Yesterday I posted about our mini-vaca to Hershey, PA and mentioned that I did some damage at the antique store. Well my amazing parents were about ready to just leave me in Hershey (I probably could last a couple days there on the chocolate alone but I am pretty sure my Hubby and the boys would have missed me and I would have missed them too!) Saturday when we visited the store the first time I found this really nice old sled and knew immediately that I was going to buy it when we returned. We actually joked around Sunday morning that we were going to have to rearrange the trunk.
When we returned to the store I started wandering around the store to fully take it in.
Of course I spotted some old blue Mason jars but decided not buy any.
There were also lots of old crate boxes and even some that had metal dividers for milk bottles.
I was going to buy one of them but then I headed downstairs where the rest of the basement was also filled with antiques. It was Heaven on Earth for this girl!
Cool little egg scale
and old tins and bottles
The sled I had my eye on was still there so I asked the lady to put it behind the counter upstairs and she gave me a number so when I was ready to leave I could get it.
My Dad and I ended up finding each other in the store (not a good thing, we both can do major damage when it comes to this kind of stuff!) A couple years ago we had been looking at antique trunks and refurbishing them. My Dad has one that he has in the hay loft in his barn and he even jokes that he is surprised that I haven't snatched it yet. When I saw this we looked at the tag and even had to confirm with someone working there that we were really seeing what thought....$38.00
All I needed was his confirmation that we would find a way to make it fit for the ride home, and that I got!
I gave the guy my number and we wandered around the store some more and tried to convince my Mom that we were not joking about buying this trunk.
She didn't believe me until we went to check out and she realized I really was buying the trunk...
and the sled.
The only problem was that we realized it was not going to fit in our trunk the way we thought.
After a trip to Wal-Mart to get some blankets and tarp straps we were ready to go..
Everything fit and we were on the road headed on our way home singing a lovely tune along the way to the tune of My Humps, mainly the part "All this junk inside our trunk.."
We made it home with no rear-view mirror visibility and the trunk still secure.
Monday I rearranged our living room and found a spot for it.
For now we are going to be storing all our blankets in it since I have so many and typically they are just laying all over the couch in our bedroom.
I love the rustic-ness it adds to our living room.
As for the sled I had been pinning lots of Christmas pins on Pinterest and found some really cute ideas to decorate our front porch for Christmas.
We had so much fun this weekend going to Hershey, PA for a little family get away.
All the people there were super friendly, they do not lie when they say it is the "Sweetest Place on Earth!"
We were in a Target and my Mom sneezed and some lady that worked there came from like 3 aisles away and said "I know its late but bless you!"
Around here no one would even think to say that to someone.
Another time we were sightseeing around Hershey before the park opened and we were driving around the Hershey Resort (being nosey) and this guy that worked there was helping do a segway tour and he came over to us and asked if we were lost and my Dad told him that we were just taking a look at a everything before the park opened at 12 (normally it is 10:00) and he had us follow him to go see what time it actually opened up at the main part of the Resort. Which was so nice of him!
We ended up staying at a Sleep Inn and it was really nice.
Anthony and I stayed at a Fairfield Inn on our honeymoon and this Sleep Inn was very nice and close in comparison to the Fairfield. The only negative was that there was not a hot tub and I was really looking forward to a hot tub but the free breakfast was amazing! They had everything you could think of.. fruit, cereals, make your own pancakes, pastries, sausage and eggs.
Saturday morning after we got all dressed for the day, we had to dress super warm because we were eventually going to end up at the park riding roller coasters and walking around all day, we made a pit stop at the Target and went to check out the town of Hershey.
As we drove into Hershey the asphalt on the road seriously changed to a brown color and all the lamp posts had big Hershey kisses on them. There was so much detail in the most simple places.
Plus there was chocolate everywhere!!! I was in heaven!
We ended up at an antique store, I love checking out antique stores in other towns because I have seen the majority of what is our local stores and their prices are sometimes a little too over priced.
The really cool thing about this place was that it used to be the original breeding barn for the Hershey cows.
We hadn't really thought about it but to have chocolate you need milk!!
After the antique store we headed to the amusement park for the day. I do not have very many pictures since we were busy having fun riding rides. I never thought I would have said this but I liked the park more than Cedar Point right here in Ohio. There was something about the way it was laid out and there were big roller coasters right beside the smaller kids rides so that families could take advantage of being in the same area and not have to split up. It was also much less commercialized and had more of a welcoming feel to it, remember what I said about the people outside the park, well the people inside were just as sweet and friendly as the others.
Miss Molly met the height requirement to ride a handful of the roller coasters and she went on her first one with my Dad and Uncle (her Dad). My Dad and Molly sat in the front seat on this wooden roller coaster that was pretty intense for her first ride and luckily my Dad brought his GoPro and recorded her reaction.
