Have I mentioned how much I love long weekends...!?!? No matter how much I love my job, it's always so painful to return to "regular schedualed programming" after being given a taste of retirement!! I've never understood those people who say that they get bored away from work because they have nothing to do...that's madness!! In a world so full of adventure and possibility, how could someone not feel overwhelmed with curiosity outside of the office?? Truly...it boggles my mind!!!

If I had to put all the pieces of the perfect long weekend puzzle together...it would have looked a lot like the past three days; indulgent, relaxing and spoils everyday life!! We headed to Petawawa on Saturday to celebrate Rohan's 1st birthday, Jeff and Mon's 10th anniversary and the simple pleasure of long summer nights!! The day spent around the pool with the Smyth and Valsankar families was wonderfully refreshing. We chatted, ate tons of great food, played in the pool, drank an assortment of yummy summer drinks and a couple of the little ones even fit in a nap!!

Sunday was greeted with another gorgeous day. I was up bright and early (although my head was still somewhat cloudy from the night before!!), and met Kathy, Jesper, Marilyn and Mary for a beautiful run along the canal and some catching up on the Starbucks patio. No matter how hard it is to get up for those morning runs at times, I always come home feeling so happy that I did!! Steve and I later headed off to church where we had another guest pastor, Sam Chan, from the Richmond Hill Community Church. He was great and a really nice addition to the invited speakers that we've had this summer. Then we did our usual Tim Horton's stop and went back to the Design Center to do more work on the house (we kept it short and sweet this time!!). The rest of Sunday was spent as follows: reading Harry Potter...taking a nap...reading Harry Potter...taking a nap...reading Harry Potter...taking a nap...and so on and so on!! With visions of Quidditch running through my head, we decided to go see the latest Harry Potter movie as well...there is simply no end to the magical bliss right now!! The movie was fantastic...I loved it! I didn't love being swept back to reality as much but, a few stolen hours here and there is better than nothing!!

After some much needed sleeping in on Monday morning, Steve and I did some cleaning around the house and did a quick check of the new house. We get to go through one of the built models this week and finally get a visual idea of our home to be. Very exciting!! After some quick shopping, we went to the west end to visit IKEA. The new catalogue just came out and we are still struggling with designs for one of the bathrooms, so inspiration was sought in the form of complete chaos!!! As packed as it was, we actually managed to keep our sanity intact quite well!! We roamed through some of the new arrivals and found some solutions to the many rooms that we will have to fill in six months. Pretty soon, my dreams are going to be of some wizard, flying his Nimbus Two Thousand broom through the halls of a design centre filled to the rim with counter tops and floor samples!!!!! Too much a good thing makes for some funny dreams!!

All in all, a fantastic long weekend...the sort that makes you long for the days of summer vacation and eating popsicles! It's a bit shocking to realize that three weeks from now we'll be welcoming September and not long after that, fall will be upon us once again. Maybe that's what makes summer so special though...playing with little people in the pool, sipping on frozen drinks and watching magical children's books come to life...the island of summer just can't help but bring out the kid in us!

For more pictures from Rohan's 1st Birthday, click here.