Toddler biking (review)

The best part of my day today was watching my son ride his bike outside for the very first time at 25 months old. He was incredibly conscientious of his surroundings making sure not to run over anyone who was lying around in the grass. Such a little sweetheart!  

Here's my review of the Strider bike- AMAZING! He's been small since the very first day he was born. I researched the best, and smallest version of a balance bike I could find and at a price of $110 I was sold. Its light, easy for him to move around, and more than light enough for me to carry if he wants to take a break and rest on my hip while we walk. Worth the buy if your looking.

He'll be able to grow into this bike as well as the whole bike adjusts as he grows. The one thing that I might comment on is the seat for his little bum, it doesn't seem that comfortable, but he doesn't seem to mind it :)

Ease of use:

5/5

Comfortablility:

3.5/5

Longevity of the product:

5/5

Lightness & Durability:

5/5

Coolness factor:

5/5

Anytime we take his bike out for a ride he's always turning heads. People come up to him and ask me how it works. He just loves his little bike! I also ran into a cute youtube video of a 3 year old doing dirt biking trails with his dad (I'm going to assume it wasn't a hardcore trail- as he was only 3, but how cool is that?). Needless to say, Toli's dad is now urging me to take him out to practice everyday so the two of them can go off into the sunset and bike into the forest together :) If your in the Vancouver area, and want to check out the store I got my sons bike at its called Bike Doctor. Hope your enjoying your week!

The weekend report

Well, I must tell you that my Thursday night was a lot more exciting then the rest of my weekend.

Toli and I made our way over to Nanaimo to stay with my close friend at her new pad. I feel like I see her more now than I did when she lived in the city (goes to show how 'busy' one can make their life when simple friendship is probably one of the greatest things in the world).


So today, its gonna be a short one. 

One very awesome tidbit- Thursday was Toli's very first ferry ride! We ended up playing at the top of the boat outside the entire time (which left him out cold for a good long 3 hour nap when we arrived- which made for great girl time!). He then awoke and made a cute little new friend whom he loved playing with for the whole of our stay!

** Mommy/ Parent tip** Do something NEW with your toddler every so often! I'm not a big fan of routine but I know its necessary for a child to thrive when they have things that happen everyday- but giving them a little excitement will stimulate their mind, and the side benefit for you (and them) is that they will have a really good sleep! 

He's also adopted a new "Auntie", he only has a couple other's and he's decided that this is what she is to him- so endearing how he chooses his relationships :)

And don't expect too much more from me than that today haha! Saturday I picked up some supplements where my friend works, and brought my son home for nap time. We had a lot to do that day like; grocery shop, clean the house, amongst other boring household chores. 

To my demise that day my son lost my only set of house/ car keys (which are STILL missing!). So we ended up sitting at home all day waiting for his Dada to come back from a fishing trip- UGH! Needless to say, as irritated as I felt I ended up taking some action and upping my liver cleanse by juicing some great vegetables for my liver- check out my Health Cleanse blog here . And yesterday was spent at numerous furniture stores, and Ikea- where we looked for couches, mattress's and other necessities for our new apartment for the end of the week. That was it. Sorry to be so uneventful this weekend, but that's how she goes! 

I'm hoping to stay up to date with my blog this week, but with packing going full tilt as of tomorrow I'm just hoping to have all of my ducks in a row for the move come Saturday.

Please bare with me, as I may be attempting to pull my hair out during this move :) Moving with toddlers is not fun.... but maybe he'll be used to it this round? I can always hope, right?

The Weekend Edition

Hey all! How was the weekend?

Before I tell you about mine I have another announcement. I've been thinking about changing up my blogging week. As much as I love doing my Weekend Edition, I think it would be better suited for Mondays. So at this point, I will do

**Mondays- Weekend Edition
**Tuesdays- will be open for review of products if I feel I have something cool to share (if not, this day will remain open until further notice)
Wednesdays- regular Lifestyle posts
Thursdays- Lifestyle 
Fridays- Food Edition

** indicate new post times/ days

I hope this sits with you alright. Tuesdays just feel too far away from the weekend. 

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I am keeping this post short as well. This weekend we spent a lot of time at the lake in Port Moody floating on the water, and tanning. But the biggest part of the weekend was saying good-bye to my future mother in law who is probably in Russia right now with her mother before she makes her way to Bali, Indonesia to live for an indefinite period of time.

We decided to take Roman's parents on a boat ride as a little send off. It didn't hit us that she was going to be gone (for at least a year) until the day came. I was pretty sad by the end of the night, as was my honey. We are planning on spending some time in Bali come January 2015 for a few weeks- so you can stay tuned for those adventures when they come. Next year brings much travel into our lives as we are also indefinitely planning our wedding. Everything is still up in the air on dates, but that's what we're shooting for..


