Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Fun with Cadi

Peter had a needle stuck in his eye again at the doctor's so he took Vicodin and passed out cold for the majority of the evening. I didn't mind and was more concerned about the pain he was in. He was half awake around 5 and said to start dinner because he could eat something so I did. By 5:30 when dinner was done, he was knocked out. So I just did some random things like pay bills and write checks for certain things and did a little straightening up in the dining room since our table was overtaken by misc. items. I also chatted online for a bit with a friend from college which was fun. I got to catch up a bit with her. And then I played with Cadi. After Peter woke up and we ate dinner, we watched ANTM and he started getting sleepy again since he took more Vicodin after dinner. I showed him what I did while he slept and then played with Cadi some more. This time I video taped it. She's such a goofball and absolutely loves boxes. This came with a shipment of items we ordered over a week ago and I've just left it in the living room (empty) so she could play with it.
Anyways, here's the video and I'm off to catch some sleep like Peter's doing.

Winter's Warning

Ok Mother Nature.  I heard you loud and clear.  Winter is coming.  And apparently it's going to be brutal.  Snow in October is not funny ya know.  It's not even Halloween!  I have to admit though...if you sent me a blizzard this year, I wouldn't be mad.  Or maybe we could agree on a white Christmas?

Sunday, October 26, 2008

A Short Version of "Weekend"

Peter had to attend a meeting at work yesterday.  And since I've been using a few hours of PTO every week for taking Peter to the eye doctor, I figured I'd go in to my work and make a few of those hours back.  It was Saturday so no one would be there.  I played music loud enough to actually sing along as I worked.  And I wore a hoodie and lounge pants.  It was actually an easy work session.  Unfortunately, his meeting was a little longer than expected and he did some work at his boss's house and after 6 hours, it was finally time to leave.  On any other work day, that would've been fine, except this was Saaaaaturday.  We're not supposed to work on Saturday haha.  I actually did get much accomplished at work though which was good.

After work we went up to the Schindel's and met Grice and we all hung out for a while.  It was great fun!  Steph and I went shopping for a bit to have "girl time" and left the guys at home for some "guy time".   :)  It was great to catch up with them and meet Grice and share an evening together.  We had a yummy dinner, great conversation, and laughed hysterically quite a few times.  We also ate brownies and played Mad Gab.  I don't think I've ever laughed that hard during a game and think that Jeff and Grice should always be on the same team!  haha  

Peter and I didn't get home til pretty late and were wiped out so headed right for bed.  When we woke up this morning I felt awful.  I've been fighting off a cold for a good solid week now and the mornings are the worst.  My head felt 5 times its normal size and I was extremely dizzy when I tried to get up.  Not to mention every bone in my body ached.  After taking some ibuprofen I felt better, but still not up to doing anything but lay in bed.  Peter went to church without me and I was bummed to miss it.  Especially since Pastor Tim was preaching today and I really love his sermons.  I'll have to get a dvd copy of it on Tuesday.  I didn't even make it out of bed before Peter got back from church at a little after noon.  He helped me get downstairs and I just laid on the couch and eventually had some lunch.  By 3 or so I was starting to get some energy back.  But that didn't last too long haha.  I spent my day in my pjs and robe watching Lifetime movies on the couch haha.  Peter was a trooper and even cuddled up with me for the last movie about the life of Tim Binion.  It was pretty good, but my favorite part was just sharing a blanket with my hubby and having the living dark except for a lit candle and the movie playing.  :)

I can't believe it's back to the daily grind tomorrow.  Somehow I feel jipped of a whole weekend since I worked 6 hours on Saturday.  Oh well, I guess it all evens out with taking a half day off each week :P

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Happy Birthday Mom :)

Today is my mom's birthday. Coincidentally it's also Ashleigh's (dear friend) and Matt's (brother-in-law). I called my mom this morning on the way to work, with the intention of waking her up, haha. But to my surprise, she was already wide awake from having Bryson for the night and getting him off to school, etc. We chatted most of the way to work, but I had to hang up right before Glass Run Road since it's near work and drops calls because it has so cell phone signal.

