WHERE I'VE BEEN (AND OTHER LIFE UPDATES)

Well, hello there! It feels like it's been an eternity since I've last been here. As usual, the longer I go without writing, the harder it is to get back into it. It's funny because the majority of times with blogging I complain that I never have anything to write about, but lately I feel like I almost have too much to write about, and that's causing me to avoid it all together. And as we all know, that makes absolutely no sense, because it only makes it that much harder for you later. I swear that is the story of my life with everything summed up in that paragraph right here! Oh Renee, the holes you continue to dig for yourself. I'll never learn....

But, I really, really, really want to get back into the swing of things and get back to some sort of normalcy with blogging again. Starting is always the hardest with anything, right? So for now, I figured I'll start by sharing part of the reason (that first paragraph obviously explains the other half) for the absence.

We went on a vacation!!!!

It was a 3 week (almost!) vacation that included visiting my sister and her family in Toronto, then our friends in Edmonton, and then some relaxation in......beautiful Maui!! It was such a nice few weeks, and it's so hard to believe we've been back a month now.

My sister had a baby at the beginning of February, so I was so happy to finally be able to see my new niece (who was around three weeks old at the time), and to spend time with my two favourite boys. I can only imagine what it's like to have children of your own because it's unreal how much I love being an Aunt and just how much I love those kids. Every time I'm with them I catch myself just thinking about how much love I have for them...while the other times I'm thinking about how exhausted I am trying to keep up with them! Just from my brief experience, three kids is not for the weak! ha! But I guess triple the work means trip the love!

From there it was off to Edmonton to spend the next 5 days with our friends who we hadn't seen in almost two years! It was definitely worth the wait because we had the best time with them. It was our first time in Edmonton and they were such great tour guides showing us around the city. But honestly, some of my favourite moments were the ones spent hanging out in our pyjamas on their couch, just talking and laughing. Even though we call and text quite a bit, I guess there's still nothing like good face to face time with your friends!!

We were also able to help our friends little boy celebrate his 2nd birthday while we were visiting. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I think one of our favourite nights there was staying up late and decorating their house for his Mickey Mouse party. With lots of chips and drinks supplied to the adults (as well as lots of inside jokes that would carry on throughout the rest of our visit), there was definitely no shortage of laughter!! By the way, if anyone needs the letter 'N' in a Mickey font, we totally got you covered! Those things are hard to find...trust us!

And then from there we were off to Hawaii, but I'm going to have to save all of the details on that for another day week. I am hoping to share all about our trip real soon though, I just have to go through the million photos that's still sitting on our computer waiting to be organized. Although I am so not looking forward to that part, I am sooo looking forward to sharing it with you because we absolutely LOVED Maui. It was one of our favourite trips to date!!

Okay, so what else has been going on? Oh yes, the countdown to our wedding....

The wedding. People, we are a little over two months away from getting married. Two!! I feel like I'm officially starting to get lured over to the wedding dark side because my mind has been consumed with nothing but wedding thoughts lately. If I'm not making decisions, then I'm thinking about what decisions I have left to make. And if I'm not doing that, then I'm thinking about the actual day and hoping everything will go as planned (yeah, I laugh at this one too!). I'll move on from the wedding talk for now though because I'm sure I'll be sharing a lot more about all of that real soon!

The wedding diet. Ha! Okay, I know I said I was moving on from the wedding talk, but this doesn't really count! So to sum up, I have been having the hardest time with losing weight, and I have been for quite some time now. Since we've been back from our trip though I've changed things up quite a bit, and I'm hopeful that I'm going in the right direction. Time is-a-ticking my friends. At this point, all I can hope for is that I can feel the best I can on my wedding day, so I'm trying to remind myself of that when I get extremely frustrated or discouraged. But again, I'm hoping to get into this more later.

The Bachelor.  I know Nick's season of the Bachelor has been over for a while now, but I never did get a chance to finish recapping his season. I was so sad about this because 1) I actually enjoyed doing them and 2) I was soooo close to accomplishing what I had originally set out to do. So close! I guess there's always another million seasons to go though! But what did you think about the finale? Were you surprised? Were you happy with Nick's choice? I was pretty confident in my prediction of him picking Vanessa from the beginning, so I wasn't very surprised with the ending. I'm such a sucker for this show though because I always route for these couples so hard after, and Nick and Vanessa are no different. It's funny because sometimes I feel like the majority of the people I'm following on Instagram are the couples that came from the Bachelor and Bachelorette. Kaitlyn and Shawn? Check! Jojo and Jordan? Check! Sean and Catherine? Check! 

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet around here over the last month. The weather over the last week has been absolutely horrible, so I'm continuing to hope for warmer temperatures and sunny skies soon. Sephora's 15% off sale has been happening over the last few days, and while I did manage to make a purchase (or two :)), I've been having to use some serious self control to not order as much as I did during their last sale because #WEDDINGSCOSTAFORTUNE!!!

That's it for now!

Until next time.