Going Away Cakes

So I googled ""going away cake" to try to find some ideas of decorations for a cake for a party that we are having for 2 of my friends that are moving on to new jobs, and I had to share these ones that made me giggle . . .
















































These are funny, but I really am going to miss my buddies! :-(

It's Official!

Shane and I will see our 1st house that we had together for the last time next week.

We are still in the process of "selling" it, but we are moving all of our stuff out of it next week!

This is very bitter sweet for me . . . .

I mean. It was our first house together, and I loved the house. It was perfect for us. Just enough room, a huge fenced in back yard, a nice big kitchen, a roomy master bedroom with a master bathroom, a huge walk in closet, close to town and tons of stores . . . the only thing wrong with it was that the majority of our family & friends were too many miles away.

We put so much into the house. Added a brand new roof (done by ourselves and family members), added a deck (done by Shane and me . . but mostly Shane), added a closet (also done mostly by Shane), painted the garage floor with epoxy paint, re-painted mostly all of the rooms in the house (including the tearing down of tons of wallpaper), painted the entire outside of the house, updated light fixtures, did tons of landscaping, painted our shed, re-roofed the shed, took a head level soap dish out of our shower and put in decorative tiles. We thought we were doing such a great job. Bought a house as an investment, put tons of sweat and work into the house to update it and make it better, . . . then the housing market/banks stuck a knife in our backs (a couple of them actually . . and maybe even twisted them around a couple times . . I think they are still in there).

We lost way too much money on our house in just one year (too much to even say . . . including not only the value of the house, but all the money we spent on the improvements)! It's totally depressing. And we are still trying to get help to sell it, because we cannot even afford to sell it. We owe so much more on our loans than what the house is worth now. And it's so unfair, because it's nothing we did. It seriously makes me cry.

We put our hearts into that house to make it the best, and it totally backfired in our face.

So . . . 1st house we ever had . . . I love you. I really do. So many memories, so much work.

Banks/economy . . whoever the craps fault it is for this mess . . . I despise you. You have ruined all the work we did, all the time we put in, all the money we spent. The next several years of our lives will be difficult for us (financially/homey) because of you, and there is nothing we can do about that. . . .

I mean don't get me wrong, we didn't HAVE to sell our house, but to us the most important thing is our family and friends, so we needed to move back to Erie. We knew we were going to have some issues with our house, we just never realized it would be to this magnitude! To us, our families and friends are more important than material objects, . . .obviously houses and money are still important . . b/c it sucks that we are losing so much, but we have gained so much more by moving back home.

Moving All Over!

Yay!! Internet is back!! :-)

Well, we moved into Shane's dad's house this past weekend. He lives with his fiancee in Millcreek, and was nice enough to let us stay in his house in Edinboro for a while!

It is definitely a treck to work every day . . . it takes me about 30 mins - 1 hour to get to work (depending on weather/road conditions/etc).

Of course, the first day to work from Edinboro, we had to have a MAJOR snow storm . . . I've always been nervous driving in snow, and was scared out of my mind . . . country roads don't really get the attention that main roads do . . .

I made the mistake of going on a road that doesn't get traveled very often . . . I would've been ok if I could've stayed in the middle of the road, but of course . . . . a gigantic plow truck comes barreling down the opposite side . . . and so I had to get over as much as I could . . . aka . . . I had to go into about 2 feet of snow (I don't have 4 wheel drive and I don't have snow tires . . and the tires I do have . . suck.) . . . so I am freaking out b/c I'm like . . . there is NO WAY I'm getting out of this . . . so the plow truck goes by (barely squeaking past me) and I try to go again . . . no luck. So then I start to panic, and back up a little . . . go forward a little . . . back up a little . . . forward a little . . . no luck . . . do it again . . start sliding around . . . then Shane calls and says "how's it going?!" . . to which I reply . . "baber!!! I'm stuckkkkkkkkkkkk!!! :-( " . . . so I was very scared. Very stuck. So I kept putting it in drive . . reverse. . . drive. . . reverse. . .drive . . . and finally God helped me out! I was soooooooooo thankful!! And thank goodness, no other cars came down that road, so I just drove on the left side the rest of the way.

But overall, it has been very nice here. I LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE the country!!! Shane's dad owns 10 acres, and it is one of the most beautiful things to see. I do love driving through the country on my way to work and back. Everything is just so beautiful . . . it sounds corny. .. but I just feel more in touch with nature and truly appreciate it more. The things that God makes just amaze me.

Shane has already gone snowmobiling in the backyard, and we have taken Behren out for several "run/play sessions" in the back yard. I cannot wait until it gets warm again (I know . . . I have a while) . . so we can just sit out on the back deck and take it all in. Just relax. You can see so many more stars at night, and it is just beautiful.

(yes that is a golf ball in the dishwasher. . . we found it in there when we opened it the first time . . gary's response . . "it needed cleaned")

We have made some minor improvements to the house so far (with Shane's dad's approval of course). We cleaned it up a bit (Shane's dad thought it was clean. . .which it was to an extent, but sometimes I can be a neat freak . . .). We also updated the sink in the bathroom with a new faucet (the old one was too close to the sink so you couldn't get your hands under it very well) . . soooo happy with the new one!! It looks great! Shane is also making us some coat rack thingies for our door to the back yard and the door from the garage. We moved the furniture around a bit, and I think I might make Shane paint the bedroom with me (Sorry Shane . . . Shane hates to paint) . . . right now it's white, but I want to paint it a khaki color like our old bedroom . . it's just so much more cozy!! I will probably buy some pictures/mirrors/plants/etc. . . just to make it more a "home". Warm it up a bit!

Nina likes the new sink too!

Well . . .other than that . . I have been working. By the time I get home and eat, it's time to sleep! . . . and then do it all over again . . . I'll try to keep you up to date!