After moving here and going to most of the tourist locations, there's been one place we've wanted to go but we needed kids for.... the Children's Museum. So when the fam came to town not to long ago, which included my cousin and her two kids, we decided what a perfect time to go! So off we went.
It was a very cool place and everyone had a lot of fun! This was a place for the kids... but I think the adults had more fun! haha

Of course the kids had some fun too....

We all had a lot of fun. I think its definatly a place we'll go to again esp when the kids are a little bit older.

With the holiday's coming and the cold weather starting, it also means its time for all the sickness to come around... and unfortunately its already started around here.
I had high hopes this year that it wouldn't start till at least after Thanksgiving... but no. We haven't even made it to Halloween and we're already sick. Although I do have to say, we both seemed to get sick at the same time so at least we should both be done being sick around the same time. Its always the worst when one of us is sick for a week or so and then the other one gets sick and the whole thing drags out for a couple weeks.
Jason works in retail... so unfortunately he has to deal with the public every day, and so its no surprise that he got sick. I have a feeling this year may be worse than other years just for that reason. We definitely have to figure out how he can avoid getting every cold that walks into that store! I on the other hand.... shouldn't get sick. I work in an office and what should happen is that when someone is sick you stay home for a few days to get better... but unfortunately that doesn't happen and once 1 person gets sick then it sort of goes through the whole department.
So this week we are sick... and we're hoping that we can quickly get over this so that we can enjoy our weekend with our out of town guests visiting.

As gas prices went up and to fill our gas tank easily went over 50 bucks, going to the gas station was not fun at all. Thankfully for us, we were able to very easily change our lifestyle and even with having a gas-guzzling SUV we were able to go through 1 month with only filling up the tank once. The first time that happened was in August and it was the best. And what made it even better was the fact that we didn't have to try all that hard to not drive. We just made a conscious effort to stop wasting trips to the store or to and from work. That was the biggest one, stop wasting trips to and from work when we had another mode of transportation to and from work and school. Once we started actually thinking about how much gas was wasted on trips that weren't needed and we cut those out, it was fairly easy to cut back on driving so that we only had to fill our gas tank once a month.
Another great thing is our grocery store... Giant Eagle. We earn fuel perks... basically every $50 you spend you get 10 cents off a gallon of gas. Well those can really add up and make a difference when you go buy gas. Which was the case this past weekend. We had accumulated 50 cents off per gallon of gas... so with the price of gas going down to $2.79 and then having 50 cents off, we only paid $2.29 per gallon. We were able to fill up and it only cost us 30 bucks! You know how long its been since 30 bucks has filled our gas tank??? And I mean it filled it, we had no gas in the car.
So that was one of our highlights of the weekend. We can only hope that the gas prices continue to go down... and now with having a car with better gas mileage its going to get even farther between fill ups!

When people rent they tend to not hand things or decorate or in general do things that would normally make your house your home. In our first apartment we hung a few things, but didn't do a whole lot. The last apartment, while not much was hung, I think we did a little bit better. And our current apartment, well I think we're doing pretty good at turning it into our home. I think it does help that we know we'll be here for a while, at least 2 years, if not 3. So its easier to put a little work into it knowing you can enjoy it for some period of time.
Not to long ago my grandparents came down and help us with the place. They helped us with so many things.... many things we never would have been able to do or get around to doing. It was great.
The closet in the office is awfully small... actually its so small that its not deep enough to really hang a hanger in there, so that seemed like wasted space. We ended up hanging shelves in there and created so much more storage! Its great!

In the kitchen we don't have a lot of space and so one space saving idea was to hang a spice rack so that all our spices didn't take up a whole shelf. Not only did that get hung, but a cabinet that used to be in our bathroom was hung above the stove for some of the cooking basics, like oil and cooking spray.

Many other little jobs were done also. Some of those included hanging the railing in the front stairway, hanging our initial letters above the fireplace, hanging the blinds in the dining room and hanging our new mailbox.
It was great to get all that done. My favorite thing that was done was Gpa made us a bench and shelf (just like the one from Pottery Barn!) for our entry way. I LOVE it! And then Gma made a cushion to put on it and 2 small pillows.

Of course we also had a great time just hanging out with Gma and Gpa. We were able to take them to some of our favorite places and show them around a little bit. We also played a little Wii... which is always fun!

Full House
Well, this past weekend we had a house full of family. With my family located all over the place, its harder for everyone to get together. When Jason and I moved to the Pittsburgh area, it turns out that we're are a good halfway point between the MI family and the VA family. After moving into our much bigger apartment and now having the room for everyone, I think its becoming a new place for everyone to gather.... which we LOVE. In total there were 10 adults and 2 kids in our apartment this weekend and it never felt overly crowded, which was really nice.
Almost everyone came in Thursday night. I took Friday off to make for a nice 3 day weekend. For the most part, everyone just hung out most of the time. We did go out to Deluca's for breakfast on Friday and went to a few shops on the way back. Saturday some of us went to the Children's Museum which was also a lot of fun.
This past weekend was a bit of a trial run for thanksgiving. Again we'll have a house full of people and we are really looking forward to it.
Below are some pics from the weekend... stay tuned for more!

Had you asked me about a month ago what our next car would be I probably would have told you it would be an Escape... and if not an Escape, at least another SUV or Crossover. I didn't really think I'd find a car that I felt comfortable driving.

After yet another problem with the Escape and a pretty high estimated repair bill, we decided it was time to give it up. As much as we loved owning it and not having to make payments, we were essentially paying just as much repairing it every other month as we would have been spending to have a new car with payments. So after much debate we decided to start looking at new vehicles.

After looking around, lots of test driving and much debate, we found a car that we both liked. So last Saturday we went in and bought a car! We picked up the car on Monday and then finalized the paperwork on Friday. We ended up with a new 2008 Hyundai Elantra.

Our new car and the salesman

Learning how to operate our power sunroof!!!

Leaving with our new car!