Road Trip Recap: Regina, Saskatchewan - July 19-21, 2013

I often find myself in Regina, SK. I actually lived there until I was about 8, and almost all of my family, both on my father's side and my mother's side, still live there.  I have friends that live in Regina, my goddaughter lives in Regina, and I've even dated people that live in Regina. Simply put, I have spent a lot of time in Regina.

This weekend my uncle (the only one who does not live in Regina) and his family (except for one of my cousins) flew in from Ontario for their usual yearly summer visit. I had just seen all four of them when I was in Europe, but I was super excited to see them again so I drove down to spend the weekend there.

Other than visiting with some of my other family that I was staying with, I mainly spent most of my time with my cousin Kathleen. She and I are only a bit over a year apart in age and are really close, so it was such a treat to see her so much - we usually only get to see each other two times a year, but we're up to three now (with an entire three weeks in Europe together) and the year isn't even done yet!  We tend to fight like sisters a little bit though - there are three of us girl cousins on my mom's side and none of us have sisters, so we kind of get to take that place for each other (for better or for worse, haha!).

The weekend was pretty short to fit much in, but Kathleen and I managed to play some Clue, go shopping, visit the Cathedral Bakery for some cupcakes, play some more Clue, have a girls night with our other cousin Chelsey, and go for brunch after church on Sunday before Kathleen had to get packed up and I got ready to go to my first ever Saskatchewan Roughriders game.

The wonderful treats we chose from at Cathedral Bakery.

I know, I've been living in Saskatchewan for nearly my entire life and I had never been to a Rider game before this weekend.  It's not that I didn't want to go! It just never worked out - I always planned or talked about it with different people but it never actually happened. Well, Jessica's family (that I had met while in La Ronge a couple weeks before) had an extra ticket so I joined them at the game! We had a blast hanging out with her little siblings before the game and running into our friend Steven who is on the Roughrider cheerleading team.  We even made it on to TSN before the game started... taking a selfie! Well I guess it wouldn't have quite been a selfie, because we were together - but it was a picture we were taking of ourselves nonetheless. We didn't even realize until my phone started going off like crazy with text messages and Facebook messages asking if I was at the game or telling me they had seen me FLUFF MY HAIR and take a picture. At least I looked pretty? Haha. The photo below isn't our golden moment photo - that was on Jessica's phone... we took this one on mine a little later in the game once the sun wasn't shining directly on us.

I hope you had a great weekend as well!

Road Trip Recap: Unity, Saskatchewan - July 11 - 12, 2013

It's been a little bittersweet for me to have my friends heading to their hometowns for the summer.  On the one hand, they're not in the city with me to be able to meet up for coffee or go for a walk and chat. On the other hand, however, they're in their hometowns, some of which I have never visited. This speaks volumes to my perpetual wanderlust and I've been doing my best to take advantage.

This past weekend I went out to Unity, SK to visit my friend Alana while she spends the summer hanging out with her parents on their farm just outside of town.  Alana and I haven't been friends for very long, so it was really nice for us to have some time together, just the two of us, to get to know each other even better.  Alana happened to be in the city the day that I was heading out, so she and I left after I was done work on Thursday. We spent the evening eating snacks, giving each other pedicures, watching Friends, craving sandwiches because of Joey, and making and eating sandwiches right before bed because of Joey. The next day we slept in, ate more sandwiches for breakfast (Alana's mom had bought these FANTASTIC buns that had a whole bunch of different seeds baked in them and stuck to the outside - so delicious!), went into town for the "grand tour," went for ice cream, walked around the ball diamonds, and swung in the park before I hit the highway to get back home.  It was a wonderful weekend.

Road Trip Recap: La Ronge, Saskatchewan - July 5-7, 2013

A fire brought to you by Jessica and Sarah

Last weekend I took a little trip up to La Ronge, SK with my good friend Jessica.  Jessica and I met in grade 10 when she moved to Saskatoon from her hometown of La Ronge and in all the years of our friendship I still hadn't visited her hometown - we figured it was long overdue.

Jessica's family owns a cabin on the lake that you can only get to by water in the summer. After our drive up on Friday night we waited on the dock at the edge of town and got a ride on a boat out to the cabin where we were dropped off on the dock. Thank goodness I don't watch many horror movies, but Jessica later told me that she couldn't get the thought of someone rising out of the water beside the dock just like the scene in Cabin in the Woods.

Saturday morning it was just Jessica and I at the cabin and when it came time for us to eat we realized we needed to start a fire. Starting a fire wasn't what appeared to be the difficult part to us, though, it was cutting the wood to get it started. Neither Jessica nor I had ever had to use an axe, and there we were, with only open toed flip flops for our feet (a terrifying fact all on its own), about to get to work chopping up the logs piled by the shed. 

As you can tell from the photo above, we were successful! You have no idea how proud we were of ourselves to have chopped enough wood to start the fire and keep it going long into the evening when Jessica's family came out to have dinner with us and bring us back into town. We were definitely not "roughing it" while at the cabin, but this feat made us feel as though we could if we ever wanted or needed to.

This trip was almost two in one because I got to spend some time at her family cabin but we also spent some time in town as well. There was a birthday party for one of the girls home for summer so I was able to meet a bunch of Jessica's friends and some of her cousins too. I actually ran in to a couple people that I know from Saskatoon that also grew up in the area as well.

All in all, I had a fantastic time! I really enjoy road trips, visiting new places, seeing friends, meeting new people, and especially trying new things. Thanks so much to Jessica for sharing her hometown with me!