The time I ate a beaver tail
Happy Sunday everyone! I am now back from Ottawa but didn’t really post any updates this past week on what I was up to. It was a very busy week with training all day every day and in the evenings I kept myself busy with fun social things, either with the new friends I made at training or blog friends!
It’s funny because this was my second time visiting Ottawa and I was there for 5.5 full days and 6 nights. Last time I was there for 4 full days and 4 nights. But I feel like I saw so much more of Ottawa last time. Probably because for 3 of the 4 days I was touring around with Anais! That trip is recapped here, here and here.
In my true “photography” fashion lately I took a bunch of instagram photos last week so I figured I’d recap my week in one post, through those photos!
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When I first arrived in Ottawa last Sunday night it was cold. Like -20 C with the windchill! I was not happy since I had left a balmy 15 C behind in Kamloops. But it did give me the opportunity to wear the toque Lisa made for me finally!
After a long day of training on Monday I met Anais for a (very cold!) run. We ran 5.5 miles along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa and then went back to her house where she made me a delicious dinner of rainbow trout and quinoa salad. It was great! Silly me didn’t get any photos of us together, though.
On Tuesday I participated in one of the social events with my training group! We did a tour of Parliament and then went for dinner and drinks at a nearby pub. It was really fun and great to get to know all the people in my group better! I ended up making some awesome friends by the end of the week.
Wednesday I hung out with Anais again and went to hot power yoga at her gym. The gym she goes to is AWESOME. It’s massively huge and it has a hot yoga studio right inside of it that is included with the membership. It was an intense workout and I was glad to fit in some yoga during my trip. We then went for tofu burgers (same one I had with her last time), which were amazing! I once again failed at getting a photo of the two of us though 
Thursday was super fun! Our training group went to the Ottawa Senators game and had box seats, which was so cool!
Friday our training wrapped up by 1:00 PM. It was really sad actually, it was very group-focused training and I met some awesome people from all across the country. All of my friends were flying out that day and I wasn’t flying out until Saturday but a few of them had a late flight so we wandered around Ottawa a bit more. We walked back to Byward Market so I could eat a Beaver Tail!
A beaver tail is just a piece of fry bread with your choice of topping! I had maple butter which was super drippy and sweet, but delicious!
I love this photo I took near Parliament in downtown Ottawa. The contrast of the new skyscraper beside the older parliament building is so cool to me. I really love Ottawa and could actually picture myself living there one day.
After saying goodbye to my friends I got ready to meet Cynthia for dinner! She just happened to be in Ottawa that weekend for work as well so it was really fun that we got to meet up. I, once again, failed on taking any photos of us. Probably because we talked for two hours straight without stopping. It’s crazy how you can meet someone for the very first time but feel like you know them so well! We had delicious pad thai and then it was early to bed for me as I had a long run planned in the morning.
I met up with Rebecca bright and early on Saturday morning to run 18 miles (29 km). I woke up to see that it had snowed and was about -10 C outside so I admit I was really dreading this run.
Well it turned out that this was by far THE BEST long run I’ve ever done. Rebecca and I literally chatted non-stop the entire three hours and I felt amazing. By the last mile or two the bottoms of my feet were starting to hurt from walking lots the day before but overall it was a really amazing run. If I feel that good during the marathon I will be one happy girl! We also ran along the Rideau Canal which was gorgeous and even though it was chilly it was also bright and sunny.
Afterwards we went back to the Scone Witch for a delicious brunch which I basically thought about the entire last half of the run.
And then it was time to head home for me! I felt really good after my run and all day yesterday but I’m definitely pretty stiff today from running for three hours and then sitting on a plane / in airports for 8.
I had a really awesome week though. I met some great new people working for the same organization as me, I learned A LOT and I had some super fun times with blog friends. Nothing wrong with that!
How was your week? Do you like traveling for work or no?
Top 11 in 2011
2010 was an amazing year for me and at the time I called it “the best year of my life” and now that 2011 is ending I’d have to say it was a close contender for that best year spot!!
Like most people in the blogging world I like to do end-of-the-year recaps. Here are mine from 2008, 2009 and 2010. Recently I’ve started recapping ‘my year’ on my birthday instead so rather than do two yearly recaps I decided to borrow this idea from Lisa. Here are my top 11 moments/experiences from 2011!
1. Completing my hot yoga challenge. In January I spent 40.5 hours doing hot yoga when I took on the 30 hot yoga classes in 30 days challenge. This was the first non-running challenge I’d done in a long time and the physical, mental and emotional affect it had on me was amazing!
2. Buying our townhouse. At the end of January 2011 we officially signed the papers to buy our first home. We spent a lot of time looking for the right place and almost a year later I couldn’t be happier with where we ended up. It’s in a great location, is not making us house poor and is the perfect size for us. I absolutely love our little home.
3. Getting engaged. This was probably my top moment in 2011. After being together for 6 years Eric asked me to marry him in March on a random Thursday night at home. I am so excited to marry my very best friend in 2012!
4. Traveling to Ottawa, Minneapolis, Victoria and Orlando. I did a lot of traveling in 2011 and it was amazing. All four of my trips this year involved a blogger meet-up (and in 3 out of 4 cases an entire weekend with blogger friends) and once again I am so thankful for the amazing friends I’ve made through this space.