It is priceless!!
The competition started later in the evening so our family took a break from the park and went back to our hotel to change and get our Country on lol and then we headed back to watch the competition.
Each competitior was allowed to perform for 7 minutes, which allowed for two songs. Everyone was very talented and Doublecut really brought down the house pavilion. Unfortunately the judges thought differently but that doesn't matter because they are so talented and have much bigger things to go forward in the futures of their band. Their performance was amazing and I don't think I have ever seen them have so much fun playing their music. Here is a video from their turn on stage (from their youtube channel)
We had an hour or so to go ride some rides while we were waiting on the results so we took advantage of riding some rides in the dark.
The park closes at 10:00 but if you go you must take advantage of going to Chocolate World. It is basically connected to the park. It was within walking distance by less than half a mile and it is opened until 11:00.
The whole inside if full of every candy that is made by Hershey along with a little history lesson. For free you can go on this ride which kind of reminded me of the teacup ride at Disney (less annoying though) and you get to learn about how the different candies are made and about Milton Hershey himself.
On Sunday we ate breakfast, packed up our stuff and hit the road but not with one more stop at the antique store again since we were rushed the first time we went to the store. I ended up making two big purchases and our trip home might have looked a little like this...
I will post more on that tomorrow
It was quite the adventure!
Since it cost $15+ to drive on the turnpike we decided to avoid it and take the scenic route home and drove through the mountains. It was very much worth the extra miles when we got to enjoy views like this for our Sunday drive!
It turned out to be a sweet mini-vaca to the "Sweetest Place on Earth!"
I worked through my lunch because I was super busy
Got stuck in the slow lane at the bank
Maple Avenue traffic is just horrendous, come on Zanesville is there really one more road project you think you need to get started before finishing another.
Starting rearranging the living room...
Our couch is a huge sectional, and I was by myself, pulled my back
My temporary pallet gallery wall fell over on top of me breaking three huge picture frames
Plus all the time it took to figure out the arrangement, make sure everything was level...down the drain
Get it all situated plug in our tv, which is from the 80s but it was furnished with our house, had it on for a minute and it blew up!
Thought it was the fuse but Hubby came come and confirmed it was in deed the tv
Good thing Christmas is two months away
Didn't get my vacation post done from our trip to Hershey, PA this weekend.
Just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day....I just want to move to Australia.
But as Mom says there are even bad days in Australia.
Tomorrow is a new day, I will post all about our fun weekend at the Sweetest place on Earth, go to the store to get replacement glass for my frames, and take the short cut home!
First off we all know and have a mutual feeling that Mondays are not the greatest day of the week. So for me to get on here on Monday and post about my whole weekend of fun it is just nearly impossible.
Any usually Tuesday isn't looking too good for me either..
So my weekend wrap up posts usually end up getting posted on Wednesday.
But hey this here is my blog, my rules
and I am not going to lie, posting about my past weekend festivities usually makes my Wednesdays that much better because we are halfway through the work week and I kinda sorta enjoy it.
End Confession.
On top of working Friday (which rarely happens) I also got in a 4 mile run and it is starting to look so pretty at the trail where I run.
My runs have been getting better too! Every time I go I have improved my time and am feeling much more comfortable running. I am finally enjoying it!
This weekend I had intentions of going to the Circleville Pumpkin Show with Mom and Dad but it ended up raining all day on Saturday and we didn't want to drive an hour to get there just to walk around in the cold rain so instead I went out to their house and enjoyed the sweet comforts of going home. They had a fire in the fireplace, the cat was so excited to see me and laid on my lap the whole time I was there and more importantly the Ohio State game was going on.
Perfect rainy day!
On Friday I also mentioned that I was hoping to get decorating for Fall/Thanksgiving and I decided that we are not buying any pumpkins this year because I don't really want to spend money on them with Christmas coming so fast and we are on a newlywed budget slash Hubby is a full time college student. So I decided I would tackle a Pinterest Pin and make some of these wood stump pumpkins. It was super easy and I am so happy with how they turned out & hey I can use them next year. I ended up making those Sunday morning along with finally painting our front porch.
This is a picture from when we drove by the house for the first time.
I had posted it back here when I announced that we found a place to live
The pillars on the front porch were one of my biggest pet peeves at the time.
Not real sure why they were painted half way up light blue then the rest white.
Well this weekend I finally had had enough of them and in the middle of decorating for fall I realized I needed to get them painted because soon enough it is going to be winter and I would be wanting to decorate for Christmas and lets just face it...those pillars would take away from anything I would do to make it look pretty for the holiday.
Don't the pillars look so much better?!