The Burrard Bridge

English Bay- Gay Pride celebrations going on at the beach here

Driving to White Cliff Park

My beautiful mother in law has such a young soul! Very vibrant, and ready for adventure. I'm happy that she took the leap, and is following her heart. She's been to Bali twice, and wanted to live there at first glance. My heart is a little bit heavy as I loved visiting her, and the great talks we had.

So now that I've probably told a little bit of a depressing story, please help to lighten me up a little. 

How was your weekend? What were you up to?

Just do it!

This photo is courtesy of thinkforphotop/ freedigitalimages.net

Today I'd like to share with you a little part of my life. I like to read- did you know that? I'm a major geek at heart, and its something my sweetie loves about me. Apparently he's 

"the cool one" 

and I'm 

"the geek"

My way of enjoying life is singing, dancing, reading and writing. All of which require me to never have to leave the confines of my cozy little home. I love my home. Its not like I stay home a lot, as living in the city makes for such a busy lifestyle. 

I'm out and about with my son constantly. But as an introvert my way of recharging is being at home- its something I've recently accepted about myself 

I am me 

Big revelation, right? Not really. I can't change me. 

This was taken on a road trip with a friend along the Oregon coast

Accepting this has given me more opportunity to figure out what works for me. I love writing. And apparently it shows. I've been approached for the third time to write a book. Its nerve racking! Its nerve racking because fear gets in the way. But if I really think about it, I blog. I share myself with people all over the world every week. So I'm negotiating with myself on a daily basis 

"If I can do this, I can write a book!". 

My goal is to sit down and make a game plan. I have no idea where to start. But I'm just gonna do it. That's what I live by 

"Just do it" 

If you've been reading my blog for a little while, you must know this about me by now.

I went to Mexico recently and in the spur of the moment I decided to jump in- literally. I have a severe fear of dark water. I have an issue with not having control over situations around me. But an opportunity came up where I was able to go snorkelling. I said "why not?". If I even thought about it for a moment I wouldn't have done it. What I'm doing with my writing career is I'm thinking too much about it- wondering how I'll "make it perfect", and where I'll find the time to do it. Not only did I snorkel once in Mexico, I did twice more after that, and my last trip before leaving was with sea turtles- the most magical experience of my life! If I had reached my arm out I could've touched that big, beautiful majestic creature in front of me. Its something I will remember for the rest of my life, and its because I took the leap. I will now jump into the sea of writing where I feel happy, and content. I love connecting with people through my writing, and I love talking to you. 

I guess this is also a thank you. Thank you for reading. Please follow me on Bloglovin'. There is a button on the left side of the page, right under "All about me". You can receive emails right to your inbox anytime I write new content. I'll keep you posted on the book writing too! With such a little ball of energy (aka: my son) I'm going to assume that my book will take some time to get through. I'm already working on my blog on a daily basis, and its not something I'm willing to put on the back burner, as blogging is my fuel for creativity.

Please keep reading, and I will keep writing. You have no idea how wonderful it is to have such a great, supportive audience. Thank you!

A day out with my toddler

Bah! Another one of those days. I was so bored I felt like I was going bonkers! Usually my son and I are set up daily with classes, or dates with friends, but because our summer schedule consists of a lot of family time we are sort of at wits end when left to our own devices. I should say I'm at my wits end. I felt isolated, and bored yesterday. But that's all about to change. I saw boredom as a great opportunity to change things up, so here we go on another adventure!

To shake things up, today we left the lacklustre routine of ours to take a ferry across the water to Granville Island and take a stroll through the Kids Market. I've been looking into activities to do in Vancouver, and my son loves boats so I thought he would just be thrilled! 

Even though we both felt the pinch of boredom yesterday, he still managed to make me smile.

Here he is in his Dada's stylish sunglasses :)

It was about time this duo got their groove back! 

Even though it was a rainy day, we still made the best of it.

If your looking for some activities to do in the Vancouver area check these out!

• Toddler orientated activiities
• All ages events

Now I'm ready to tackle the rest of the summer with my son- even if we hit another slump in activities.

What did you do over the weekend?

Before I get started with my blog today I just wanted to let you know that I spent the night updating the blog page. Hopefully it will be easier to navigate from here on. At the top left there are tabs for; All About Me, Lifestyle, Healthy Food, and Motherhood & Relationships. So if your looking for something to read in particular like an easy dinner, smoothie or lunch recipe you can go straight to Healthy Food and look through the recipes. I hope you enjoy the new look!

All About me is a new section I added and is a bio for none other than- myself. I want you to get to know me a little bit better, as well as for those who are joining my blog more recently.