We are going to visit my mom and family in Hollidaysburg next weekend so we'll celebrate her birthday with her then. We would've gone this weekend, but Peter has to work tomorrow morning for a few hours and then an out-of-town friend is coming in to visit with Jeff and so we'll go up and hang out there for a while. Maybe on Sunday we'll go to another park since it's rapidly getting colder and colder here and park time is quickly coming to an end. I'm a bit bummed because we didn't have a lot of very fall-ish weather. It seemed to go from like 80's to 50's with very little time in the 60's-70's range. There's even snow in the 5 day forecast here. Good thing we've brought out some blankets and Peter's changed out his winter and summer clothes!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Busy in the Kitchen

Another reason I really like fall is because I tend to spend more time in the kitchen. In the summer, it's more cold salads, grilled foods, etc to keep the a/c down and the house cool. When the cooler weather of fall arrives, before it's time to turn on the heat, it's a great time to bake and cook! At least in my opinion. :) Plus there are so many yummy things to make as fun "fall foods".

For instance, I baked Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies on Monday night while Peter and I watched "Definitely, Maybe". (The movie was pretty good, but not so great that I didn't mind having to keep pausing it to switch batches.) The cookies turned out delicious! Peter wasn't that much of a fan because he doesn't like pumpkin and spice flavors. I took this batch of cookies to Jerry as a (late) thank you for watching Cadi last month and then brought in the other half to work on Tuesday. They were gone in like an hour haha. I also kept a few at home for me of course! :)


Continuing with the yumminess of fall flavors, last night we had Baked Turkey Cutlets, Butternut Bowties, and Roasted/Pureed Cauliflower. Yum! :)


I got the cauliflower and butternut squash recipes a week or so ago while watching TV at home after one of Peter's several eye appointments. I took note of them because I knew I wanted to try them later. I gotta say they were quite tastey. :)

I also used up the rest of my few apples and made homemade applesauce last night. I think I'll use it tomorrow night and make a pork roast with applesauce. Sounds yummy, huh?

In other news, beyond the kitchen of our house, our roof is finally finished. I'm happy about that. Not too thrilled about them tearing up my yard and garden though as they "cleaned up". Peter's working out the details of how to rectify that situation though. :) I'm glad I have him because I can get fired up about things like that rather quickly and could chew the roofer out in no time. Peter is much more level headed and deals wonderfully in these kinds of situations. Just another reason God paired us up I guess :)

And besides that, we've just been working and attending weekly eye appts for Peter. His eye seems to be doing better, but we'll see whether or not he needs another needle procedure on Weds. And I'm afraid that the cold bug is nipping at my heels. For the past few days I've been feeling progressively more like a cold is coming. I've even popped an Advil Cold & Sinus on 2 different days. I've always had horrible allergies and am actually quite surprised that I've been able to fend off the cold for this long. Usually I'm sick by September. Making it more than halfway through October is quite the accomplishment for me. We've also gotten these air fresheners at work all over the place that I was highly allergic too so I'm afraid that has not helped the problem. Fortunately, yesterday I voiced that I couldn't take it anymore and the air fresheners are now gone. Each time they spritzed the fragrance I started hacking my lungs out and I had shortness of breath with difficulty breathing. As much fun as that was every 36 minutes (literally, it's one of those Air Wick things "every 9 18 or 36 minutes"), I just couldn't take it anymore.

So that's really all that's going on in our lives as of late. Hope everyone else is enjoying fall as much as we are :)

Sunday, October 19, 2008

More Fall Fun!

This weekend's weather was much more fall-like with semi-cloudy skies, warm sun, and a crisp breeze. I absolutely love fall weather! Since Peter's eye was feeling ok, we headed up north again on Saturday. This time our destinations were the Grove City outlets and Moraine State Park.


Us on our way to the outlets:


Our intention at the outlets was to look for a few Christmas presents that we had in mind. No such luck. On the plus side, I found some great brown pants at the Gap outlet for myself haha. As most girls do, it's hard to find pants that fit as you like and that you like the style of so when I find some, I get 'em. At $20, they are more than I usually spend, but for the reasons above, I still purchased them. That with $3 body mist was my big purchase of the day. Peter left the outlets empty handed. :( We did get a few small Christmas present items at the Kirkland's oulet though, so it wasn't a complete shut out present wise haha. Kirkland's is a fabulous store that much of my side of the family likes so it's easy to score gifts there. I even bought a small snowman for myself for $3. :)

After the outlets we headed over to Moraine State Park. We were so glad to pull up to this:

A beautiful empty park! Well, not completely empty. As we walked around, we saw very few people though. Which was a lot better than last weekend when we went to McConnell's Mills and it was jam-packed.

We walked right up to the water and just soaked in the sounds of nature and the warm fall sun for a while.


Here's my handsome hubby enjoying the beautiful day!


It was so peaceful and serene. We could've stayed here all day. Unfortunately it was already 4:00 or so by the time we arrived and the park closes at sunset, which is coming earlier and earlier these days.


