Bloggie-Palooza 3.0

As you all know, we had some very special visitors in Halifax this weekend.  In addition to Cat and Jen, we also had the extreme pleasure of having Marie and Tara come too!

 

Friday night was a special night planned in celebration of Lex’s birthday in which the main celebration took place at Taboo downtown.  The girls took advantage of one of their packages which included limo service and VIP treatment at the club.  For some reason, I have zero pictures from that night, but I also didn’t partake in the limo etc. and left a bit early cuz there’s nothing like a big ol’ preggo belly that sticks out like a sore thumb downtown on a Saturday night! lol Especially when it seems like the skirts just keep getting shorter and shorter these days! I guess I’m officially achieving “mama” status when those things come to mind! lol

Saturday was another story all together!  As far as I knew, the general plans for the group were to pick up race packs for the Bluenose, hang around to see the Public Gardens and then followed by “espresso” and some good ol’ quality time at Tasha’s place since she lives right there!  So I got into the city and met up with Lynn and then Katie where we sat in the park and had some ice cream/snacks waiting for the rest of the group.  Blackberry Messenger was a buzz trying to coordinate times and status etc. of so many ladies, and it was established that the three of us would meet everyone at Tasha’s since they were running late.

As soon as I walked into the door I saw a big bunch of pink and blue baby balloons, but you couldn’t really see anyone else from the doorway because of the layout of her apartment.  It was kind of suspicious, but I didn’t know for sure what was going on until I peeked around the corner and saw a few of my other best friends, Amy, Jacki and Lena!  All of the girls were there to throw me a surprise baby shower!!  I couldn’t believe that they would have spent their time to arrange this for me during their short stay here!  Natasha truly opened up her home poured her huge heart into soo many thoughtful details to celebrate the soon arrival of our little peanut.  I have known this girl for nearly 12 years now and she is one of the kindest, considerate, classiest and most intelligent people that I know (just sayin!)

How fitting was this button I had to wear?!

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Get a load of this cake!

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And some goodies! (Wish I hadn’t stuffed my face already while at the public gardens – not like that stopped me!):

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There was soooo much more, but I was so overwhelmed by the entire thing, I never got any pictures.  I did get a picture on my Blackberry of a very special gift sent by the one and only Amy who sadly couldn’t join us this weekend.  Isn’t it seriously the most PERFECT thing ever??

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Any of you on Twitter will appreciate that!  I was floored by it and I will be sad when the peanut grows out of it, but will definitely frame it for the wall when that happens (along with Marie’s wonderfully unique and personalized graphic baby onesies that scream “Marie” don’t you think?)

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The general theme throughout the gifts was that each person was to try to bring a book for the baby that they loved as a child or had some significance growing up or just a book in general.  WHAT AN AMAZING IDEA AND THOUGHTFUL GESTURE!!!  There were some very sweet inscriptions written inside most of them which will be there for the peanut to know who they are from in years to come.  Some of them included:

  • Good Night Moon
  • Going on a Bear Hunt
  • The Ugly Duckling
  • Madeline
  • Sesame Street Who’s Who at the Zoo?
  • The Paperbag Princess
  • If You Give a Cat a Cupcake (can you guess from who?)
  • The Hockey Sweater
  • If you Give a Mouse a Cookie (I wonder from who!)
  • The Cat in the Hat
  • Disney Storybook Collection
  • Love You Forever
  • The Giving Tree
  • One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish
  • Dr. Seuss’s ABC
  • Guess How Much I Love You
  • First Words
  • Peek-a-boo Happy Baby
  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar
  • Words
  • another one in transit!

Books are SOOO important and bringing some of the favourites from the childhood and/or handpicked selections from some very special people to start out baby’s book collection was absolutely by far the BEST and most thoughtful idea for a baby shower.  What are some of your favourite childhood books?

