Back at It!

Thoughts of summer followed by a beach wedding are great motivation to hit the gym. Let's face it, I'm completely unwilling to sacrifice my travelling diet. I'm going to keep eating my macaroons in Paris, fish and chips in Sydney, and even the occasional airplane meal, but it's time to begin introducing more cardio into my life as well! After only a few days at the gym, I feel great! I'm full of energy and it's a good way to pass my vast amounts of free time. Ryan has followed suit, renewing his gym membership and running laps every day!

In a way, I give some credit to fitness for helping to form our relationship. In the months before we were girlfriend and boyfriend, we were gym buddies. Nothing like bonding over sweat and push ups!

It Won't Be Long....

We are slowly narrowing down our choices from a massive list of amazing resorts.

The wedding will most likely be in the Mayan Rivera, Mexico. It's such a beautiful spot and obviously pretty special to us as it's where we got engaged!

I can't wait! By this time next year, Ryan will be my HUSBAND!

How weird is that?!

Together in Toronto!

Ryan and I had a fantastic weekend in Toronto, Canada. I was finally lucky enough to have a layover in my own country, and within minutes of checking my schedule and sharing the good news, he'd booked a flight to meet me there! As soon as I reached my hotel, he was there waiting in the lobby with a blue rose. Aww! We had an amazing 2 1/2 days together.

I've wrote about the entire weekend in my flight attendant blog. You can check it out here, or if you are short on time here is a quick summary of our weekend together:

Places we visited:

Tim Horton's, St. Lawrence Market, Wayne Gretzky's restaurant, CN Tower, Starbucks, Eaton Centre, Marche marketplace restaurant, movie theatre, cozy restaurant on Yonge Street, and of course, Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

(More importantly...) Things we ate:

Iced cappuccinos, chilli, and Boston Cream donuts. Homemade cookies baked by Ryan's mom. Tim Horton's breakfast wraps. Shortbread tarts and carrot cake baked by my Grandma. Hot wings, perogies, and poutine! Chai tea lattes. Frozen yogurt. Sushi (at 5 am). Bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns. Pepsi and gummy bears. Chicken sandwich, burger, beer and martini. Caramel frappuccinos. MORE hot wings. Chocolate.

And a few photos for your viewing please because that's what we do!

Counting Down!

One more week! 7 more days!!

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited to reunite with Ryan in Toronto next Friday.

We are going to have an amazing weekend, and I plan to indulge in all sorts of yummy Canadian foods. Poutine date?

It's just a shame that it's so short! There will be tears Monday morning, that's for certain.

WHERE?!

Canada? Mexico? Jamaica?

With so many amazing places in the world, how are we supposed to choose the best one for the biggest day of our lives?? One thing is certain, and that is that we (okay, probably mostly myself) want a beautiful wedding on the beach. We want to keep it simple and laid back. Having a big fancy shindig in Canada just doesn't appeal to us. We are in the process of narrowing down our options... not an easy task!! We hope to decide soon so that we can confirm our date and location!

On an unrelated, but also very exciting note... I've got my schedule for next month and I've been blessed with a 3 day layover in Toronto!! I was so happy I could have screamed, but I figured that my sleeping roommate wouldn't appreciate that. Instead, I immediately told Ryan, and within 5 minutes he had booked flights to meet me there! We are so excited... only 9 days and we'll be reunited! It was such great news!

More Planning... How Does a Photographer Hire a Photographer?

Despite the 11,800 kilometres between us (actually, it's about 13,000 at the moment, as Ryan is off lazing away in Mexico), we've still been busy planning our wedding for when we eventually reunite for good!

While Ryan thinks of the practical aspects such as setting a budget and drafting a guest list, I've been busy daydreaming away about colours and decor. Our minds are on different tracks, but together we'll make it happen and I'm confident that everything will be wonderful.

Some tasks have proved to be challenging... primarily settling on a good photographer. As I'm sure you are all well aware, I'm engaged to a very talented photographer who takes stunning wedding photos. Friends and family beg him to shoot their weddings because he just does just a darn good job of it. I remember years ago when we were nothing more than friends, I told him that when I got married, he'd be my photographer. Life had other plans, and now my photographer is going to be my groom. While he has expressed a determination to shoot the entire wedding himself, we talked it through and realized that those candid moments are actually pretty important to us. The problem is, we are both extremely picky when it comes to photos (especially him!) and if we are going to splash out the cash we couldn't possibly settle for anything less than perfect. After browsing a few photographer blogs and websites, we wondered if we'd ever find anybody that would live up to our standards, or if we should just rely on Ryan and his team of cameras, with his tripod and remote.

While browsing a forum full of destination wedding tips, I stumbled across a recommendation for a great team of photographers based out of Playa del Carmen, Mexico. I was a bit wary at first, but after spending hours (in my defence I was too jet lagged to leave the house) going through their huge blog full of weddings they've shot, I fell in love. Their photos are great, even Ryan approves. Not only that, but they are a married couple who seem like a lot of fun and their little comments below the photos remind me a lot of ourselves... aside from the fact that I could only dream of taking such beautiful photos. No, we haven't confirmed that we'll get married in Mexico, and no, we haven't set a date or found a venue... but should that be the case, we may have actually found ourselves a photographer! Or 2! It might seem like a small step to some couples, but for us it's probably the most important aspect in the entire planning of the wedding!

I'd love to show you their amazing blog but until we have more definite plans, we're going to keep it as our little secret!

Back Online!

Have I mentioned JUST how incredibly amazing my future husband is?? Well, in case I haven't... he is!

Recently my trusty pink laptop stopped charging. After weeks without a computer, I was growing impatient and suffering from extreme internet withdrawals. That was until Fed Ex showed up at my door with a package addressed to me. I'd expected a new adaptor, perhaps... but I was so surprised and happy to find a beautiful new MacBook Pro! Ryan knew that I was planning on buying one the next time that I was in Canada or the States, but he saved me from the effort and the waiting period and sent it right to Dubai! As a nice little bonus, he threw in some photos of us which are proudly on display in my bedroom. So I'm finally back online and I couldn't be happier, thanks to Ryan!