We still need to power wash the house before winter sets in and burn put away the wicker furniture.
I am seriously thinking about putting a Christmas tree on our front porch because I think it is going to look very plain and empty without the furniture.
Speaking of Christmas...
I ran into Odd Lots to see if they had any Fall decorations on sale and of course they also have Christmas stuff out and I had to take a little gand around and look at what they had.
I am thinking about doing a little nature/hunting tree in our kitchen this year and thought these owls were really cute! But I did not buy them because they were $12 and I think I can find much cuter ones to spend my money on.
Well that was my uneventful but productive weekend.
I hope your work week is going good and Happy Hump Day
So this upcoming weekend our family is going to Hershey, Pennsylvania
It has kind of been a last minute plan and unfortunately Anthony isn't able to get the weekend off but he didn't want me to miss out on going (I am so lucky to be married to this man!).
What initiated the idea is that my cousin, Daniel, is the singer in this local country music band called Doublecut. Around here they are a big deal! They have been singing together for years and are all around my age (20s-30s) Last year for Halloween they had a fundraiser Halloween Costume Party to help raise money for them to go to Nashville and make a cd! The party was awesome and they did go to Nashville and earlier this year they started selling their album. You can also buy it on iTunes, the album is called Thank-You and like I said they are called Doublecut and are really really awesome! you should buy their cd!! Well this summer they competed in a music competition and they have since advanced through two different stages of the competition (local and state) and now they are heading to like a regional which is being hosted at Hershey Park in Hershey, PA. The next step after this is the finals so we are going to go with them along with a bunch of other fans to support and cheer them on! We are turning it into a nice little family get away and my Aunt & Uncle are taking their kids too. Since the competition is held at Hershey Park all we have to do is pay for admission to the park and we can go to the competition plus enjoy the amusement park. My brother, Jonathan, is going to along with my parents so it is going to be like a little family trip just like before we had our significant others and I am kind of really excited!
This song "Thank You" is their cover and has been playing on our local radio stations.
If you want to hear some more of their songs you can also hear them on youtube Doublecut Youtube Channel
Anyways we are planning on staying Friday and Saturday night.
We have discounted tickets to the amusement park for Friday night since we are planning on going on Saturday too. Have any of you been to Hershey, PA before or maybe you are even from the area, if so do you have any recommendations? restaurants that we need to hit up or other touristy activities to check out? I am really excited to get out of Ohio for a little weekend vaca and see someplace new. Friday just cannot come soon enough!
typically my weekends start on Thursdays when I get off work but since the owners of the place I work at are on vacation in Florida and we had a busy schedule at the office I willingly offered to come in for the day. And boy am I glad I did because we had no down time and were super busy plus I can use a couple extra hours on my timesheet. It also made me get my day started bright and early instead of sleeping in and not getting anything productive done for the day.
We don't have any super duper plans for this weekend other than Anthony is hopefully going load my car up and bring it to our house so he can finish working on it. The dam thing hasn't started since two days before we got married and even after taking the motor out & doing whatever they thought needed done it still will not start! So we are still a one vehicle household (well Anthony drives his bike on days that its not raining) and the time is limited because we are halfway through October and Ohio's unpredictable weather it could start snowing anytime soon.
Speaking of snow I have been getting really excited about decorating for our first Christmas in our house together. We haven't really decorated much for Fall or Thanksgiving yet and I don't know if we are going to because we are on a tight budget this month and next and I don't know if I want to justify spending money on any pumpkins. Who knows though, I might do it anyways, we'll see! About the only thing I have done is make the burlap wreath I made for our entry patio and another one to hang on our camper door at our river lot. All of our Christmas decorations are still at Mom & Dad's house because last year when Anthony lived in their basement I decorated down there with some of our decorations then after Christmas I did a lot of shopping and got decorations on clearance. Since it was so long ago I can't really remember what we have so I have been contemplating going out to get our stuff but Anthony said he doesn't want to see it yet. I guess we do still have two more Holidays to get through before the Christmas season starts but this week I just couldn't help myself and I ordered a custom ornament for our first Christmas together.
How cute is that!?!!!
I am so excited to get it but since you send in your picture and it is a custom Etsy order it is going to take a couple weeks so I am glad I ordered it so early.
I ended up ordering it (and another one for some friends that are getting married in November) from Bert's Clay Creations etsy store.
Please keep in mind that if you are wanting to order a custom one from her for a Christmas gift or just because then you need to put the order in before October 20th because she has had such a demand for these. I cannot wait to see what ours looks like!!!
Geez Louise I cannot believe we have already been married for four months!
that is 121 days people.
