It's been a long time......

Wow!!

I have been majorly slacking at updating this blog.....a lot has happened since I was last on here! Some life-changing events have occurred, well, only one, I guess, but it's a biggie! Gary and I got married, as most of you probably know. Two days after the wedding, we drove back to Toronto and embarked on our 10-day honeymoon to Italy, which was absolutely fabulous--I couldn't have asked for a more amazing time with the love of my life in one of the most romantic countries in the world. We did so many things and saw so many unforgettable sights...it was just great. We actually kept a journal (you know, on paper, like the days before the invention of blogging) on an almost daily basis to remember what we liked and didn't like, what we ate, where we went, and just any little tidbits that anyone we know might need if they ever travel to Italy. I received the journal as a wedding gift from a co-worker. She had kept a journal on a family trip through Europe about 20 years ago and just came across it recently and she said it brought back a lot of awesome memories. I think it will be something that will be really special to us in the years to come, and we can show it to our children and grandchildren. I'm not going to post any wedding or honeymoon pictures on here because there are websites that house them all, so here are the addresses if you haven't seen them already:

http://www.lucasmcdonough.smugmug.com/ (Our photographer's site-go to Day/Ruppert Wedding link)

www.public.fotki.com/garinruppert (Honeymoon photos mostly, but I want to update the account and start keeping all of my pictures on there, it's a great site because you can order high quality prints directly from them for cheap!)

http://www.danhester.fotki.com/ (go to Day/Ruppert wedding folder, the password is Erin)

So there you go. Probably more pictures of us than you'd ever want to see, but you only get married once, and being that I'm a huge shutterbug, I took as many pictures and had as many pictures taken of us as possible!

Since then, not too much has gone on. We went to a first birthday party for our nephew in Ohio and got a real genuine Ruppert family picture (a rarity with seven kids in the family ages 6 and under, let me tell you..) Here it is....

Pretty good, only one kid isn't looking!!

We made a trip to Lake Wawasee and went to a wedding one weekend, and we also headed up to the cabin in Northern Michigan one weekend, which was great because the deer were out like crazy! I'm forecasting a great hunting season!!! Bring on the wall mounts and deer jerky!

Look closely, antlers are sprouting!

Oh, and there were these bear tracks, too.....we could definitely use a bearskin rug!

Two weekends ago, the Parents Ruppert came up to visit us for the first time....we visited the Cathedral in Markham and the CN Tower......it was lots of fun! There they are at lunch in the 360 restaurant at the top of the tower, it is always rotating, so that was an interesting meal.

We took them to Cathedraltown as well, here it is at sunset.

We had the company picnic last weekend and our first Rock Band party too (which by the way, if you've never attended one, is a riot. There's nothing better than adults who can't carry a tune attempting to sing, play drums, and play guitar---all while enjoying alcoholic beverages.)

Our picnic had a pirate theme, hence these two photos:

My fabulous co-workers and me at the registration table.... Gary at Simeon Lake, which is part of the private Magna park where the picnic was.Emma & me with our first raw oysters during the Rock Band party at the Sims residence...FUN! Mat, Gary and Emma rocking out at Rock Band....Emma even has the poses down.
This coming weekend, our buddy Matt is coming up for the weekend and we're gonna get good wings and see a Kid Rock/Lynyrd Skynyrd concert!! More to come!!!

Blue Jays and Parents and Concerts, oh my!

A few weekends ago, my parents decided on the spur of the moment to come up and visit, and it was wonderful!! We love having visitors, and since the weather was so nice, we really got a chance to go out and explore Toronto a little bit.

Friday night, we went to a really awesome market called Pusateri's, which is close to the city. They have pretty much anything you could ever want, all the way up to Beluga caviar, Kobe beef, and a rare coffee that sells for $480 CDN dollars a pound....YIKES! They have the freshest produce and the best meat....here are the steaks we picked up! Enormous, and soooo tasty.

On Saturday, we got up and ventured downtown for the Blue Jays/Tigers game at Rogers Centre. The weather was perfect, and we got the cheap seats in the upper bowl, which were awesome! The dome was open since it was such a beautiful day and we could see the CN Tower from our seats. It was a good game, too, Jays won.....too bad I missed Frank Thomas in a Jays uniform by one day.






