Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Bacon, Gravy and Maple Syrup

If the title made your stomach turn, we please ask that you leave quietly and never come back.

But if the thought of these three delicious ingredients layered on top of hand-cut fries makes your mouth water, then "Hello" new friend.

Christmas shopping is all done - with a week to spare to gloat and possibly make exchanges when we find items cheaper at another store. And since the last of our shopping took place on Queen West, we thought there would be no better way to reward ourselves than with a hot, gooey paper bowl of Poutine from Poutini's. A Bacon Poutine with maple syrup, to be exact.

Pair that with some good ol' fashion Rootbeer, it's enough to make you forget about all the grumpy shoppers, crying babies strapped into their srollers, annoying front door store greetings, and endless holiday music you have had to endure just hours before.

In our personal opinion, this place kicks Poutine ass, and offers the best fries/gravy ratio in town. 'Cause that's important, don't ya know?

Thankfully, the Regular size was huge, with enough leftover to take home to heat up while watching some perfectly fit holiday movie like Die Hard.

Yay Bruce Willis. Yay us. Yay Poutini's.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Friends of Earlscourt Park

"Working together to better our vibrant neighbourhood by bettering Earlscourt Park - one swing, one tree and one picnic table at a time." That's the slogan for the newly formed group, Friends of Earlscourt Park, a volunteer group that is working towards all around improving this west end park with new gren space and community events.

We used the park a lot over the summer (beach volleyball? Awesome!) and are hoping to put on our skates and try out the rink for the first time, that is whenever Toronto decides to be Canadian again and have a proper winter. It's great that there are people out there taking the initiative to build a community for the park and we look forward to hear more about their plans for 2013.

We also think the FOEP logo is really cute :)

Monday, December 17, 2012

Getting a head start on new year's resolutions...

So it's been a long, looong, looooooong while since we last posted one of our west end adventures. With 2012 coming to an end in just a couple of weeks, we thought we'd get a head start on some of our resolutions, with "Continuing our blog" on the list.

So far so good.

The other resolution was to get more physically fit. Since the holidays are generally jam packed with dinners and parties that add to the waistline before the new year, we thought there was no better time than the NOW to get started.

With that in mind, we somehow managed to drag our asses out of bed at 5:30 this morning and try out our first bootcamp class (together) at Body Stride. There isn't much to the site yet, but the owner, Jamie, told us that a new website would be running in January. We learned about Body Stride while walking along St. Clair and seeing a sidewalk sign for it. I know - an actual, physical sign. Those still work sometimes, who knew?!

Ok - so to be honest, we didn't really do any research on the place and were simply sold on the 30% discount for a 1 month membership, which came out to be about $60 per person. We figured at the cost, we could take the risk and see what the place was all about.

So now back to that ungodly hour of 5:30 am... We arrived at the studio at 6 and were the only two losers (sorry did I say "losers"? I mean hardcore gym enthusiasts) there, along with Jamie. He quickly set up the stations, 15 in total, and described each workout to us: Burpees, TRX arm lifts, Medicine Ball squats, and other vomit inducing exercises. We had to do as many reps as possible within 45 seconds and then take a break for 10 seconds before doing the next exercise. Man, did I love those breaks. And it turned out to be a good thing that it was just the two of us since we probably looked and sounded just AMAZING.

It was a great workout, and although most of the moves with the exception of the TRX can be done at home, it was great to be in a space meant for exercise with extra encouragement from Jamie.

Are we going back for more on Wednesday? Yup!

Are my muscles screaming in agony as a type this. Ummmm...yep.