Of course that is just a mere chapter of the 97 months (2971 days)
CONFESSION: I seriously have a countdown for everything on my phone. I can't help it, I enjoy counting down for things and looking forward to milestones, even if they are just the little things.
Anyways back to be married for 4 months...
I thought I would do a little run down of what I have learned about being married
Of course not everyone is the same, some people might have sailed through the first year of marriage with calm waters, easy breezy while others might have taken front seat of the Struggle Bus. SO this is just our interpretation of what the first 4 months of marriage has been like...
Groceries are expensive! when we got home from our honeymoon we came home to a house that we had not lived in before and we decided to not stock the fridge before hand because well we did not have time and we didn't want anything to go bad while we were gone. After returning our rental car and my Mom dropping the dogs off at their new house we decided to do our first grocery shopping trip. Take note: you need to make a list for any shopping that you are going to do! We did not even think about making a list which led to many trips back to the store in our first week in our house. We checked out at our 1st trip (using no coupons, buying the essentials & taking advantages of sales) swipping our trusty debit card for $471!!!! That Sunday we went to Walmart to get some stragglers, a shower head (we didn't realize our shower had no fixture) and a Brita Water Pitcher and filter because we now have city water and there are large amounts of chlorine in the water oh and some pillows (somehow the pillows I had on my bed at my parents didn't make the move so for the first night we shared one pillow. Which was not bad since we were sleeping as close to each other as possible anyways (; ) We checked out on this trip with cash and giftcards that were wedding gifts at $289 and some change!!!During that week we made a couple other trips for little things here and there but holey moley every time I go grocery shopping I end up spending at least $100 no matter what I have to get.
Baby Time. Seriously every conversation that I have with my best friend she ends up pestering me about when we are going to have a baby. Any time I opt to not have an adult beverage when we are out someone thinks I might be expecting. Every pin I pin on my Pinterest board labeled "Small Fry" someone has to ask me "do you need to tell me something" NEWS FLASH Friends and Family we are not pregnant or are we planning to in the next year possibly even the next two years. If God blesses us with a baby before we plan on having one we will be beyond happy, excited and of course spreading the news. But hey I am not going to announce to you that we are expecting via Pinterest boards or even give you any guess before we tell our parents and other important people. So to all soon to be newlyweds once you get married do not be surprised when everyone starts making bets of when you are going to have a baby.
Pinterest is sometimes the devil! Don't get me wrong it comes in very handy but it typically becomes very frustrating. Everyone's food looks perfect, their homes exceed our newlywed budget like times ten, and all the fashion posts have now run me out of closet space.
Waking Up Beside Your Best Friend is the most amazing feeling ever! Some mornings I get extremely irritated when Anthony wakes up before me and starts picking at me to wake up with him but honestly it always puts a smile on my face. We didn't live together before we got married so after dating for 7.5 years being together is one of the best things ever and I love it!
This weekend we went to my husband's side of the family annual fall cookout
I have been going to this for 5 years now and it is always so much fun
Anthony's side of the family only sees each other like 4-5 times a year
if everyone even makes it compared to my family who sees each other that many times a month sometimes even twice that amount. So getting to see everyone is always a treat plus Anthony's cousin Brian came home after a year being gone serving our Country overseas.
At these get togethers we always end up taking our guns and we end up shooting clays and having lots of fun plus there is always ssssooooo much food!
I ended up making a big batch of macaroni and cheese that I got the recipe from my Aunt Lori.
I am slightly obsessed with this macncheese and it is the reason of my 10 lb gain since we got married because I was making it every week because it was so easy and even tasted even better the second, third and even fourth time around.
Sunday I decorated our kitchen for the season change
and I need some more decorations because it is just not looking Fall enough to me
but next weekend we are going to go to a pumpkin patch so that should top off the decorating!
I also ended up making bread for the first time...I made banana bread and I didn't really like it but Anthony said he kinda did and it wasn't bad for my first time.
Oh and Friday we went to Lowe's and looked at some lights.
I LOVE looking at outdoor lights and making wishlists of what I want on our future home.
We also bought a venus fly trap because since it has cooled down tremendously we have our windows opened to air out the house before it has to be shut up for Winter.
Last week I also started going back to the trail to go running.
Since I had gotten sick for 3 weeks I wanted to give myself some rest and really didn't feel like my body was really ready to get back to running but I knew that if I put it off any longer that I would just keep putting it off and eventually it would be winter and then I really wouldn't want to go so back to the trail it is for me. I typically run at the college because a full loop around their trail is a little over 2 miles and there isn't anywhere to cut it short right now because they are building a new rec center so I am forced to get in atleast 2 miles every time I go which is a lot for me right now but eventually I would like to get up to running 6-8 miles a day 4-5 days a week (those are just my long term goals