After the game, we explored downtown, had a beer in a cute little Irish pub, then took the subway back home. It was a great day! We walked up to Queen's Park and OF COURSE I took lots of pictures!









My parents left Sunday morning, and then on Sunday night, Gary and I went back downtown for the Sara Bareilles/Raining Jane/Rachel Yamagata concert. Sara's voice is so pure and amazing....she even made me cry on one song because it was so pretty. Raining Jane is a great band too...they have a unique sound, and their percussionist plays an instrument I've never seen before. It looks like a speaker, but it sounds like a drum when she hits it. Also, their bassist played a sitar, which was really cool because I've never seen that live before. A great concert overall.......here's some pics. We were very close to the stage!

Raining Jane

Mona, the crazy percussionist

Rachel Yamagata

Sara Bareilles

The following weekend, I got us tickets to the Jason Mraz/Makepeace Brothers/Bushwalla concert downtown at Kool Haus. This show was more like a circus than a concert, complete with a magician that was the "host" between acts. It was different, but good, and Bushwalla ended up in a unitard, so what else could we ask for?

The Makepeace Brothers

Bushwalla, a man of many talents
And yes, he stripped down to this.

Mr. A to Z

Life's been exciting lately...and getting even more so since the wedding is less than six weeks away...........more to come soon!

Spring is here!!

Hello all!

Sorry I've been so lackadaisical about posting on here. Things have been pretty busy with us going back and forth between here and the U.S., working, wedding planning, and having some time to ourselves. There's lots to talk about, I suppose, but we've been doing a lot of the "norm," so I'll make it simple. We've seen a lot of concerts lately, and we've got two more coming up in the next two weekends---Sara Bareilles and Jason Mraz, and I am SO excited about both. I'll put pictures up as soon as I get them. In the meantime, here are pics from our other concerts:

Matthew Perryman Jones

David Ford
Ingrid Michaelson = AMAZING!
Alanis Morrissette (this was during the "My Humps" cover)

Matchbox Twenty

We've been slowly getting ready for the wedding as well. About a month ago we went down to Indiana and got the menu squared away, met with the pastor, and I had my first dress fitting. It's crazy to me that it's only two months until the big day! Gary and I have also been trying to plan the honeymoon. We're going to Italy with a 7 hour layover in Amsterdam on the way. I'm really excited to go to Europe for the first time---everyone I've talked to says that I'm gonna love it!

We were down in Michigan last weekend to pick up Gary's wedding ring, and we stayed with Ben and Theresa and the twins. I got some really cute pictures of the boys. It's amazing to go and visit and see how much they're learning and growing in such a short time. Their new favorite pasttimes are watching birds, playing outside, and talking non-stop! They can even say "Aunt Erin" now! :)

Ethan

Liam

The snow is finally gone, and the grass is getting green! We're really excited for the nice weather so that we can start exploring the area a bit more. We still have to visit Niagara Falls, and there are a few parks and hiking trails that I'd really like to go to as well. Of course, we've still got an extra bedroom for anyone who's ready to come and visit! Hope to see some of you soon!

My sentiments exactly.....

As posted today on Yahoo Canada:

I'd like to think this is Mother Nature's way of sticking her tongue out at us and "welcoming" us to Canada. And of course, in the midst of 20-30cm of snow that is projected to fall, we'll be driving back to IN this weekend to get some wedding planning done. Enough of winter already, seriously. :) Spring is coming soon, we hope!

I'll update again when I've got more to talk about!

My laptop is BACK!

My baby is home.....and I missed it so much. What an ordeal. My hard drive went bad, so I got it replaced here in Canada, and then it still wasn't working right, no sound, remember? So we took it back to the States, and they fixed it, and apparently the second hard drive was bad as well. Third time's a charm---I hope!

I still don't have any of my pictures loaded on here or anything, just working on getting the basics back up, but once I do, I promise I'll update the blog.

Oh, have I mentioned that I am SO DONE with snow?

I'm the worst blogger EVER!

