It's Snowing, It's Pouring... Everyone is FREEZING!

We officially had our first snow storm of the season. They are calling for 5 inches and there's a lot of snow on the ground already and it's only 7:00 a.m. Josh and I are planning to go look for the perfect Christmas tree in the snow on Sunday! I can honestly say I've never had the opportunity to do that before. It's usually not snowing 5 inches in SC when it's time to get our Christmas tree.

I will be driving for the first time in the snow with Josh. I have to babysit and he's volunteered to take me and pick me up so I think I'm going to drive one of those times so I can get the feel of it. We found out yesterday that I need new tires and a new battery on my car in order to survive the winter up here. So, I'm going to drive my car only when it's absolutely necessary until we get that taken care of next week. Enjoy your warm weather where ever you may be... We're FREEZING up here and may need to just start skiing to get around!

10.10.10- Do Something Out of the Ordinary

Sunday was 10.10.10 so Josh and I did something a little spontaneous. It was supposed to be a gorgeous day here in October which is unheard of from what I hear so we wanted to spend the day outside since there will be many inside days in the months to come. It was 89 degrees at the warmest and we drove to Starve Rock State Park which is about an hour and 1/2 away from where we live.

Everything was going great...we were set to arrive at the park at around 11:30 a.m. but when we got off the interstate to drive the remaining 3 miles, we were at a stand still and looking at what seemed like a parking lot. We assumed this was the line to get into the park since it was such a beautiful day. An hour and 1/2 later we realized that it wasn't the park that was causing the traffic but some festival in the nearby town of Utica (occupancy 1000). I'm hoping it was more than what we saw as we crawled past b/c the booths we saw looked like yard sales but it was obviously a big deal to the folks who live in Utica.

Once we finally got into the park, parked and got something to eat, we ended up having a wonderful day. We hiked on lots of rocks and near many canyons. The leaves have turned here and some are already falling off the trees so it was a beautiful trip. There are usually waterfalls but it hasn't rained here in a few weeks, so there was no water to fall. We'll have to go back another time next year when it's warm again to see this. We walked for about 4 hours and some of this included very steep stairs so we were both rather sore on Monday!

As soon as I get the camera back from Josh, I'll post our pictures so you can see some of the beauty we saw!

The Sad Day we Said Goodbye to Paradise!

More pics of our beautiful, relaxing vacation!

A Week Ago...

Just a week ago Monday, I was in paradise! I wish we were going back next week... don't you wish you were going with me?

Family, Friends and more Family!

Josh's mom and step dad came to visit last Wednesday night and they stayed with us until Sunday. We had a wonderful time.... I hated to see them go. Josh and I both had to work Thursday so they entertained themselves and I had to work Friday but Josh and Cliff played golf all day. I had arranged for Isla and I to pick up Phyllis for a lunch date. Everything was going great... she had taken her morning nap and was in a rather pleasant mood until she saw Phyllis. She started screaming and crying b/c I think she thought I was going to leave her with a stranger and after a few more episodes in the restaurant, she finally warmed up to the new face and we were able to enjoy our lunch together. I did some shopping with Cliff and Phyllis while Josh worked on Saturday and we ate and ate and ate. Oh, by the way, did I mention that we ate??????? Too much, I need to go on an extreme diet and exercise routine after this past weekend.

After sending Cliff and Phyllis off, we came home and turned the guest bedroom over with clean sheets and pillowcases and headed to the city to pick up Rebecca and Jeremy. We met their friends, Ian and Natalie, who have an awesome apartment in a great location downtown. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Skoozie's and it was fantastic! I will definitely go back if given the opportunity. Josh may not ever return... When he checked his bank account online the following day, he noticed that he had been charged double the ticket amount! It didn't put us in a bind or anything b/c he had plenty of money in the account but we thought they somehow charged us for Natalie and Ian's dinner as well b/c we just split the bill that night 3 ways and Ian and Josh both have Chase credit cards that look exactly alike. After a little researching, however, he discovered that our waitress rang up his card the incorrect way and it was actually holding double the ticket amount b/c his card was a debit card. CRAZY!!!!!! It all evened out today though so now I might be able to convince him to go back.

