Sunday, July 23, 2006

Our weekend in Bancroft

My step-brother had a milestone birthday this Saturday (30 yrs old) and we decided it was a great excuse to get up to Bancroft to visit the family! After a lazy Friday night (a little cleaning, but not much to be honest), we spent Saturday morning cleaning, Seth ordering his Tool tickets online at Ticketmaster and me dropping off the Accent for it's last round of maintenance before the warranty kicks off.

It felt like a fast trip up to Bancroft and there was already party-goers at Derek & Amy's by the time we got there in mid-afternoon. After a few more provisional trips to the liquor store and beer store, we were finally ready to party. It was a fun party - lots of kids splashing around and lots of Derek & Amy's friends (probably close to 30 people there at one point). And I made sure that we caught the different stages of Derek's sobriety that evening - here he is at stage one - doesn't look so bad. But stage 7 is a bit different. Although we all were started to look a little messy around that stage.

We all felt pretty rough the next day - luckily Amy was kind enough to go out and get the hangover cure of the world - McDonalds! We headed out around 1pm and got home shortly after 4pm today. Now we have baseball....we're sooooooo tired.

Cheers ... S & S

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Picton Mini-Break

While we wanted to take a week off in August to celebrate our one-year anniversary, unfortunately we had to make due with this past week (July 10th), as Sara is in the midst of switching jobs (so exciting!) and wouldn't be able to take a week off so soon into the new position.

And surprise of all surprises... Seth decided he would plan the vacation - keeping in mind that we already were busy until Tuesday of that week. So a classic road trip to Picton was planned - Sandbanks, golf at Loyalist (golf course where we got married) etc. We woke up super early on Tuesday morning, and through a few wrong turns, finally ended up in the town by 12noon. We ate at a fantastic patio - pub called Coach's, and decided to take advantage of the sun that was peeking through the on-again-off-again clouds - we headed to the beach.

While many of you may wonder why Picton of all places - it was pretty perfect. Way back when, Seth and I used to go to the Sandbanks all the time in the summer to hit the beach - we both love just lying out in the sun and relaxing - and this beach is the best I've ever seen in Canada - so why not here? Plus, the town has gotten much better for shopping and there's all sorts of little bars and patios in the area. Makes for a fun little holiday.

Good thing we got the beach in while we could - it rained solidly the next day. Which of course was supposed to be our golf day! Seth booked the tee-time super early so we would take up the entire day - so we were on the ferry by 6am - you can tell in these pics! It look cloudy, but we had no idea it was going to pour down like it did. We got drenched out on the course by the 7th hole. Luckily we got a raincheck for the full 18 holes - the very next day.

By the time we had gotten back to Picton and changed into dry clothes, it was still only 9:30am - so we grabbed a bite to eat and headed into the town to do some wandering around, shopping, and to see if there was a movie we could see. There was - it was at 2pm and it was Cars - don't see it - if we weren't desperate to find something to do, we would never have gone to see this. But we were successful in some shopping - got some jeans for Seth and some little knicknacks for around the house. Too bad the spa was completely booked up, that would have been a fun way to while away the afternoon. That night we went back to the Waring House - where we'd had dinner the night before - nice little pub, and by the time we got moving at 10pm (on a Wed) it was the only thing open in Picton, aside from McDonalds.

The next day was much nicer for golf (and since with our sunburns from the first day, there was no way we were going to the beach, it wasn't so bad that the only time available was at 11:30am on our final sunny day). And we got to see our wedding venue on a beautiful sunny afternoon - that was nice!

Overall, Picton was a fantastic + relaxing time - couldn't have asked from a better surprise from Seth.

Cheers... S & S

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to the Valliers' blog - just a little way to keep all our friends and family up to date and informed on our life!

We've had a super busy summer so far and there's absolutely no way that we're going to post about the past 2 months in great detail - but we can do a quick recap...

May 2006 - we did a 4 day trip over to San Francisco to visit with some friends there - we had a blast and highly recommend it - one of the most beautiful cities that we've ever visited - especially for the ol' US of A. Here's a few pics of the trip ...

Just arrived - Louise took us for a quick trip around the city and across the bridge - here's Seth in the backseat of her convertible with the Golden Gate bridge in the background - pretty groovy shot.

And here's a pretty cool pic of Lombard Street - the twistiest road in the world - we had actually just driven down it before this picture was taken - I'm not sure how anyone actually lives on this street - not only a nightmare to park, but also way too much tourist traffic everyday...

And of course, here's a pic of Alcatraz - in the background of this shot of Seth + Louise. If you want to see all of our pics of San Fran - go to www.sethandsara.shutterfly.com - we have all of our pics from various trips + stuff posted there.

Moving right along - Sara had gone to New York a few weekends ago - to see Madonna in concert - and to shop (of course!) - that was tonnes of fun. Finally saw Central Park for the first time - it's gorgeous - why doesn't Toronto have any parks like that??

Then the next weekend we had a blast at Liz & Greg's housewarming party - it may have been a trek to get to Markham - but well worth it - especially for the paper/rock/scissors tournament - ingenious! Unfortunately lots of drinks + girls around make for a dressed up puppy - this is Fez - Liz & Greg's child!

Last but not least - on the Sunday following the housewarming party, we had my step-brother and his family in town for a visit - which of course included a trip to the Bass Pro Shop store!

We just spent the past few days in Picton on a surprise holiday that Seth planned - we have this weekend off as I start my new job next week - so it was good timing - but we'll post about that w/ some pics later on...

Cheers....S & S