Happy Friday! 

I hope you had a great week. I'm not gonna lie, it kind of sucked coming home on Wednesday night to an empty apartment. We miss you Jacob! However I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

This time last week we were in Sydney. The night before we were supposed to leave I wanted to go to bed early because we had to wake up at 4:00 am! We went for a quick dinner at a local pub so Jacob could try a Parma, which is some type of Aussie pub food. After dinner we went home to pack and get ready for our holiday. Except when I asked Jacob for his passport he couldn't find it. We destroyed the apartment looking for it but it never turned up. For the first half hour of looking, Tj couldn't find his passport either. I thought he was just looking for Jacob's but he was trying to find his own as well lol. Eventually we figured that Jacob's passport must have fallen out of his jacket at the restaurant. We kept calling them but there was no answer so the boys ran back to check. Unfortunately for us, they had closed early. We tried to look it up online, and it seemed like within Australia you only need a driver's licence or some form of photo ID, but we weren't sure if that meant his Canadian one was acceptable. When we got to the airport we never even had to show anything! Phew. When we called the restaurant the next morning, the had found the passport and even though they were closed on Monday when we were getting back to Melbourne, they reassured us that someone would be around. When we landed we went straight to pick it up, and Jacob was ready to fly out Tuesday morning lol.

Our vacation was amazing, but our days were full and I'm definitely still catching up on my sleep. I can't wait to sleep in on Saturday! We are also finally going to the spa. We got a gift card as a wedding present and I'm so excited. Other than that I don't want to do anything except nap and read my book.

The other night my friend Jaymie sent me this article, and I thought I'd share some of the benefits of reading every day (click on the link to read the full article). 

Here are 11 incredible benefits from reading every day. And they're backed by science.

By Coert Engels.

1. Promotes mental health 
2. Reduces stress (just six minutes of reading can reduce stress levels by up to 68%!)
3. Improves general knowledge (I don't know about this one - I haven't been doing very well at my work's lunchtime trivia games)
4. More empathetic
5. Expands vocabulary
6. Improves writing skills
7. Stronger analytical thinking skills
8. Improves memory
9. Improves focus and concentration
10. Free entertainment
11. Boosts sleep (yay!)

Well if those aren't reasons enough to pick up a book this weekend, I don't know what is.

Happy reading :)

P.S. Saturday is 4 months til Christmas!