Pittsburgh Part 1

For Easter we headed out to Pittsburgh with Dan's parents to visit his sister and her fiance. We had a great time and enjoyed seeing the city. We started off the day with eating from several food trucks near their house.

Dan waiting for this food

All the different options

 After eating we headed into the city to see the University of Pittsburgh. There was a lot to see and we enjoyed the beautify day. One of the buildings we checked out looks like a Cathedral inside, they also have different classrooms dedicated to different countries. It felt like the castle from the Harry Potter books :)

Fountain in the plaza

The building we went inside

View from the third floor

 View from one of the top floors

 At the top of the building they have their Honor's College set up and have been renovating it. I loved the stain glass pieces on the railing and windows.

Taking a seat

Ceiling

We finished up our time downtown by grabbing some ice cream and seeing the library. The buildings have amazing architecture and the library is connected to the museum and in one part looks right into the dinosaur exhibit. Our next stop was to check out an over-look of the city and is the place Sam proposed to Emily this past fall.

Outside the museum

Strawberry Jam

 I decided to try making some Jam this year. I have never made Jam before but my friend, whose recipe I LOVE, insisted it was simple to do and told me what I needed to make hers.

Ready to go!

Mixing it all together

All the foam I had to scrap off

Hot water bath to seal the lids

Cooling off!

I was very excited to have my jam turn out. It only took a couple hours to do everything and all my jars sealed which means I have 8 jars to last me for the next year...unless I feel generous and give some away :) I have been enjoying my toast a little more these last several days. I love strawberry season!

Snow

Last Monday I got up and planted some flowers before going on my morning run (in a T-shirt and shorts) by evening a cold front had moved in and we acquired snow on the ground. Not cool April, not cool.

Driving home

At our house

On the car

Hopefully this will be our last "shower" before summer...it was very depressing to have it get cold again. Winter needs to move on!

Bug Bowl

Last weekend we went to Purdue for their 24th annual Bug Bowl. They have tents set up with projects from different "schools" such as a Liberal Arts tent, Agriculture tent, etc. They have a lot of fun activities for kids to do and live animals as well as plants you can buy. It is really well done, everything they have set up and it was fun getting to enjoy the campus with Dan. We rode down with his parents so we had fun walking around and hearing how different some parts of campus were.

For lunch we went to Mad Mushroom for pizza and Dan's favorite, Cheesy Bread Sticks (which were really good). 

Cricket Spitting

We also made sure to stop at one of the books stores so Dan could get a Purdue shirt. I made a quilt out of his old T-shirts for Christmas and am working to replace the ones I cut up. :)

Campfire

After all of our cleaning we decided to have our first campfire of the year. So about a week ago we pulled out all our patio furniture and enjoyed an evening outside.

We will be burning our Christmas Tree which is behind Dan in the middle picture. It is always our favorite part :) This also means we can begin a count down to when we can start to go camping again, which we have been itching to do for a while.

Out with the old

In the last few weeks Dan and I have been busy cleaning and sorting. Here is a picture of our pile that didn't make the cut to stay in the house or garage :)

This is really only a small sample of how much we threw out as well. I think Dan filled 5 trash bags full or papers he didn't need any more. It felt really good to go through everything. I also decided to get my hair cut/trimmed.

Before

After

They took about an inch off and added lots of layers which is nice. My hair was starting to feel really heavy and it feels so much better since I got it cut.

Wedding

Last weekend Dan and I drove up to Chicago for a wedding. One of Dan's friends from college was tying the knot and we were excited to celebrate with them. I got a few pictures and then my battery died :( so here are the pictures I was able to take:

Decorations at the church

Fingerprint tree for the guest book

Name card table

Waiting to be seated 

Champagne for the toasts

Beautiful cake! (and it was really good)

Flower center pieces

Candles for everyone

It was all very nice and everything seemed to go smoothly for them. We had to wait an hour from when they said the reception would start to when it did, everyone was there on time including the Bridal party but we don't know why we started so late. Dinner was really good I had Fillet Mignon and Dan had the chicken, we had soup and salad before our main meal as well and a choice of red or white wine to enjoy while we ate. We had fun with the one of the couples at our table and left as the dancing was just starting because it was almost 10pm Chicago time and we had about an hour drive back to where we were staying.

Licensure

I finally found out yesterday that I am officially licensed! We went out and had dinner with Dan's parent's at our favorite Hibachi grill and Dan had a cake for me when we got home :)

 LMFT is Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

It has been a LONG road to get to this point and I feel extremely blessed by all the support and encouragement from friends and family along the way. And I never would have been able to accomplish this without Dan. He has been amazing, patient, loving, and supportive every step of the way!