Aren’t Saturdays such a gift from God? Don’t get me wrong, I thank God for each and every day (although Monday mornings tend to be a greater challenge), but Saturdays are just special. On Saturdays we get to sleep in, have something special for brunch, lounge in comfy clothes all day and tinker away at crafty projects. This snowy morning the hubby and I curled up on the couch with the mission of resurrecting our blog. To my embarrassment, our last post was over six months ago!

The omission wasn’t due to lack of exciting events; on the contrary, life has been quite the whirlwind. We’ll attempt to get you up to date on our various adventures and current situation in the next few posts! As a matter of fact, you’ll get our latest update right now.

For St. Valentine’s this year, the hubby and I decided to gift each other tickets to a Celtic Woman concert. They were scheduled to play in Moncton, a city just two hours off the Island, on February 27. We have never been to their concerts before but have been long time fans of their chill-inducing/foot-stomping/timeless arrangement of Celtic music and their flawless voices. If you have never heard of them, you’ll have to give them a listen!

It was hard to choose one video among so many beautiful songs, but this particular one fairly portrays the ladies’ impeccable talents.

For as long as I can remember I have always been a fan of Celtic music and the Irish culture. Perhaps being the “fighting Irish” as a student at St. James Catholic School as a Kindergartener through fourth grade had something to do with it, but I personally think it was God who planted a bit of Irish spirit in me as a wee baby because he knew one day in the future, I’d marry into the Irish “Brown” family. Then again I’ve heard it said that the Koreans are the Asian Irish. We both love to sing, dance, and drink! Regardless of how I was imbued with such a spirit, when Wednesday rolled around I was ready and eager to start our little road trip. We had a rare gloriously sunny day with blue skies and mild temperatures hovering just above zero degrees Celsius that morning.

With some time to spare until the concert, we strolled through downtown Moncton and visited a local craft brewery called The Pumphouse. Making and enjoying craft beer is one of Brendon’s hobbies and I have to confess I have come to appreciate a pint of good beer almost as much as a glass of fine wine. The Pumphouse is located on Orange St. just off Main St. and is a laid-back open concept brewery with views of the huge vats of beer that take up the full length of the pub. Our server suggested I try the famous Blueberry Ale as it’s very popular with the ladies. I found it surprisingly tasty, not too heavy, but with just a hint of blueberry flavor. It would make a great thirst-quencher in the summer. The fresh blueberries danced up and down my glass due to the carbonation which was a lovely additional detail.

Afterwards we scurried back to our hotel room as the wind had picked up. I’m still amazed and jealous of how quickly men are able to get cleaned up while it takes us women at least an hour to get dressed, do our makeup and hair, and sort through for our “must-have”s for our clutch that evening. Before heading out the concert at Casino New Brunswick, we met up with Brendon’s good friend Aaron and his lovely fiancee Robyn, for a fantastic supper at Cafe Archibald. It’s a French cafe and every order is in the form of a crepe. How awesome is that?

This is the view from our seats at the concert hall. Once we were there we had wished we had gotten closer seats as they did not utilize any cameras to project on the screens. Nevertheless, the Celtic Woman more than made up for the distance with their music and enthusiasm!

My cheeks and hands were sore from smiling and clapping by the end of the show. They had a wonderful encore prepared. I feel bad for those who left early. The entire concert was like an amazing “Kitchen Party” on steroids. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely.

The next day before returning home we took advantage of the shopping malls and picked up a few goodies for ourselves. There were some great sales and who doesn’t love a good deal? We lastly stopped in the highest rated restaurant in Moncton according to Trip Advisor: the Red Satay, a Vietnamese restaurant, for lunch. It didn’t take us long to know why it’s rated #1. It was absolutely scrumptious.

This is the first time I’ve found boba in the Maritimes! Hubby ordered the almond bubble tea…it reminded me of home.

We ordered shrimp spring rolls and pho. We finished the rolls before even thinking about taking pictures. Brendon ordered pho with shrimp. I ordered it with beef. These pictures still make me drool a bit. The only sound we made was slurping as we inhaled our lunch.

Although we waited to enjoy our St. Valentine’s Day gifts, we made sure to celebrate with sweets on the actual day: check out our strawberry pound cake and homemade cards below.

The hubby and I had the same idea for cards this year, although we kept it a secret from each other. We had recently discovered the adorable fact that sea otters hold hands as they sleep and thought it was too cute! We are still very much newlyweds and still hold hands quite a bit. 🙂

I’ll leave you with one more song from Celtic Woman. It’s was the grand finale at our show too!

live. laugh. love.

xoxo

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