This will also be my official announcement of what the blog week will look like; 

• Tuesday: What did you do over the weekend?
• Wednesday: Lifestyle
• Thursday: Lifestyle
• Friday: Quick and healthy recipe day to cap off the week

Every so often I will blog about relationships, organization and reviews of restaurants and whatever else I fancy to review (like a new bike for my son, or makeup that I bought) but it won't be too often because I'm noticing that you enjoy more of the pure lifestyle posts right now. Please let me know if there is anything you'd like to see as this blog is for you. I love writing it, so if I can go over something you would like to see (like more reviews for example) now is the time to say so :)

Because I have more viewership every week I also want to let you all know that you can follow me on Bloglovin'. If you don't know what Bloglovin' is, it's a great site where you can follow your favourite bloggers (aka: me), and they will send you emails to your email address  of my blogs when they are posted on a daily or weekly basis. I've made it very convenient to follow my blog. If you look to the top left of this page there are a few buttons; one called "Bloglovin'" click the button, and it will set you up for an account quite quickly. Also there is a Twitter and Facebook share button right underneath "Bloglovin'". If you enjoy my posts, please share them with others to help me to continue to grow my readership. Thank you! Now on to my regular blog for Tuesday!

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Here's the second addition to "What did you do over the weekend?". You all seemed to really enjoy this topic, as did I. I would love to know what you did too, so let me know in the comment section below the post!

This weekend our son was with family again so Dada and I had a chance to sleep in, and reconnect. Our life wouldn't be balanced if we didn't fit in some adventure to the relaxation would it? We started off the weekend by once again heading off to White Cliff Park- somewhere that we're very fond of going to to watch sunsets.

This picture was taken a few months ago at White Cliff Park

We then came home where my sweetie had a chance to produce some music while I flexed my blogging muscles and learnt how I could improve this blogging career that I love so much. I ended up finding this very cute blogger from the UK named Zoella. After watching some of her more recent work as a Vlogger I couldn't help but watch more than a few of her videos here. If your into fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogs- check her out. The reason I bring up Zoella is because I want to get into Vlogging in the future, so finding someone who is successful with it is someone I was on the lookout for.


We slept until 11 am on Saturday and made our way on a very unexpectedly long hike to Lynn Valley Headwaters. I've done this hike once before a year ago. Our  "light hike" ended up being a 4 and a half hour long hike with the last half being "intermediate". As in, "wear the right shoes". Well, I wish I could tell you I have hiking boots. But I don't. I used some running shoes that have been sitting in my closet for well over a year now. I'm not a runner (I try to be sometimes). I'm a biker. I love biking. Running just seems.. a waste of energy personally. I love going fast!

I digress- usually this happens. I should also let you know how clumsy I am. Of course I fell into the water with my lovely pavement running shoes! All in all, I got a bruised toe, but the show continued. I walked it off, iced it in the water and enjoyed my time in the woods.

Once we finished the unexpectedly long hike we were hungry! And I think we deserved some good food, don't you? I want to rate this restaurant in the near future as the eating experience itself is a blog post. For now, pictures will have to do over this drool worthy food at Bin 941. I must say that we entered this tapas bar muddy, and sweaty- too hungry to get ready! I felt a little more than underdressed but this restaurant was more than willing to serve us :)

So, how was your weekend? I'd love to hear! Leave me a line or 2 below in the comment section :)

What did you do over the weekend?

This past weekend was full of relaxation, excitement, new creative cold drinks for the lake, followed by more relaxation.

My grandparents house was packed full of family in an air conditioned home as the heat reached 42 degrees this weekend- yes it was a HOT one!

We started our extended weekend off by driving to Lytton, BC on Thursday night with our toddler. Let me just say, travelling with a 2 year old is much more challenging than it has been- he no longer sleeps the 3 hour trip there but wants to be entertained the whole time. Luckily, this mama is an avid Pinterest follower so I'm always finding new ways to keep him occupied (or he's just dancing to the music), and if all else fails we have a couple of toddler apps on my phone that I keep handy.

Friday was lake day for this mini fam jam. We have a 5 person raft, which has suited our needs perfectly, with an electric motor and speakers for music. It has been a BLAST!

Saturday was a Mama & Dada adventure day where we finally made it back to my current favourite river run The Nahatlatch with Fraser River Raft Expeditions which I talk about in River Rafting in BC. 

To finish off the weekend we chilled in the backyard with Toli where he watered plants for his Great Gramma aka: "Gramma", and played around his mini park. I also made my own wine spritzer which I sipped on while watching my son play which only consisted of half red wine, half club soda and a few ice cubes to keep chilled in the blistering heat.

How was your weekend?

River Rafting in BC

We'll, I'm sure glad I apologized in advance about not posting much this week. Thank you for being patient with me! The move went as smooth as it could've, and now we are making our way to Prince George to drop off Toli to stay with my parents while we go to Mexico. 

I've been thinking about posting for days but with no internet you can imagine how hard that has been. So here I am sneaking in a post before a long and treacherous road trip with Toli and my Gramma (who volunteered herself- she likes road trips, and Toli especially so she really wanted to come).