5. Getting a puppy! I love Chloe so much and I’m so glad we decided to take the leap and finally get the dog we’ve wanted for years in August. She brings so much fun and joy to our every day lives and it is 110% worth the extra work and money.
6. Completing a sprint triathlon. Training for this race took up a lot of my time and I was so nervous going into it but it was an amazing and fun experience. Never has a race gone by so fast – i guess the three sports will do that for you – and I can’t wait to do more triathlons in 2012!
7. Running a sub-2 hour half-marathon. The entire weekend in Victoria with Lisa, Lauren and Leigh was amazing and a top moment for me but I’ve never felt so proud of my running performance as when I crossed that finish line in 1:58:18. That race was hard for me and I left EVERYTHING out on the course to achieve my goal but I did it and that was an amazing feeling.
8. Planning our wedding. This has been several moments over the course of the last 10 months (wow, how have we been engaged that long?) and there have been many stressful moments but also many awesome moments like finding and buying my dress, picking our first dance song and booking our honeymoon. Overall it’s been more fun than stressful and I can’t wait to see the whole day come together in just over six months!!
9. Signing up for marathon #2. I have wanted redemption after marathon #1 for quite some time now but wasn’t sure if a 2012 marathon was in the cards for me. When they revealed the new point-to-point course for the Vancouver 2012 marathon I signed up almost immediately. I start training on Tuesday with the local Running Room and I can’t wait to cross the finish line of my second marathon in May!
10. Hosting friends and family in our home. Now that we have a 3-bedroom townhouse we’ve actually been able to host our families and friends when they come to town! It’s great having the extra room. Our families visited and stayed with us 3-4 times this year and we hosted three friends for an awesome and fun long weekend in August! It’s great having the space to host people.
11. Contentment. Never have I felt more content and at peace with my life and myself as I have this past year. I’ve had many moments where I stop and think how lucky I am and how happy I am with almost every aspect of my life right now. Yes, there are hard and crappy days still – I’m only human – but for the most part life is pretty darn good! I can’t wait to see what 2012 will bring.
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Question of the day: What moments would be on your top 11 list for 2011?
Medieval Times
Catching up on our whirlwind trip to Seattle and Orlando?
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A full 19 hours after we got in our shuttle to the airport in Orlando yesterday morning we arrived home last night! Eric is a rockstar for driving most of the way home through weather like this – on his birthday to boot!
Anyways, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit down with my computer since Sunday so I am recapping our last day in Orlando, which was Sunday, a little late!
The day started really relaxed. We slept in, ate breakfast at the hotel, lounged around, I wrote a blog post. It was lovely! Finally, around 11:00 AM we set out to walk the 0.5 miles to City Walk and pick up the caricature I’d forgotten at the restaurant the night before.
I am a little disappointed in our caricature because I do not think it looks like me at all. I totally see Eric in it though. What do you guys think?
After one last trip to the Universal/City Walk area we caught a cab to Kissimmee, which is about 15 miles away, because there was a giant flea market there Eric wanted to check out and that’s where we had tickets to Medieval Times that night.
The flea market was fun and I ended up buying a knock-off Guess wallet and we got a few souvenirs to take home. We also got our picture taken with these parrots (yes this is a picture of a picture, ha!) It’s funny because Eric is terrified in this picture. Lol
Then we decided to start walking in the direction of Medieval Times. We ended up walking 3.5 miles before getting a cab!
On the way we stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch! I always hear about CB on Twitter and other blogs so I wanted to check it out. We ended up having a really good, inexpensive meal so I was impressed!
The place that finally made us stop walking was none other than Super Target! I had wanted to take Eric to a Target so when we came up on one I said we HAD to go in. We ended up buying some new work and school clothes.
Then we caught a cab to the main reason we were even in that area: Medieval Times! It was Eric’s 25th birthday yesterday and the whole trip was kind of for his birthday weekend but Medieval Times was something I booked especially for him (not really my thing) and Eric was really excited!
We decided since a) we were celebrating Eric’s birthday and b) it was the last night of our trip we were going to have a few drinks 
We were there 1.5 hours early so had a couple drinks and looked at all the stuff they had before the show started. Soon it was time to be seated!
I have been to Medieval Times in California before and have to admit it’s a pretty cool show. Basically you get to watch live jousting and sword fighting while enjoying a medieval times themed meal that you eat with your hands. Each person is given a colour of crown and section and that is the knight they are supposed to cheer for. Ours was the red knight and he died first. Boo!
The food was actually really good. We started with a tomato bisque soup and garlic toast – you had to drink the soup of course, there were no spoons!
I had the vegetarian meal which was a spear of grilled veggies, some wild rice with beans mixed in and hummus and tortilla chips. It was delicious!
Eric had a big hunk of roast chicken, a sparerib and a potato. All which he had to eat with his hands (I was given a fork for my rice, how nice!)
Lot’s of wine (me!) and beer (him!) was consumed.
It was a really fun night!
A $50 cab ride later (seriously, SO expensive) we were back at our hotel, quite tipsy, and attempting to pack our suitcase (Eric packed and I supervised) before we had to be up in 6 hours to catch our shuttle!
We had such a fun trip and I’ll admit I was a little sad for it to end! And that concludes the recaps, hope you enjoyed them
I am just starting to catch up on blogs now so tell me, how was your weekend?