More Exciting News!

Some hours after I posted my excitement that I had seen one of my images on that website on Facebook, I got an inbox message from a friend telling me she had seen a picture of my dad and his sailboat in the Canadian Tire Outdoor magazine.

I quickly called my dad to tell him and we looked up the magazine online, and sure enough, on page 26, there he was! It's so exciting to know that one of my images is so readily available and being distributed all over Canada.

Here is a screenshot of pages 26 and 27:

Exciting

Excited is the word I would use to describe my current state.

I just completed my very last exam of third year. Now, I'm packing and getting ready to move in to my new house for the summer. I also get to start my internship, which is a photographer position for Bell Canada. I'm really excited to learn more about commercial photography and gain so many incredible experiences through that.

Last night, Paul sent me a message containing a link to a website. That website included one of my iStock pictures of us! I can't tell you how exciting it is knowing how one of my images has been used. It's on a site for eating disorder treatment, and we're on the left-hand column. Right underneath our picture, it says "McCallum Place uses expert clinicians & evidence-based care to treat Eating Disorders and other co-occurring issues..." so that must mean we're supposed to represent the expert clinicians. This is really neat because it's the last place I expected to find this picture!

http://www.eatingdisordertreatmentinformation.com/

Now, I'm off to get my room packed and ready for my mom to show up. We're going to do some city shopping and have a mother-daughter sleepover before I go home for a bit!

Easter Puppies

Even the dogs are ready for easter! Thanks to my mom who helped me capture these too-cute pictures!

Easter Preparations

I can not believe it's April already! This school year has flown by and I have completed all of my classes for third year, and all I have left is two exams. I have been extremely busy up until now with my classes coming to a close. I've also been interviewing for some positions this summer and my friends and I finally picked a house to live in next year.

I am home (at my parent's house) for an early Easter, and will be here until Sunday or Monday. Now that I finally have time to sit back and relax, I realize there's even more to do!

I've been doing a lot of Easter preparation for iStock over the past few weeks, and when I got home, I helped my mom get some Easter cupcakes ready for her website. It has been so much fun! We are also making a lot of do-it-yourself things for the home. I'm so excited because I love making things! I also plan to get the "gift shop" segment of my professional photography blog up and running soon.

Here are some Easter-themed iStock pictures I created:

Ballet and Birthdays

This weekend, my parents and Emma came to Mississauga early Saturday morning. My mom, Emma and I got ready and then headed over to the GO train which we took to Union Station in Toronto. We were going to see The Sleeping Beauty Ballet at the National Ballet of Canada. We met up with four of my university friends there too, which was fun. The ballet was absolutely beautiful, and I'm so glad we went. All of the dancers did such an amazing performance!

When we got back to Mississauga, we met up with my dad (who had been speaker shopping while waiting for us) and went out for a buffet dinner to celebrate his birthday! The rest of the night was spent hanging out and sharing our pictures from our family vacation in February.

On Sunday we went to the Meeting House which was really fun, especially since my parents had never been to the Oakville site before. We went for a quick shop after that and then my parents left for home. Emma stayed for a bit longer and accompanied my friends and I to view a potential rental house for fourth year. It is a really nice place and I hope everything works out! It was a very short visit, but definitely very fun!

Now, I will spend the rest of the night prepping and resting up for my interview tomorrow morning! I'm looking forward to getting to know a little more about the position.

Birthday

This past weekend, I went to my friend Chelsey's house to celebrate her 21st birthday. The theme was "candyland," which meant that there were vibrant colours everywhere and delicious food to try. Chelsey made candy-flavoured alcoholic beverages, and so many fun candy dishes. My personal favourite was the candy sushi, made out of rice krispie treats, fruit roll ups and other yummy gummies. It doesn't sound like the greatest pairing, but it was so delicious! I'm so glad to have such great friends in my life to celebrate things with :)

Weekend

This weekend was another good one! Not as exciting as being in the Dominican, but it was definitely fun.

I usually bake dinners on the weekend that I can freeze for the week, but when people visit me, I like to make extra special things. Paul drove up on Friday and we made spinach lasagna rolls for dinner, complete with homemade mozzarella sticks. We and my friends went to a birthday party that night which was close by, and it was so much fun!

On Saturday, we went to the mall so I could pick up a couple of things, and then to Toronto for dinner with some friends (the girls I will be living with next year, actually—so excited!). When we got home, Paul and I made a delicious blueberry lemon loaf and played video games.

We discovered and amazing thai food restaurant when we went out for lunch on Sunday. We tried the thai iced tea, which is red iced tea sweetened with cream. It was a perfect offset to the spicy food they had. After that, we attempted to go on a photo adventure, but it was freezing and we weren't prepared for the cold weather.