Happy 2nd Birthday Josh!

Yea! Happy 2nd birthday to my little man Josh!

It was a pretty typical day for the birthday boy. We got up and got ready for work/daycare. Scott stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way to daycare and picked up a dozen plain glazed donuts for Josh's class at the suggestion of one of the daycare staff - this peanut allergy stuff has gotten so worrysome that you can't even send store-bought cupcakes to daycare because they were produced on shared equipment.
Anyway, we didn't do a special dinner tonight because it was Thursday so I think we'll go out tomorrow night. I wish the Chuck E Cheese here was closer to the house (it's 30-40 minutes away) so we may just go somewhere to get pizza - it's Lent which means no meat on Fridays for the next month and a half for us :(

Feliz Cumpleanos (Happy Birthday in Spanish)

Just a few pictures from Josh's birthday party today. He's really into Dora the Explorer these days but I couldn't deal with throwing him a "girly" party so I made it a Dora/Diego party.









Hard to believe that my little boy is turning 2 on Thursday. We had lots of family in town to celebrate with us - Grandma & Grandpa (my parents), Nana & Papa (Scott's parents) and Uncle Chris even flew in from SoFla! It was great to have all of them here, even if it was just for a few days. And yes, if you noticed, Josh has a mark in between his eyebrows. In typical Josh fashion, he accidentally ran into the corner of a table earlier today.

Dave is coming! Dave is coming!

If you have to ask "Dave who?" then you really don't know me all that well...

The Dave Matthews Band, my absolute favorite, released their summer tour dates yesterday. I didn't know they were definitely touring this summer so when Scott told me that he saw dates posted on the internet (because he checks various pages for the bands he likes) I ran as fast as I could to the computer to see what they were. What an awesome tour this is going to be! Tons of dates, the usual stops and they also added shows in cities they haven't played in years - including Syracuse, NY.

I am ECSTATIC to report that they are not only stopping here in the Pittsburgh area, but doing TWO shows, Friday June 19 & Saturday June 20. I cannot wait to go to these shows!!! Luckily I am a member of the fanclub (the Warehouse) so I get to log on tonight and request my allotment of 4 tickets for each show tonight before the general sale starts next month.

I do have to admit that this tour is bittersweet for me. For the first time in 6 years I don't think I'll be making the shows in West Palm Beach because of our move to PA. As much as Dawn and I would love to do that run again and have another great "girls weekend" (although we will never be able to top last year) it doesn't look like it's going to happen. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my girl makes it up here for the Pitt shows! I need my "Two Step" partner!!!

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks

Not to call Scott a "dog", just a figure of speech :)

For the second year in a row Scott has done a good job for Valentine's Day. He has never been big on giving me flowers, especially sending me them, but for the second year in a row I got a dozen roses delivered to me. Last year it was to the office and this year we had them delivered here to the house.

I'm girly in that way... I LOVE getting flowers, especially on Valentine's Day. So, on top of the chocolates, gift certificate to a spa, and dinner out on Friday night, I got my flowers. What a good hubby. :)

Working Girl

No, not THAT kind of working girl (giggle, giggle).
I am happy to report that I am back to work, my first non-PSS job in 7.5 years! Its a contract/temp job that I landed through Kforce Professional Staffing. I am working as a "consultant" for a CPA firm based in Connecticut that is doing an audit for a company here in Pittsburgh. The assignment is for 4-6 weeks which conveniently takes me to April 1st.
The name of the company is Michael Baker Jr, Inc (http://www.mbakercorp.com/). They are an engineering firm that builds roads, does environmental work, etc. I am assisting on an audit of all the projects they have done for the New Jersey Department of Transportation over the last 7 years. Its mostly pulling invoices and entering data into a spreadsheet. Honestly, it's ridiculously easy work for me and for what they're paying me but I'M NOT COMPLAINING!
I've been on the job for 2 days now and am quite content. My boss is really nice and laid-back, the ladies in the office are nice to me (one even gave me a GIANT chocolate-covered strawberry today - yummy!) and I have my own quiet cube to do my work.
So far I only have one complaint - the drive to the office SUCKS! It may only be 13 miles but it takes roughly 32 minutes because I have to go slow (15-25 mph) up and down and around the sides of the mountains. Two lane roads, no shoulders, hundred feet drops on either side and blind curves and turns. Pray for me that I don't have to drive it in the snow and ice or in the dark!
I am extremely grateful to have a job to go to and to have a source of income in today's economy. Being out of work for the last 3 months has taken a toll on me, and Scott, and our bank accounts. I continue to look for permanent work and am not-so-secretly hoping that PSS hires me back as an analyst and allows me to work from our Pittsburgh branch.