I loved watching the sun reflect off of the slow moving water. This is a place you can get so lost in your thoughts and awe of how magnificent God is.


Lake Arthur is huuuuuge! Somewhere like 3200 acres? I don't know the exact size, but it's pretty big, trust me.


This picture doesn't capture the splendor of the trees, but it gives you an idea. Since we were there when the sun kept going behind the clouds, it was hard to full capture the beauty.


This one, however, turned out great!


We sat at these docks for a while just enjoying each other's company and God's beautiful creation. We even watched two dogs jump in and out of the water, seemingly having the time of their lives haha. It was fun to watch. :)


What a great fall day with the love of my life :)


Our view as we sat on the dock. We were even treated to watching a sailboat float by in the distance.


What a great day for sailing!


I thought this tree was kind of cute looking, but Peter called it "the ugly tree" haha.


I love fall and I love him so this was a great day for me!


Until now haha. Apparently I was unhappy that I sat on this table and got covered in gunk haha.


We used a timer here and got a great shot! Don't mind the picnic table at the bottom :P


I'm definitely giving my "Ok Peter" face here haha. Apparently I was laughing and in disbelief about something. What it was, I can't remember :)


This is one of my favorite pictures of the day. I took it while horsing around on this great tree haha.


My best friend :)


I wanted Peter to sit on the picnic table, but he didn't want to because he knew it was dirty. Unlike me in one of the previous pictures haha.


This is the tree we played around in for a while. It's such a pretty tree :)


And one of the little leaves from it haha.


I took this shot from the car as we were starting our trip out of the park. There's the sailboat again. Peter's never been to Moraine so he didn't realize how huge the lake was and what a fabulous and big park it is. We'll definitely be coming back again!


The lake is through those trees. Such a great little setting, don't ya think?


And here's a shot of the drive to the exit of the park. Such a great drive in/out of the parks up here!


The wind by the lake was actually pretty chilly today and since it was already late in the day, we only stayed in the park for like 2 hours. We both loved that it wasn't packed like last week and hope to make another trip up before winter. Don't know if we'll be able to or not, but we'd like to. And maybe even once in the winter to see the beautiful snow covered scenery :)

Monday, October 13, 2008

Columbus Day = No Work!

Today I had the day off-thank you Columbus!  Peter didn't though :(  Usually if I have a holiday, he just uses time and takes the day off with me, but since he was off quite a few days with his eye, we didn't see why he should really take another day since we hadn't planned anything.  So he went to work and I stayed home and played wifey.  :)  

Basically I cleaned the entire house while taking breaks to watch a few favorite weekday daytime shows that I never see and to chat online a bit.  It felt great to get the whole house cleaned.  I even polished our furniture.  My dad would be so proud :P

I also made a scrumptious baked chicken breast dinner with red roasted potatoes and green beans.  And I whipped up another batch of caramel apple oatmeal bars to use up some more apples.  Last year I used the majority of our apples to make apple butter, but didn't feel in the mood for it this year.  I think I'll use the rest of our apples to make some simple applesauce.  I had everything baking away in the oven and hit the shower before Peter came home.  

I got a real glimpse into what will hopefully be our future in a few years.  Me at home (with the kiddies) and keeping house and him working to provide.  We've been earnestly working towards this goal and God-willing, it'll happen someday.  Peter, being the dear husband that he is, even brought me home flowers!  They are so pretty with the mix of colors and quite autumny too.  I'm pretty simple in the flower dept. because I don't really like roses (making from working in the flower shop with them for so long?) and I love just a nice little mix of flowers.  

As you can see, our apple basket has downgraded to a bowl and the flowers Peter brought home are just beautiful :)


And a close-up:

We spent the evening together watching "You've Got Mail" on TV and crocheting and playing computer games.  A very good day off!  And now that means only 4 days til the weekend :P


Super Fun Weekend :)

This weekend was a spontaneous fun-filled weekend.  Originally, every weekend in October was booked for us visiting with family/friends, etc but that has drastically changed and we've gotten a few free weekends to ourselves.  We took advantage of our weekend and started it off Friday after work.  We went to dinner at Eat N Park, I know a little grandpa-like, but they had Clam Chowder soup which we both love and we split our favorite Chicken Portobello Mushroom Hoagie.  After dinner we walked around the Waterfront again.  It was so nice because it was getting dark and they had all the lights on the trees etc.  It's basically like white Christmas lights that they leave up year-round.  It set a very nice atmosphere :)  We even saw some newlyweds getting pictures by the fountain.  So sweet!  We also scored some sweet deals while shopping.  Peter got a nice heavy jacket and I got 2 pairs of jeans for $20.  I wore one of them out on Saturday and they are now my new favorites haha.  Upon arriving home, we turned out all the lights, cuddled up on the couch and watched a movie - "Fools Gold".  Ridiculous happenings in the movie, but a fun Friday night unwinding movie.  