Since it's been so long I wanted to start off my week with a bang. If you're into adventure like I am, I'm sure you'll appreciate this post/ story- it's a good excuse to get out of the city, and try something new. 


Some of the most relaxing times I've had are at my grandparents. We drive 3 hours out of the city, and into the mountains to Lytton, BC.

This photo is extracted from an earlier post Wishing, hoping daydreaming...

Lytton is nestled in between mountains, and my grandparents just happen to have the best view from their house (I also talk a little more about Lytton in Wishing, hoping, daydreaming) of the Thompson and Fraser river, which join into one big river flow- called a confluence. The cool thing about having the two rivers come together is the colour difference. When your close enough you can see which river is which- one is a very pretty blue contrasted by a muddy green'ish colour. Many a time have I gone down this river flow in a river raft (one of my absolute joys in life!).

Coming to Lytton is something I've done ever since I was born. My great grandmother 'Nanny' used to have house in town here, and my brother and I would spend our time running around in the garden, or playing in a little pool to cool off. Lytton is known to some as "God's pocket". Why you may ask? Well, because it gets so darn HOT during the summer- it'll usually come up as the 'hot spot' on local BC news channels.

It's almost been 6 years since I introduced my fiance to my joy in life- river rafting. There are a few things in life that can keep a perma- smile on my face; biking, river rafting, and most recently snowboarding now that I'm getting the hang of it again. 

I'd been 'dating' Rom a total of 3 months, and within that time, we barely spent a minute apart aside from him working. Those 3 months were full of adventure, and lots of surprises. We loved surprising one another. 

Here's a bit of back story to connect what I'm about to say; my family gets together every year at the end of summer for good food, tomato jarring, card playing, and lots of laughs. Rom hadn't met my family yet, and wasn't really thinking about it either. I had planned a surprise rafting trip (which he'd never done before), but it was near my grandparents place. So I thought "well, why not bring him into all the fun?". It seemed like a really awesome 2 for 1 deal. Meet my family, AND go river rafting! Lets just say he was more than surprised to find out he was walking into- a family get together. And it wasn't just my grandparents. It was my step mum, father, uncle's and aunts.. probably would have been good to have a heads up now that I think about it, but at the time I thought it was a fabulous surprise!

This is a flashback photo of Rom and I on one of our rafting adventures with Fraser River Raft Expeditions

And one of the most recent photos from last year with Kumsheen 

Kumsheen is one of the very first rivers I've ever been on, and great for any beginner who is looking into trying it out. 

But I decided 6 years ago that I would take Rom on one of my favourites the Nahatlatch River run with Fraser River Raft Expeditions, this run is a class 4+ in July (meaning fast, fun, and just plain awesome!).

Here's short video of the Nahatlatch run that's putting a smile on my face, and goosebumps on my skin- I need to get back out there! 

So if your looking for something awesome to do, or are looking for a new river to try out, I'd highly recommend coming to the interior of BC. Fraser River Raft Expeditions is based out of Yale, BC. They run the Nahatlatch river between May and July, and it's considered one of the best runs in the province. It's been a couple years since I've been on this one (having a youngling in the household has made it difficult to be here in time for the run), but I haven't been disappointed yet!

Road Trip!- Healthy Snack Food

Once again, we are on our way to Lytton BC for some good 'ol relax time, as well as our rescheduled rafting trip that's finally happening this Saturday which I talked about in River Rafting Excursions in Lytton BC   We are very lucky that we may actually be making the very last weekend of my favourite Nahatlatch river run with Fraser River Raft Expeditions! They may run one more time next week but it depends on river levels. 

My giddy little heart is ready, ready, READY to go! 

I think the little girl part of me is finally growing up as I made sure I was home today to finish up the last of my laundry, and prep some food for the 3 hour trip to my grandparents- usually I come home about an hour before we leave to do a stressful last minute pack for the 3 of us  :) But not today!  

I prepared fresh fruit, vegetables, hummus, almond butter, and my favourite kale chips for the trip. My heart is so fond of kale chips. They're super easy to make, and a delicious way to get some greens into a little family on the road. 

The kale bunch was bought at Save On Foods this past week on sale for .99 cents and made the amount equivalent to a big bag of Lays chips. 

Oven prepped at 350f degrees 
2 tbsp of coconut oil
Salt & Pepper to taste

Bake for 10-12 minutes

May I say YUM?!!

Another delicious healthy snack for road trips are Crunchy Roasted Cinnamon Sugar Chick Peas done by Sally's Baking Addiction. The way she makes this snack is by far my top favourite! Try it out for kids snacks etc. You can also try it with different flavours like salt and cayenne, and salt and pepper. 

For those of you who are waiting for little hints of my wedding I PROMISE I'll post tomorrow about it ;)