A place to call home

Here are a few pics of our rental house here in Cranberry Township (Pittsburgh suburb).

It is a 3 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom two story house with a two car garage and small basement (that we quickly filled up with storage stuff).
I'm still in the process of decorating but as you can see I'm still doing red accents in the living room, a wine theme in the kitchen and dining room and blue in the master bedroom.

No pics of Josh's room yet... we're doing that up with lots of Boston Red Sox stuff (after we paint over the dragonflies on the walls).

Christmas pictures

Here are a few of the pictures we had taken at Christmas

Whew, what a week!

The move is done and the boxes are being unpacked, a task that seems like it will take forever. The move did NOT go as smoothly as I thought it would. Here are the highlights of all the "fun" we had:

1. When we arrived at the house in Pittsburgh we found that the driveway was the equivalent of an ice-skating rink... who knows the last time the previous tenant shoveled! Luckily no one fell and injured themselves and all the furniture made it in the house with very little damage (just some scratches on Josh's crib).
2. The second trip on Monday took way longer than I could have imagined. We left Pittsburgh at 7:30am and did not pull back in until 11pm! Scott asked for me to hire more moving help but I refused and regretted it once we were at the old house and loading the truck by ourselves.
3. Scott's Volkswagon did not fit on the car transport - the wheel base was too narrow. I should have known better since that year, make & model was not an option on Budget's website for the vehicle to be towed. So, with all kinds of stuff packed in it, we had to leave the VW in the garage in Cleveland. (Scott and his dad went back yesterday to get it and he was able to drive it here to Pittsburgh, with expired FL plates and no heat, and it made it fine).
4. Even though we weren't going to tow the VW we still had to deal with the car transport. We hooked it up to the truck but must have done it wrong because once Scott pulled onto the road it starting fishtailing. Scott stopped and the damn thing slid underneath the Budget truck, breaking the crank mechanism on the transport. Luckily this happened on our old street in front of a guy that knew a thing or two about hitches and he was able to help us get it attached correctly to the truck. After a phone call to Budget we drove to the Cleveland location and dropped it off. Thank God Scott got the insurance on this rental - we didn't have to pay anything for the damage.
5. Along with not shoveling, the previous tenant also didn't clean the house so we had to have maids come out to clean the kitchen and bathrooms and carpet cleaners to do the rugs (all paid for by our landlords). I'm glad they came but what a pain to have to work around them for 2 days.
6. It took the DirecTV guy hours to hook up the satellite and 3 receivers and after all that wasn't able to get us the local channels. I had to call customer service and after almost an hour of trying different things they were able to fix it.
7. It took the phone/cable internet guy 3 hours to hook those utilities up. There is only one jack in the guest room/office and that was already hooked up to DirecTV so we decided to run a line from Josh's room since he won't need tv or internet in there. After testing the lines and doing God-knows-what in the attic the tech said that the line was bad to that room. Ugh! We needed the internet more than the tv in the office so we had him disconnect the DirecTV connection to the room. Sorry Dad, no tv in the guest room :(
8. The weather did not cooperate and we had a nasty ice storm come through mid-week. Scott kept telling me my tires were worn down but I didn't want to believe it - the car doesn't even have 40,000 miles yet! Well, I became a believer on Wednesday when we tried to take Josh to daycare and my tires kept spinning and we could barely make it up hills (we live on a sloping street) and Scott had to get out of the car and push from behind a couple of times. We went to Costco on Friday and got me 4 new Michelin tires and I could tell the difference immediately.

Well, that's all I can, or want, to remember for now. We really like this house and feel that it is much more "us" than the last place. I'll post pictures once I have more stuff unpacked and organized. So far the only thing I don't like is the shower in the master bathroom - its very cramped, the water pressure sucks and the dial is very tempermental when it comes to temperature. I'm hoping my dad can switch out the head for us when they come back to visit and we'll see if that makes me happier.