We took Rebecca and Jeremy to see the Naperville Last Fling Labor Day Parade. I was VERY disappointed. I was expecting to see floats and costumes and it was pretty much a political rally. We finally gave up on it and left to do a little shopping, walk along the riverwalk and eat lunch! All too soon, it was time for them to leave as well and our apartment seems lonely once again.

Heather will be flying in this Friday night for a short visit. She's only staying through Sunday and then Josh and I head to MEXICO!!!!! We'll be there for 6 days! It looks like paradise so I'm hoping it feels like paradise as well!

Have a great week!

I LOVE a great deal!

I feel like I found a gem today! Josh and I noticed that there was an Aldi being built near the gym and he asked me if I had ever been in one. I had no clue what it was so of course I've never been in one before. He said that it was a low cost grocery store that sells staples only, you bring your own bag, pay a quarter for the shopping cart and get your quarter back once the cart is returned, etc...

Of course, this sparked my interest and we really didn't have much planned for today except we needed some more bread and he wanted to get new running shoes with his birthday money. Next, Josh tells me that there's an Aldi near our apartment. I had no idea it was even there! We decided to go there to get the bread so we could check it out because he's never been in one before either. I love that we are able to experience new things together.

As we were walking around the store, I was really shocked at how inexpensive the food is in there. They don't sell any name brand items (although we did see Pringles in there) but they have healthy choices which pleasantly surprised me. Almost everything is packaged to look as if it is a name brand item only it has a different name. They carry a brand called Fit & Active and we found turkey bacon, ground turkey, whole wheat pasta, light cream cheese, etc in this brand. I figured with it being a low cost place, they wouldn't offer healthy choices. They even have a huge section of fresh fruits and vegetables and they actually looked good... better than anything I ever see in a Super Wal-Mart.

We only bought a few items while we there (bread included) b/c we made a Sam's run last night after church and didn't need much but I will definitely be going back. This is a great find for me because I LOVE A GREAT DEAL!!!!!

Only 3 more days until Cliff and Phyllis arrive!!!!!

I'm three days into my full-time job and I'm LOVING it! Isla and I are having a wonderful time together. I've taken her to gymboree and a drop-in story time at the local library. She is such a social baby and never ever gets upset when we're out! I'm going to try to find one of the big parks that are nearby and take her there when I wake her from her morning nap.

I got great news yesterday!!!! My sister is coming for a visit!!!!! YAY! So, now we have three sets of guests to look forward to in September. My in-laws (Josh's mom and stepdad, Phyllis and Cliff) will be arriving next Wednesday night and staying through Sunday. My friends from college (and my little sister in Chi Omega) will be staying with us that same Sunday night and leaving Monday (Labor Day). Then, Heather will be arriving the following Friday evening! I highly suspect that everyone is trying to get in their visit before winter. Our visitors are going to drop dramatically I'm afraid.

Anyone else is welcome to come visit! This really is a great place to visit. There's so much to do!

Gotta run... time to wake baby!

Pictures from the past couple weeks....

Hustle and Bustle

It's been a while since my last post. I've been so incredibly busy that I haven't even had time to think about posting on my blog.

My dad came for a visit a couple of weeks ago and I really enjoyed his time here. We were able to spend some quality time together do a lot of sightseeing. We explored Naperville, Il together. We walked along the beautiful riverwalk in the downtown area. I didn't even know that was there so that was a new discovery for me. It is such a nice place to visit in the warmer months. I'm not sure I would want to go there with snow all over the ground. They have a humongous bell tower in the center of the riverwalk. Dad and I were lucky enough to hear one of the concerts it plays throughout the day. It was really something to hear... sounded like we had a bell choir right in front of us. We also found a beach right in the middle of downtown. They have a place called Centennial Beach. It's a giant pool with platforms, diving board, slide and sand attached. It's pretty impressive and definitely unexpected in Illinois!

Dad and I also figured out how to ride the metra (train) into the city, ride the cta public transportation buses around and we were able to make it back home! We had a blast exploring Navy Pier. We took an architectural boat ride that was really cool. It gave us an overwhelming amount of facts and information regarding how and when buildings were built in the city.

On dad's last day, we were fortunate enough to get free tickets to see the Cubs play in Wrigley Field. They didn't win of course, but it was a once in a lifetime experience. We all had a great time at the game.

