Happy New Year 2012!!!

I've been MIA for the last week or so. Christmas and New Years and everything in between has been amazing and busy and relaxing. I would blame my lack of posts on the endless parties and gatherings and food and games over the past week, but probably the biggest reason has been me catching up on sleep...I have been loving sleeping in, but it makes for rather short days.

Anyway, in the spirit of the New Year, I'm going to write down my top 10 highlights of 2011, and also some goals for 2012 (goals are always more serious when they're in writing!). When brainstorming the highlights, I realize what an exciting year it was!

Top Ten of 2011 (In order of preference)

10. Getting back into Cross-Country Skiing: Joe and I were out quite a bit last winter, and discovered Schneider's Bush...inquire if you are interested and don't know about it!

9. Spending time with the family at Rick's Cottage: At the end of the summer, Michael and Micaela made a stop in Ontario between living in Vancouver and heading to Taiwan for the year. This gave our family an opportunity to head to my mom's partner, Rick's amazing cottage up on Lake Shewinagog. Good times!

8. Staying at an Argentinian Estancia: Joe and I spent about 4 days horseback riding and enjoying life on an Argentinian cattle ranch. It was beautiful and relaxing after weeks of roughing it through Peru and Bolivia!

7. Becoming a French Immersion teacher: This year is my first year with my very own class. While some days are challenging and it has been a huge learning curve, I adore my students! It is extremely rewarding working with them. Sorry, no photo!

6. Huacachina, Peru: This is a desert area where we went dune-buggying and sand-boarding. We then spend the night under the stars in the desert. One of the coolest things I have ever done!

5. Getting Beau: The newest addition to our family, our sweet cat, Beau!

4. March Break in Vancouver! Joe and I spent a whirlwind week in the Vancouver area visiting our brothers, Mike and Bob. We spent a lot of time enjoying the beautiful outdoors, and climbed the Stawamus Chief!

3: Climbing Machu Picchu: This has been a long-time dream of mine. This was definitely the most challenging hike I have ever (and possibly WILL ever) done! The scenery was beautiful and the altitude added to the challenge, the the grand finale of Machu Picchu itself made it all worth it.

2. I became on auntie! On February 12th, my sister, Kate, and her husband, Phil, gave birth to Braden Alexander Bauman. My family will never be the same in the best way possible :) He is the cutest little man ever!

1. Getting Married! On June 23rd, I married Joe. This will probably take the cake for the best day of my life! I love him so much and can't wait for many more years with him.

And there are MORE exciting things that happened in my family this year: Dad retired and sold the Lanc (Wow!), Mum bought a new house with Rick, Erin got a contract job, Mike and Mic went to Taiwan, Catherine and Ryan got engaged, Bob met a lucky lady, Jim started training a service dog pup...exciting year!

Goals for 2012:

• Stay fit: I would love to get to the gym at least 3 times per week. 
• Find a new home with Joe...hopefully this year!
• Post a photo a day! This is a new project I'll be taking on, which will be posted here on my blog. I give full credit for this idea to Annica Napier.
• Become an even better teacher.
• Travel: The plan right now is to go to Europe with Joe...this one may depend on the housing situation :) Alternatively we may do a few smaller trips. 

The 3 L's of Real Estate

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, Joe and I have been actively looking at buying a new house for about 7 months now. In this time, the 3 L's of Real Estate have been ringing in our ears. Location, Location, Location!

Lately, however, I've been questioning how important the dream location really is. I mean, when you buy a house with a dream location, you are automatically paying much more for less house. Our dream location happens to be downtown Kitchener. We want to be where all the action is! The market, the parks, the restaurants, the library, my school, the events... the list goes on! Unfortunately, whenever something in our price range comes up, it is either a) seriously lacking our "must-haves" or b) gobbled up in no time. 

As I started peeking further away from downtown, I realized that you can get SO much more for your money if you're a little more on the outskirts. I'm talking double garage, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, dream kitchen fully updated home vs. 4 bed, 2 bath, no garage, limited storage, old kitchen and panelling on a smallish lot. So, the question remains, is Location really the most important thing? 

I got thinking some more, and Joe and I have been talking about our "House Wish List" for quite some time. We have come up with this:

The "Must-Haves":

- Good location (Downtown...I think? Somewhere that we can be non-car-dependent)

- Lots of storage

- 4 bedrooms (or space to add a 4th)

- At least 2 bathrooms

- A large kitchen

- Good schools (For us, it is important our future kiddos go to a school where there is French Immersion)

- A garage

- A usable finished or finish-able basement

- A mud-room or at least an entryway closet (Or again... space to put one in)

- A nice backyard

- Good bones

- A fireplace 

And the "Bonus" list, or things that would be nice to have:

- Wood floors

- A sunroom

- A pool and/or hot-tub

- Private setting 

- Open concept 

- A double garage

- A garden shed

It has definitely been challenging finding these characteristics in the downtown area. Which is what brought up the debate: Is living downtown really so important?

Just the other day I was looking at a house about 7km away from downtown, in suburbia. It...was...amazing, to say the least. But the thought of needing to ride my bike through the winter or walk over an hour to work to be car-free stressed me out. And then I started thinking about needing to buy another car, and that stressed me out. Quite frankly, the thought of living further away from downtown stresses me out! 

And then I starting thinking, again, about how handy it is living where we do. We currently DO live downtown, a 10-minute walk from the downtown core, and only 20-minute walk to Uptown Waterloo. We rarely use the car. We walk to the market, to get groceries, to work, to skating rinks, to Joe's parents' house etc. It is wonderful! And being in a walkable neighbourhood also helps us to stay fit and save money. It is pretty worth it. And I do have little daydreams of pushing strollers to the market and having our future family get to be a part of the downtown life, and it makes me happy. Eventually the right house will come up, as long as we're patient. So, I guess location is still an important factor. The search continues.

23 and 1/2 hours

This fall I've been going to the gym. I've even more recently started waking up at 5:30 to fit in a work-out before I go to work. (Otherwise, I was WAY too exhausted after work to go and it just wasn't happening!) When I was sick a couple of weeks ago, I stopped going to the gym. I was sick for about a week and a half and skipped the gym for 2 weeks. I found I got to the point where I was dreading it, and feeling how much fitness I'd lost in that short time. This morning I went back for the first time. I'm definitely feeling a little rusty, but I find my whole day feels better if I've done it! I have more energy, have a better outlook, and am able to achieve so much more in my day. Plus, I get to relax at the end of the day guilt-free :)

Here is a great video clip that a friend of mine shared on Facebook. I think everyone should follow it's advice :) It's so simple! So many people feel they are too busy to fit in any kind of fitness...but it's so important! This is worth the watch.