 

A few other items worth mentioning were this Lug diaper bag from Jen as part of a combo gift with Lex. Anyone who knows Jen, know her love of great bags and it was so fitting to receive this gift with her thoughts behind it.  It’s an absolutely PERFECT diaper bag and in a beautiful burnt orange colour that I love (very manly too, so the hubs doesn’t have to feel girly carrying it 😉

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Already in the bassinet is a beautiful hand made baby blanket made by Cat’s grandmother!  It is absolutely beautiful and I feel so special receiving this.  These types of talents from older generations are so special and often lost in our generation.  It’s large enough that it will find a place on peanut’s bed long after s/he grows out of the crib:

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Amongst all of the excitement, we somehow managed to forget to take many pictures, but I did manage to snag a few from Lex who always manages to capture the moment in some way:

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THANK YOU TO TASHA, AMY AND JACKI AND ALL OF MY BLOGGER FRIENDS WHO BLEW ME AWAY WITH THIS GESTURE!!  It truly touched me and I thank you from the bottom of my heart 😉

Later that evening, we hit up Lesley’s house for some “carb loading” via spaghetti dinner the night before some of the ladies were running in various Bluenose Marathon events the next morning.  I’m pretty sure I “carb loaded” more than Marie did and she was taking on the Half Marathon!  Hey, don’t underestimate the duties of standing there holding a camera ready to shoot at any given time our runners crossed the finish line! 😉IMG_9365IMG_9408IMG_9381

The Bluenose was full of excitement whether you are running, walking or spectating (see how I made “spectating” appear like an activity? :-P).

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Peanut’s first Bluenose:

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I was sooo impressed by Marie’s performance.  Initially, she had jumped on board with a bunch of us who were all going to be running this race together, all of us having lost in the 100 lbs range.  It was a very symbolic event in my heart.  But as you know plans changed for me and things came up for the others and Marie ran it solo.  I was very disappointed not to be able to participate the way I wanted to, but was VERY happy to cheer her on as she represented us in spirit. It was not her first half marathon and she is a total runner at heart, but I was just as excited for her as if it were!  She did extremely well (much better than I would have aimed for) and when she hit the finish line, she looked like she hadn’t even run the race!  She’s down there a few steps after the finish line if you see her:

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I think that’s Tara down there in the blue tank and hat.  At least I “hope” it is!!  I thought I got one of her at the finish line, but I guess I didn’t :-(  It was her first 10k and she tackled the challenge that was the MacDonald Bridge followed by Nantucket which is another steeeep hill!  She completely rocked it!

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Sunday evening we enjoyed the best sushi in town from Doraku where I have no pictures from and that was followed by a treat from Jaime which was a dozen of Suzie’s Shortbread cupcakes that she raves and loves so much (again no pics but there you can check them out over on her blog).  The evening was wrapped up downtown where the group celebrated their big day at The Old Triangle and the Fife & Drum in which I bowed out VERY early in the evening because I was POOPED!  All that spectating, ya know? ;-P

The next morning, I was very excited to accompany Tara, Marie and Jaime to Peggy’s Cove.  It was a GLORIOUSLY bright and sunny day and perfect for them to see what is considered “quintessential Nova Scotia”.  It was a HOT 20 something degrees at 9:30a.m., so I didn’t bring a sweater forgetting how cool the wind can be at Peggy’s.  It was still perfect though and these girls looked like they enjoyed seeing the sites. In case you can’t tell, that’s Maries best “lobster” impression 😀

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I kind of have this little “Travelocity knomb” thing with my baby bump! lol

      

Tara and Marie decided to live on the edge and get into the boat carved in stone EVEN THOUGH there were ropes clearly telling you to keep out! Bad.Asses 😀

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It was then time for Tara and Marie to depart and Jaime and I met up with the rest of our travelers for a little Claytime Pottery session where we just hung out and painted a pottery item.  It was a nice relaxing way to relax to wrap up the weekend.

All in all it was an activity packed long weekend that went by in a flash!  Amy was seriously missed the entire time I have to say, but it was wonderful to be able to connect once again in person with our bloggies 🙂

I already miss you all terribly!

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