It's Christmas time in the city...

Had to leave work today because I was so darn sick!
But it let me snap some pictures tonight of some of my Christmas decorations up.

The tree is up!

Fleur de Lis light!

Something less Christmas-ey...I'm loving the white feathers with the clear and glittery reindeer!

Some Christmas decor...and if you look carefully you can see I've moved some things around.
I totally owe y'all an updated apartment tour.
But thought I would share the holiday decor.

This year we will be spending it at our Florida house (for the first time).
And I'm totally dreading the 10 days that I decided to stay for (not sure what I was thinking...4 days appears to be the max from prior experience).
So hopefully that will mean a lot of working out and a lot of blogging.
Dare I say perhaps get the ex-boyfriend project rolling just a little bit more?!?!
That may be high hopes though lol.

The Birthday Curse...broken???

So it may be true that the birthday curse may have been broken...
The girls from my new little group from the CanadaCrew took it upon themselves to throw that lovely brunch at The Drake.

Pic from here

Laurel made these fabulous cupcakes

My father came up to visit and we had dinner together on my actual birthday at the Bier Markt
And it was a fun quiet time.

Pick from here

A collection of lovely birthday cards from the girls that made me smile.

And MrRealtor was very sweet and got me a Kate Spade Wallet and Purse

I finally have a grown up wallet!!!  Love this colour!

I always love the hidden happiness that is inside Kate Spade items...like these polka dots.

Seriously it has a bow...could I love it any more?  It's my first Kate Spade handbag too!

Again love the stripes of the inside of this bag!

Which clearly are totally my style and I love.
Speaking of great gifts...one of my co-workers knew of my love a particular piece of art.
And I LOVE it!
If you know Gossip Girl you will totally get it or if you know Marfa, TX lol...

I officially now share my birthday with Eva's little one.
Yup he arrived on my birthday!  Isn't THAT a funny set of circumstances!

Each of the Waterloo girls sent me birthday well wishes.
Val even took the time to take me out for dinner which was lovely.
We went to Aria...a place we had both wanted to try for a bit.

Pic from here.

So what do we think?
Is the birthday curse finally broken???

Bridesmaid Attire

Here's the final decision of bridesmaid dress for Laurel's wedding next July.
We are all wearing the same fabric and colour dress but different styles.
Here's the one she picked for me...

Love the pockets!
And here is the shoes she is going with we are all wearing different colours...mine are red...

Red Nina Forbes Shoes

Obviously I love the fact that there are bows on the shoes!
It is definitely going to be a super fun wedding next July.
I can't wait to update y'all on the other clothes because they are all Indian!

November's Bookclub

November's book club was great too!
This time at one of the British Expat's downtown condo.
This time the book was "Let's pretend this never happened" by Jenny Lawson.
(Also a blogger by the way...well like a real blogger not like this excuse of a blog lol!)

Pic from here

Super excited to read....especially because as Lawson says, this book is about "the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us who we are."  
We definitely like it more than the first book BUT we decided that it is difficult especially with our criteria of a book that we all wanted to be something none of us had read before.

Seeing as a lot of the book took place in Texas this was a TexMex theme.

Champagne with Hibiscus flowers...amazing!

Hummus, Olives and Artichoke spreads

Snacks!

The table spread plus Salsas and my special Guac!

Close up of the salsas and guac...my contribution.

E's raspberry lime margaritas...yum!

Laurel's special 

S's delicious and spicy Boca Negra mini-cakes!

Another super fun and amazing bookclub.
So happy to be hanging out with these cool ladies.

Nothing makes you feel quite as alone as being single and sick

Just saying...

Pic from here

October's Bookclub

October was our very first book club.
We had decided to read; Paris A Love Story by Kati Marton.

Pic from here.

And while we all agreed we didn't really enjoy the book we all had a great time!
It was hosted by the two Canadian cousins in their third floor flat.

How cute is this little table and the fun bronze candle sticks!

Wine, cheese, veggies...all amazing!

Following our French theme...French Onion Soup...before...

After!

The after of the cheese platter!

Champagne cheers :)  

What would a French themed night be without my favourite...Macarons!!!

We laughed we talked we bonded.
And I left that night so so so darn happy!
And I couldn't wait for the next one.

Girl friends

Pic from here

So here's some rather exciting news...
A lot of the reason I have not been blogging is because I've been getting closer with some girl friends.
Happily a lot of the people I have chatted about as the CanadaCrew.

We have come together.
And are quickly becoming a fun girl group.
Seriously!

Remember when I wrote about it here about being sooooo happy.
It really is coming together.
Here are some of the things we have been doing...

• Book club...during our winter months (October-March) we decided a book club is in order.  I WILL follow up and do posts about it soon because they are my fav!
• We had a Stevemas party...again I should blog about it.  Basically your ugly Christmas sweater party. And though I brought MrRealtor (that turned out to not be the best idea ever).
• These girls put together (instigated by Laurel) a notabirthdaycelebrationbuthappenstocoincidewithsomeonesbirthday brunch for moi.  I felt so so so darn special!

Things we have upcoming in the next two weeks!

• Book club meeting #3
• One of the girl's birthday celebrations at a place called Snakes and Lattes where we will play boardgames...so fun!
• A night of mulled wine, firepits in the Distillery District!
• A holiday Christmas dinner with traditional English Roasted Goose.

So the girls in the group are myself, Laurel, 3 British ex-pats, and two Canadian cousins.  

So so so darn happy that this has happened.

It's making it much easier to like the city even if I'm the only one not living downtown lol.