Friday Favourites – Cheers to a Long Weekend!

Fridays before a long weekend always feel extra special. I just love the idea of three days ahead of us with a mix of planned fun activities and some much needed downtime. I made a real effort to get things cleaned up and tidy around the apartment this week, so that I didn’t have to spend the weekend cleaning. The most I might do is clean out the fridge tomorrow morning before we go to the farmers market to load it up with local produce (and maybe make a veggie frittata for lunch).

What are you up to this weekend? Any fun activities planned? Maybe heading to a cottage or into the city for a baseball game? Write it in the comments below – I’d love to hear about it!

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Summer Blooms: My mom’s hydrangea bush is still blooming like crazy. We were able to cut these massive hydrangea to use for decoration at my sister’s law school graduation party last weekend. I took a few home to put on our dining room table too.

We used some more flowers from my mom’s garden (with a few store bought pieces) to decorate the rest of the party. The fresh flowers looked to cute and fun in these lacy containers (leftover favours from my bridal shower!)

The party itself was an absolute blast and I’ll be sharing more photos from it next week. I’m so proud of my sister for working so hard all through law school and now starting her new job in a big city law firm!

Revamped Front Hall: We used to have a picture frame and bird hook hanging in our tiny front hall, but I recently swapped them out with some new pieces we received as gifts. (I kept the horseshoe up – we can always use a little good luck!)

We now have this beautiful painting of the historic St. George’s Church in Jackson’s Point, Ontario for us to walk by and admire every day. It was a gift from our lovely neighbours Rick and Reta (the ones I made the Carrot Oatmeal Muffins for). When we stopped into their apartment earlier this spring, we got to see some of Rick’s amazing artwork all over their home. I recognized the church from visiting it as a child and from when I worked beside it at Sibbald Point Provincial Park in my university days. They were so sweet and surprised us with it as a wedding gift. I couldn’t get over how thoughtful it was of them to give us such a lovely painting of a place that brings back many good memories. (Prints are available on his website.)

Under the painting, I hook up this new chihuahua hook from the Young House Love line at Target. My mom surprised me with it when she came back from Florida this spring. The shape makes me think of our sweet little pooches, but it is also very practical – I hang the dog leashes up here for easy access at the door.

New Living Room Artwork: We were lucky enough to receive another painting as a wedding gift and it’s hanging up in its new home in the living room. A dear friend of Garrett’s parents painted this for us and it looks just like our wedding venue!

If you get up close, you can see a little secret skywriter in the clouds. What a cool idea!

I love that we’re starting to have more and more original artwork in our home, from the paintings we got as wedding gifts to the painting from my great Aunt Irene of a photo I took. We even have our commissioned watercolour map of Canada and my own attempts at painting for fun (Overlapping Circles Painting and Cutlery Painting). I’d love to have all kinds of different paintings and prints in our home someday.

New Additions to my Queen’s family: I am beyond excited to share that two of my roommates from Queen’s University are expecting their first babies! Both times they told me, I couldn’t help but get teary.

I love all these girls so much and to think that there we’re going to have a little second generation joining us soon is so exciting!!! It’s been seven years since we lived together but I think about these gals all the time. I’m so touched that they were ALL able to make it to the wedding, coming in as far as Fredericton and Calgary!

Puppy Love: Our own little babies are becoming good buddies now and I even caught them snuggling up together on a particularly chilly evening.

Of course, when Garrett got close to them, Cola immediately had to take advantage of it. He just wants to snuggle you all the time. (Whiskey was unimpressed).

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I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! We’ll be enjoying the three day weekend with friends, family and those two pups. I am just crossing my fingers for nice weather!

 

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