Not long after bidding farewell to my dad, we welcomed a new set of guests. Josh's brother, David, his wife, Amy, and their two girls, Rachel and Grace came up for a short visit. Surprisingly enough, we all managed to fit into our 1 1/2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment. We can't wait for them to return. The girls got to go to the Naperville Children's Museum, swim in the pool, celebrate Josh's birthday and go on a shopping spree at the American Girl Doll store in Chicago. We were sad to see them leave as well, but both of the girls begin school next week so they had to get back to town.

I begin my job full-time next week. I'm sure it will be a tough week having to wake up to an alarm clock everyday. It's been three months since I've had to do that for an extended amount of time. It may be a bit of a shock to my body but I know I'll survive and I'm really looking forward to taking care of Isla. She took her first steps on her birthday so this will be an exciting year for the both of us!

We actually did it! The bed project is complete!

Three's Company!

This past week was a fairly busy week for me. I babysat for the little girl I'll be nannying twice and spent some time with her mom. I really like the family a lot and think this is going to be a great job and break from teaching for the year.

I've had quite a few orders from mostly family members so I've been working A LOT in my chinese sweat shop this week. I did get an order from someone in Texas and that was my first order from an unknown person without them messaging me first. I think my small business is slowly starting to grow. Hopefully, I'll continue to have a few more customers each month! Keep spreading the word. I've got a lot of friends out there who will be having babies in the next year so I'm sure I'll be gifting lots of Little Posh Tot products to them all.

Josh and I made a mad dash to Ikea on Sunday after he finished playing golf. What was supposed to be a relaxing evening at home turned into a shopping spree. The bed we wanted in our spare bedroom has been out of stock. I've been stalking the website and we missed our chance to get the bed two weeks ago as they had just sold out again. On Sunday, I noticed later in the day that the inventory on the website changed from 0 to 12. So, Josh and I made the 30-45 minute drive to Schamburg, Il. We checked the website through Josh's I-phone along the way to make sure they weren't going to sell out before we got there. These beds go like hot pancakes so we definitely won't have an original bed in our house, but it will be a popular one. I just wish I had invented the things... they can't keep them in the store.

Our mission yesterday was to begin putting the bed together b/c my daddy is coming for a visit!!!!! Three's company, right? He'll be here Wednesday through Sunday. I'm going to pick him up at the O'Hare airport on Wednesday by myself. Pray for me... this will be a huge challenge. I don't really drive on any of the interstates around here. I'm pretty much petrified of them. I'm planning to leave very early to give myself plenty of time in case I get lost or take the wrong exit. Josh and I got half of the bed put together last night and we will hopefully be completing the remainder of the bed tonight and tomorrow. Josh and dad will play golf on Friday and I may tag along, who knows. We are going to go to a Cubs game on Sunday before Dad leaves to go back home (Boo... I'm sad already thinking about it) and we may try to go into the city one of the other days. I haven't been brave enough to try out the train but I think this may be the perfect opportunity for us to try. For those of you who know my dad and I really well, you know this could be a disaster. Neither one of us has even a good sense of direction so it will definitely be like the blind leading the blind. It will provide a great memory however and probably tons of laughter.

Gotta go get ready for my dad's grand arrival! This is only the beginning of our guest list. Soon to follow are my brother-in-law's family (David, Amy, Rachel and Grace), my in-laws (Cliff and Phyllis) and my great friends Rebecca and Jeremy.

Who's next?????

Lately, I've been craving sweets because I've been trying to lose some weight and the more I deprive myself of them, the more I crave them. So, I decided to make peach cobbler to satisfy my craving and to treat our company last night. I mention this to Josh and, to my utter shock and surprise, he tells me that I'll be eating it alone. He doesn't like peach cobbler! WHO DOESN'T LIKE PEACH COBBLER?!?!?!?!?!? I don't think you can claim to be from the South and not like peach cobbler. I think most of you would agree, right? This is such a shock because I can't believe I'm hearing him say this. Peach cobbler is one of my all time favorite desserts and I can't imagine living a lifetime without ever making or eating it again. I'm also shocked because I never knew this about him. I knew he was a picky eater but how can you not like peaches? He said he would try some but he didn't and I don't think he will. Our company didn't want any either so I'm stuck with whole dish of it. I'm going to send Josh to work with it tomorrow and hopefully the guys there will eat it up!