Hi all,

Sorry 's it's been forever......let's just say that computers hate me (I just got my laptop back Saturday after a month, and it STILL doesn't work right)....and since we've been back from the holidays it seems like all we've had time to do is go to work, come home, eat dinner, and go to bed....and then start over! We have had some fun around here....we had our first non-family member overnight visitor, none other than Ms. Katie Libett, who was cool enough to score us some free tickets to the alumni box at the Leafs game. They ended up losing, which wasn't surprising because the Leafs are pathetic this year, but it was cool and we had a good time afterwards going out to a very notorious place that Katie and I have been wanting to visit for quite some time.

Leafs/Flyers

We came, we saw, we conquered....with thumbs up.

Oh, and I got a new camera for Christmas, which is really awesome, so if I ever get a computer that will work properly, I'll put up some more pics because this camera is WONDERFUL! It should be great for our honeymoon to Italy!

Here's one I took on Christmas Day of my dad's pride and joy....his fish tank.

Like I said, once I get this computer situation straightened around, I'm really going to try to be better about blogging....not that too many people probably read it anymore anyway......

PS: Canadian winters are NOT fun. They seem so long! I would probably say the same if we were still in Michigan....but so far, it's just snow, warm, snow, warm, snow....and that causes colds! Boo!! Stupid groundhog says we have six more weeks of it, too. I wish he'd catch his leg in a trap.

Our first video.......enjoy, it's funny.

Please pardon the fact that you hear what I'm saying quite a bit after you see my mouth move. Still ironing out the kinks.

All Skyped Up

Hi!!

Just wanted to let you know that we did get Skype set up. I should post the video Gary and I made as a trial run on our new webcam...it's hilarious. Anyway, even if you don't have a webcam, you can still use it because they have an instant messaging service, much like MSN or AIM. Our user name is erin.gary if you're interested.

www.skype.com

Merry Christmas!!

Click here for my version of a Christmas Card!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1288380015

'Tis the Season!

Hi!

So as usual, I'm a little bit behind on my posts, but I wanted to share a few pics from the past couple of weeks. First, we had our Co-Ex-Tec Happy Holidays party last weekend, and it was a great time! We had to be there at about 5 to help set up, and we closed the place down at around 1:30. There was lots of good food, good fun, and dancing done by all. The highlight of the night had to be when the DJ had three of the managers put on red pajamas and then they had to pick three ladies each (I got to be on the Assistant GM's team) and we had to stuff their pajamas with balloons! After they were stuffed to the limit, they each got to do a catwalk dance to "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred. All of this in front of about 900 people! They were great sports.

Grace and me filling Steve's red suit

Don't they look studly? The "back corner crowd" AKA the ones that closed the place down! Me, Kristen, and Emma in our holiday best

Earlier this week, Gary had meetings for two days in Detroit and I had the first phase of my crown done (ugh), so we got to hang out with Ben and Theresa and our adorable twin nephews for a couple days. It is so hard to believe that they're going to be two in just a couple of months. They're running all over the place and starting to put words into sentences. Seeing their individual personalities come out is really fun, too. They are just too much fun! We've come to find out that traveling on highways 401 and 402 with any type of snowfall accumulation is really not fun at all! Semis drive slow and block all the lanes, and sometimes there are whiteouts, and those are scary! Let's just hope that all of our holiday travels to come will be safe trips!

Ethan playing peek-a-boo under his crib Growing up fast!

On Saturday night, Gary and I decided to take advantage of the fact that we live near a huge metropolitan area and have a date night downtown. We drove our car about ten minutes south to the closest subway station and took the subway the rest of the way downtown. We went to a really cool bar called The Loose Moose for dinner and a live band called Wheelhouse. They were really good! The bar atmosphere was cool too, it was decorated nicely and there were tons of people downtown because of Christmas parties and the Leafs game. At one point, we looked towards the front of the bar and the whole standing area was full of people in Santa hats!

The date night siteThe Santa hat invasion--too bad I didn't stand on a chair, there were tons of them!The CN Tower--all lit up for Christmas!

Gary and I waiting for our train at Union Station (yes, I got new hair!)

Lastly, Gary and I went out to do some shopping tonight and while we were out, we picked up a webcam. We thought it would be a good idea since it tends to get expensive to talk on the phone to everyone back in the States, and there is a free service on the web called Skype which hosts video messaging between its members. We're hoping that some of you will pick up a camera for 25-30 bucks and meet us online! Once I get everything set up, I'll give you more info. If I don't get time to post again before Christmas, I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday break!