Exploring Ohio

I've finally made time to post the pictures from our Friday adventures. Geez, Kirsten, get with it!  :)

Since it was Good Friday we went to a fun restaurant that had great veggie and seafood options.  This nautical themed place was in a small town near us named Waterville.  

After lunch, we explored the town and did some light shopping.  We both determined this would be an ideal town to take our guests to when visiting (hint, hint!)  :)

After Waterville, we went to Grand Rapids, Ohio.  Matt heard that it was a cute town to visit and we agreed!  Like Waterville, it also had some good shopping.  We bought a pair of iron chairs that we've been in search of for our porch.  We're quite happy with them.  :)

While we were driving to our final destination, we drove by a Campbell's factory.  Matt told me that he's pretty sure that factory makes Prego spaghetti sauce.  We couldn't help but think of our own "prego" family member!

And here is one of the chairs we bought.  We had a light dinner on the porch that evening talking about what a great day we had.

Christmas in April

We are headed to Cleveland right now and off to see my Graceland - aka the Christmas Story House!!!

For those that don't know, I was practically raised on A Christmas Story and my fondest Christmas memories includes this movie.

So when we found out that we were moving so close to the house the movie was shot in, we had to go!!! I'll take a ton of photos.

Good Friday Adventures

Today is Matt's first official holiday off of work. He sure deserves it after working late last night. This morning we decided to stay home and rest up rather than leaving for our entire three day weekend. We've been exploring a few neighboring towns and so far we've had a really nice day. Since I'm on the road right now, I can't post pictures but I will post more tonight. :)

Whoa...A Little Catch Up Is Needed...

Sorry for the interruption folks!!!  Yesterday, Matt got his paycheck (yippie!) and I was busy using that to figure out our monthly spending goal for this past month and those for the future.  My Uncle T asked if we had ever had monthly paychecks before (vs. semi-monthly) and I realized then that we hadn't.  He said it's a different experience than getting paid half way through the month.  Boy was he right!  But, we made this last month under budget so we'll have a few dollars to tuck away!  Hooray!

On Tuesday night, we had another great date night!  We went to our friend Eric's championship hockey game. Stephanie, Matt and I all had dinner at the game and we even convinced a few other people sitting near us to cheer on 'ol Yellow Pants. Stephanie had also invited another friend and two kids to the game. They were all was really nice and is was great to have our cheering team double.  Not surprisingly, Eric's team won!  

Yesterday, we got a package from the Easter Bunny!  When I opened the box, I had no idea that a black cat was going to burst out and yell, "surprise!"

Ha, Ha, April Fools!  :)  OK, so maybe that isn't what actually happened, but isn't that photo funny?

My Little Helpers

These past couple of days I've been organizing many out of sight, out of mind projects. First there was the filing cabinet. I couldn't have gotten it done without the help of Bonnie.


I recently was given some new shelves for our pantry and I decided to rearrange our food. I couldn't possibly have done it without Chazz's supervision.


Unfortunately, I didn't score well with Chazz's monthly review so when I tackled our cord box, he felt I needed additional guidance.


And finally, after a long day's work for Chazz, he needed to tucker out and get some rest.

A Chapter In My Life Has Come To An End

We certainly had another jammed packed weekend. We FINALLY tackled the garage and it now looks quite organized. I have no idea what we are going to do when we head back to CA and get our boat and other belongings...but, that's two months away so I'm not going to think about that now! ;)

We also got some major fixtures hung on the wall. For Christmas, my mother-in-law got us two decorative windows and we hung those yesterday over our bistro table. We also hung curtains in the guest bedroom and hung our final pictures in the office.

In between assisting Matt with his "man-work," I took on a project that I've been procrastinating for too long - our filing cabinet! We had to empty it out for the move, otherwise it would have been too heavy. Of course, by doing that, all our files got jumbled. But, I finished the project and feel much better that I can find things when I look for them!

We also went to another hockey game on Sunday evening. It was a great game and Toledo won 6-3. This was the last home game for the Walleyes so Matt and I were pretty excited that we were able to go to the game.

After the game, while driving home, something AMAZING happened. OK, well, this requires some set up so let me start with that...

Two years ago, I started a game with myself of trying to find each US state's license plate. I was pretty impressed with Chico's variety of state representation. When heading north to visit my cousins Jill and Jamie, I was able to pick up quite a few more. Then as of late last year, I narrowed it down to one - WEST VIRGINIA! I swear, I had myself convinced that West Virginians did not venture outside their state!!! Then, when we moved to Ohio, I had myself convinced I'd see one right away since they are neighboring states. Alas, nothing...

But then, last night, an unassuming car drove by us and, as if in slow motion, I looked at the license plate and screamed out, "Matt, look!" After convincing him that we weren't about to die (since, let's face it, he was driving and I did just randomly scream at him) he also looked and saw it too! Ha, ha, my game is finally over!!! Two years - can you believe it. That also includes bonus plates of Washington DC and many from Canada.

Ice Cream in Snow

Merlin's beard, it's cold out there!!!!

Our weather has been very indecisive this past week. It's been raining on and off since Monday. Yesterday we had sunshine and today it snowed! Make up your mind, Mother Nature!!!

Today was one of Matt's co-workers' last day and we were invited to go to a party at Bar Louie. I got my usual shrimp bruschetta and Matt got wings. I got to meet more of Matt's co-workers and of the ones Matt works near, I think I only need to meet two more. That's good progress, isn't it?

Afterwards, we made plans to get ice cream with Stephanie and Eric. By then it had started to snow but that didn't stop us! I'm glad it didn't because it was really good. I'm just glad our ice cream cones didn't turn into snow cones - ha, ha!!!