Saturday morning we just lounged around at home for a bit in the morning.  Peter played a game or two of "Warcraft" and I crocheted some more of the scarf I'm making myself for this year.  In the afternoon, we headed north to good ol' Beaver County.  Peter met up with his friends Stuck and Barney and I went shopping!  I scored a cute skirt, two tops, and two shirts for my dad for less than $30 thanks to the clearance markdowns :)  After 2 hours, Barney, Peter and I went to The Wooden Indian for dinner.  Barney had never been there, but I've been going since we moved to NB in 3rd grade.  They even have much of the same staff there haha.  It's such a yummy place to eat.  I just love it!  After a nice time of chatting and catching up with Barney a bit, we split ways.  Peter dropped me off at Walmart to get a few groceries and he ran across the street to Circuit City.  Then we headed home to watch another movie.  Peter surprised me with renting 3 on Friday :)  This time we watched "21".  Very interesting to watch, but I think Peter would've preferred if I didn't keep pausing it to ask questions :P haha.  

Sunday we went to church and heard a great sermon from Pastor Tim continuing with the theme of prayer.  The main point that I liked was the point of praying with expectation.  And that it's actually respectful to God to be praying for "big" things because it acknowledges his mighty power and capability to answer those prayers.  So true!  Sometimes, I personally get bogged down with "smaller" prayers.  Though it's ok to pray for things like Peter's eye and work to go well etc, there are so many bigger issues out there to also pray about.  A good reminder and a good motivational sermon :)

We took this picture after church because we kinda matched.  We both must've been thinking about fall because we were in browns :)  Even though it looks like my sweater is black, it's actually brown, almost like the stripe on Peter's shirt so it's odd to look black here.  Oh well :P


After church, we came home and grabbed a bit to eat while waiting for a lady to come look at our hot tub.  We're trying to sell it to rip out that area and make more of a back yard.  The main problem is how to move it so we'll have to see.  She seemed interested though and said she was going to call around for moving help.  

Then we headed to McConnell's Mill!  We hiked around for a mile or so and then chatted at a picnic table for a bit.  The hike was a little intense since we're both out of shape and half of it was uphill haha.  Peter also taught me how to play frisbee!  I know, pathetic-but I've never played.  The entire afternoon was a very fun adventure! :)

The park was kind of crowded because it was a gorgeous fall day, but we had a lot of fun.  The trees were all changing and as we hiked we could hear the rustling of leaves under our feet.  Ahh, I love fall!!

Here are some of our favorite shots from our fun afternoon...



Part of the trail we walked down to see the old mill.

Of course we had to stop for a quick photo in the park :)  We had some lady take our picture, but for some reason no one understands "push halfway to focus and then push to take the picture"...so it didn't really take haha.  Oh well, Peter has gotten good at these self shots :)

It's so cool because you hike right under rocks and stuff.  Such a fun park!

Peter took this shot particularly to get the red tree in the distance.

Another shot from the trail:

The wagon outside the old mill:

These couple of pictures don't even capture the beauty of the park yesterday.





Us by the mill.  I think Peter was still in shock that this family had lifted there 2 young boys over the fence and walked them down to the water.  You're definitely not supposed to do this and the boys were not having fun.  Not sure why the parents did that?

A few shots from inside the mill:




More of the beautiful park...







This was our view from the picnic table we sat at:



These were probably the most beautiful trees in the park.  Doesn't this picture just scream fall?


And one last shot of us after the hike :)  I hate how my face gets all flushed haha

And the beautiful road exiting the park:

Then we headed home to grill hamburgers and hotdogs and watch the last movie rental - "The Promotion".  This was both of our least favorite of the three but still an ok movie.  I did my Sunday coupon clipping and crocheted more of my scarf while watching it, so to me it was more of a background movie.  Not one I really got into.  

We really did have a fabulous weekend hanging out together and doing random fun things.  We plan to go up to Moraine State Park next weekend to see the lake and changing leaves there.  It should be more seasonably cool next weekend as it hit 80 here this weekend.  A little too warm for fall for my liking haha.