Today has been a great day so far! I sold my first embroidered gift set without them messaging me first to someone I don't know. I'm working on getting it stitched out as I'm typing. This is very exhilarating and little by little I can see my business is growing. Some day... not a day anytime soon.... but some day in the distant future, I may just be able to stay at home and embroider for work! How great would that be? Josh is out golfing with a friend today so I have time to work on this project. When he gets home, we're planning to go to the pool. It's a beautiful day and we want to take advantage of the nice weather.

The Unveiling of Josh's New Toy!

Yesterday was a BIG day in the Pitchford household. Josh is off on Fridays and I live for those days because I'm mostly at home all by myself during the day until I begin working. So, as you can imagine, I live for the days he's off and we can plan to do something together. Our big plan yesterday was to go grocery shopping!!!! Real fun, right? Well, it turned out to be. We went to our favorite place first.... Costco! As soon as we walked in the door, we saw that the flat panel t.v. that Josh has wanted for about a year now was ON SALE! We've been saving for this purchase since his birthday last year and we had enough saved to purchase the t.v. and the HDMI cables! So, we decided to go ahead and make our move. After we finished our shopping there, we headed over to Sam's because we had seen a Sony Blu-Ray disc dvd player on sale there last week. Lucky for us it was still on sale! This is Josh's early b-day present from me!

He came home and set everything up right away until he realized that the cable box we have doesn't have a HDMI connector. He's going to try to switch that out with Comcast today so that the t.v. will do exactly what he wants it to do. I'll be without a working t.v. all day today but that's okay because, believe it or not, I have a long list of things to do.

We are going to help out Josh's friend Zach with his truck. He needs it moved from his work to his apartment because he bought a new jeep. We're going to help him out with that tonight and he's going to come help Josh move the old t.v. out of our apartment and have dinner with us. Our first guest... I'm very excited! I cleaned earlier this week so all I need to do today is tidy, get everything prepared for dinner, exercise and work on some embroidery projects. It's a great day to be inside too because it's been raining, thundering and lightening since late last night. I'm not used the storms they have up here. The one thing about them is the thunder is really LOUD. It sounds like there's a giant drum sitting right over your house. I got up shortly after Josh this a.m. because it was so loud, I could no longer sleep.

Well, I have a lot to get started on today so I better get going!

Until next time...

So... after saying "I do" only a year ago, we found ourselves celebrating our anniversary in a completely different state no where close to the Carolina coast. Our anniversary weekend was perfect! It started out with a leisurely bike on the lakefront path in downtown Chicago. After retiring from the beautiful bike ride, we rested and enjoyed a delicious lunch at the famous Harey Carey's in the Navy Pier area. Our day of excursions was concluded by a breath taking view of the city on a tall ship. The evening, though, was the most perfect part of the trip. We started out with drinks at the top of the John Hancock building and then enjoyed dinner just one floor below at a window table. We were lucky enough to view part of the lake as well as the Navy Pier. Fortunately for us, there were fireworks scheduled for later that night so we purposefully extended our dinner so that we could view the fireworks from above. It was spectacular and I'll never forget all the effort my husband put into making it an unforgettable first anniversary together.

After all the fun, reality began to set in that I wasn't leaving and I did have a somewhat of a rough week last week. I was very homesick and I wasn't having any luck securing a job. I have decided to be a nanny while we are here. I was turned down by three families and this was not only discouraging but it was very stressful because Josh and I both need to work. We have been living in the Dave Ramsey world since the beginning of 2009 when we went through Financial Peace University together. During that time, we have been able to save, save and save some more. This is a wonderful feeling and if you haven't taken the course, you should! It will set you free and Josh and I will never be bound by a creditor again. Although it has been helpful for us to build up this sound nest egg, I tend to take it too far sometimes and refuse to "borrow" from our savings if we legitimately need it and this usually doesn't go over very well.

So, to make a long story short, I was really depressed last week and wanted to move back to South Carolina and felt like we would never make it financially here in this great state of Illinois, but God came through! I received six different nanny offers last week and have accepted the one I think was meant to be all along! I'm feeling much better about everything and Josh and I celebrated today by eating out! We haven't been out to eat since my mom left and he's been dying to have a chicken hero from Nicky's. It was definitely worth the wait.

I hope you enjoy reading about life here so far. I'll be back soon to update you again.... It's time for me to finish my chores for the day.