Looking for Some Sunshine on a Rainy Day!

Today was the rainiest, gloomiest, darkest day ever outdoors.  It felt like it was perpetually 8:00 at night all day.  I could have called a pajama day before I even got out of bed, but figured that we may as well take advantage of the fact that we had a day together as a family and spend at least a little time out of the house!

I came downstairs early this morning with Syd to have breakfast and found that the amazing bouquet of Stargazer lilies that my friend Saskia had brought me earlier this week had magically exploded overnight.  They are an enormous arrangement of the most beautiful, fragrant, pink blooms!  It was such a cheery way to start what could have been an otherwise dismal day!

Midway through the day, Sydney and I were playing with toys in her room and she found a little blue plastic beach shovel in her toybox.  After five minutes of her pleading "Dig, dig, Mommy, Dig!", I put on her raincoat and boots and let her out in the storm to dig around in the garden for a while.  She was completely not bothered by the weather, dug up piles of dirt (exclaiming "dirt!" with each shovelful!) and happily moved her pinwheel from planter to planter.  She was as happy as a clam in her little slicker and rain boots out there in the garden!  It took some convincing to get her back in the house!

This week I got my CD in the mail with the pictures from Sydney's autumn photo shoot with Denise from Tiny Toes Photography.  They are absolutely amazing!  I ordered our holiday cards from Costco literally minutes after getting the CD, so we trekked downtown today to pick them up.  In fairness to everyone who'll be getting one of these cards, I can't give you a sneak peek here, but they are super cute!!

I have been feeling a little foggy all day after having gone out for a lovely late, wine-filled dinner with my Dunbar Moms last night at La Terrazza in Yaletown.  I sadly forgot to bring my camera with me, so I don't have any pictures of my own to share with you, but we had an amazing meal together!

I had a lovely gourmet piazza topped with arugula and pine nuts as an appetizer and a rib eye steak with green peppercorn sauce and fresh porcini mushrooms, it was cooked to perfection and absolutely delicious!  I couldn't even finish it all, so the server graciously packaged up the leftovers for me which I ate for lunch today and I was just as good as last night!  We ordered a wonderful 2008 La Frenz Cabernet Sauvignon, it went so well with my steak!  We shared their signature dessert to finish the evening off, a white chocolate cheesecake wrapped in phyllo pastry and served warm with raspberry coulis, like a little slice of heaven in your mouth!

It was such a fun evening out with the girls for a late birthday celebration for our friend Michelle.   The restaurant was so beautifully decorated for Christmas too, trees and wreaths all lit up, it was so cozy and festive!  A fantastic evening!

Despite the weather, all in all, it ended up being a pretty great day!  Bring on Sunday!