Memories, Reflections And Dreams 2025

For my first blog post of 2026, I am recapping our 2025. I found this way of reflecting through Lysha last year and I really loved it. Lysha blogs at A Camera & A Cookbook and you can find her here. 

1. Me!

I couldn't pick between these two favourite photos of me. On the left is me in London with my favourite sweatshirt that my mom bought me and a Pimms. On the right is me cheering on my Jays at a World Series game! Travelling and baseball are two of my favourite things! 

2. I Love You

For our anniversary this year, Dave and I went to a restaurant near us. I actually discovered this restaurant when I participated in a local walking tour. The host of the tour mentioned the tasting menu at this restaurant and that is what Dave and I ate for our date. We didn't know what we were getting for each course until it arrived. There were six courses and Dave and I think it was one of the top five meals of our lives.

3. Still Laughing...

When we had to reimagine our March Break plans, we decided to do a "stay-cation." One of the activities we did was Activate, which was recommended by an Instagram/blog friend. It is a place where you can participate in games for about a minute to 90 seconds at a time. We ran from game to game to game and had so much fun, we went back with friends about a month later. Writing this post reminds me that we need to go check it out again because it was so fun!!! 

4. Winter Wonderland

While I didn't love all the snow we received in February (two huge dumps of snow within three days),we sure were living in a winter wonderland for most of the month. The snowbanks in our front yard have never been so high!

5. Birthday

My birthday this year wasn't super exciting but considering two of my friends died since my last birthday, I was just happy to be celebrating another trip around the sun. And I will always remember my birthday month (May) as the time when my favourite local ice cream shop rolled out Grapefruit Orange Blossom ice cream and I ate it about five or six times in the month! It was sooooo good!!!

6. Friends

There were so many great moments with friends this year but I'm choosing this one when, for the first time ever, a friend I made through blogging came to visit us! We've gone to visit many blog friends and it was so fun to have someone come our way! And yes, we went to a Blue Jays game with them as well as exploring our city and having so much fun together.

7. I Was Inspired…

I was definitely inspired by all the tile I saw in Portugal this summer. I have tried to bring little pieces of it into our house with the renovation we're doing and I'm so excited to see it all come to fruition! 

8. Spring Fever

While there were many fun things about the spring, the Blossoms 'N Brunch I did with Janice in April was a definite highlight! We had so much fun making bouquets and just enjoying ourselves. 

9. Travel or Vacation

We travelled to Europe with my parents this summer and we had the best time! Sam planned most of the trip -- where we went and what we did -- and he did such a great job. This was an especially joyous celebration as my mom had successful surgery for lung cancer in April so we celebrated a lot on this trip!

10. Summer Days

After our Europe trip my parents stayed in Ontario to help us celebrate Rachel's Bat Mitzvah. We spent many, many summer afternoons sitting at our table, under our tree, enjoying the back yard. And of course, my dad mixed drinks! These are some of my favourite summer memories.

11. A Day In My Life

When I'm at home, almost every day in my life begins with coffee-hot chocolate in a different mug. When it's cold out, this is my view -- sitting in my favourite spot in our living room.

12. All Smiles

Rachel was overjoyed when she got her braces off this past summer and could eat popcorn again. We didn't have popcorn in the house while the kids had braces and the amount of popcorn we've gone through since August is unbelievable!

13. Autumn/Fall

Our favourite night in our uptown is the LUMEN festival and this year, Janice, Tim, and Tessa joined us! It was so much fun!!! This night is a highlight of our fall.

14. Family or Home

This is the year our home started undergoing a major renovation! Here's me on our new living room floor. We're trying to live in our house while this is happening so it's been an interesting couple of months with more to come... 

15. Celebrate!

Our "celebrate" moment of the year was definitely Rachel's Bat Mitzvah! It was so great to celebrate with so many friends and family. A highlight for me was hosting all of our family for a backyard BBQ. We had relatives come in from California, Texas, New York, and Saskatchewan for this weekend and it was so special.

16. Let’s Do It Again…

Watching our Jays play in the ALCS, and then the World Series, was one of the best moments all year -- after my mom's successful lung cancer surgery and Rachel's Bat Mitzvah. Let's do it again Blue Jays (and win it all this time)!!! October 2025 will not be one I soon forget :)

17. I Miss You

I took this picture on a walk to Lake Huron with a group of five people at our church's Winter Retreat in January. I had a great conversation with a friend on this walk, and two weeks later, she and her daughter (who was Sam's age) were killed in a car accident. This loss has been incredibly difficult for our church community. They are so missed.

19. Dress Up 

We had so much fun dressing up to celebrate Rachel's dance studio's 50th anniversary at their Gala. I even bought heels for the occasion, which I wore again at Rachel's Bat Mitzvah.

20. Macro

I don't know if this counts as "macro" but I liked this close up of one of the ornaments on our tree and the fact that you can see the dumpster for our reno in the background.

21. Holidays

We enjoyed a special Canada Day at the Jays' game. It was so neat to see the huge Canadian flag on the field, and the giveaway was a red jersey so there was so much red in the stadium. Plus the Jays won over the Yankees, and George Springer hit a grand slam!!! This was the beginning of the Jays run to take over the AL East and I'm so glad we were there for it!

22. My Favourite

 

Sitting in the backyard with a drink, and laundry hanging on the line, will always be my favourite thing to do at home. I love our backyard so much! 

23. Don’t Ever Change

We had family photos taken in October and I love these two so much! Even though they've hit those "antagonistic towards your sibling" teenage years, and can be as annoying as all get out, I hope they never change.

24. Just Because…

We celebrated Dave's birthday by enjoying an ice cream making workshop at our favourite ice cream shop and it was absolutely one of the best things that happened last winter. I don't want to forget how much fun we had doing this. And we came home with 16 pints of ice cream which kept us going for a couple of months. Hahahaha!!!

25. Hopes and Dreams

I often see things that I think look really interesting come across my Instagram feed. One of them was a golden hour picnic at a lavender farm near us. Dave was not at all interested in going so I asked Janice if she wanted to go with me. She said yes and that Tim was in too! So Dave had to come -- hahaha! We ended up having so much fun, we all want to do it again next year. So this was one of those events that was beyond my wildest hopes and dreams!

So that was 2025. There was a lot of good this past year (my mom and dad both overcame challenging health issues, Rachel's Bat Mitzvah, our three generation Europe trip, the Blue Jays playoff run) but there was also a lot of hard (the death of our friends, the unknown with my mom's health especially, our cancelled Hawaii trip).

 

Thanks for being here through all of it and here's hoping 2026 brings so much goodness and joy to all of us.