde Gerard

Lotsa Love,

Natasha