A Celebration and A Trip Down Memory Lane

Howdy!

Some of you may know that I'm currently an administrative assistant for the marketing department with Darice, Inc. (People that own Pat Catan's & Crafts 2000 Craft Centers). Well I manage the 2 different Facebook accounts for our retail stores. Let me just tell you, I really enjoy it. I can literally sit on Facebook all day and no one lifts an eye. It gives me a chance to be creative and conversational with our customers, which I think is the main reason it's become so wildly successful. My boss, the retail marketing manager, has been bugging me to bake a cake since way back when we hit 3,000 total fans. (I didn't. I suck at baking.) But as we started to approach a total of 5,000 fans he began to mention baking a cake again and how I should be busy this weekend. So guess what? I was busy this weekend. Making this gem:

Sure the border is completely uneven and the guy has a hitch hiker's thumb, but that's a pretty good looking cake if I do say so myself. My boss nearly fell off his chair, he loved it and then gave me a bunch of compliments about my work ethic. I'm starting to learn that I need to really take in these compliments because not many bosses let you know how awesome they think you're doing. 

On my way to work I decided to drive through Cleveland's beautiful Metroparks.

The Metroparks are arguably one of the best things about living around here. Dan and I have so many wonderful memories of walking in the Metroparks, taking photos, shooting his paintball gun at trees, and carving our initials into a tree (sorry, tree!). We've had a ton of adventures that I will cherish forever and leave me so anxious for more.

Here's some of my favorites:

Summer 2011: The weekend of my best friend Kelsey's birthday. We spent the next day in Marblehead. Aren't we good lookin'? 



Summer 2011: I took Dan white-water rafting in Pennsylvania for his 21st birthday. It was one of the best things I've ever done.



Summer 2011: I brought Dan along for our 2nd and last trip (the huge cabin we stay at burned down last month) to Hocking Hills with my mom's side of the family. This is basically the weekend that I knew without a doubt he would fit in with my family.



Summer 2011: Dan and I met a bunch of our closest friends up at Panini's (our local bar and grill) for his 21st birthday. He had a blast!  

  

Winter 2011: One night we were just sitting around in my basement playing on my laptop when we discovered the awesome things you can do with webcam effects. It's a beautiful thing.

Spring 2011: We did a lot of baking our first year of dating. I'm not sure why that is besides the fact we both love food and it was fun to be creative with different flavors. This is us sporting his mom's aprons.

Fall 2010: Dan drove me all the way to visit Kelsey in Erie, PA where she goes to school. We went to Presque Isle and saw the marina.  

Spring 2010: Dan, Kelsey, and I got in the car and headed to Squire's Castle. This is a cool little castle that was bought by the Cleveland Metroparks. We took some hilarious photos here and I'm pretty sure Kelsey loved Dan after that.



Spring 2010: A bunch of our friends came with us to an Indians game with the youth group from our church. It was miserable - rainy, windy, freezing. But we did get to see Newsboys perform afterwards in the Q so that was cool. I remember secretly holding hands under a blanket because no one really knew we were seeing each other. (I'll save all that for when I have the time and energy to write our love story.)



Summer 2010: We took a trip to Kentucky with a bunch of our friends for a weekend. It was a lot of fun and the first trip we took out of state together. Kentucky is super boring though. We stopped at this place that claimed to sell rare gems/stones. No they were definitely just colored glass.

Spring 2010: Dan and I love Brecksville Reservation. It has some awesome bridges and structures to take photographs of. We've taken so many walks here. This was Dan's horrible attempt at taking a photo that makes it look like he's smashing the bridge. Nice try, Hulk.

This is the tree we carved on our "first date" in Brecksville Reservation. It smelled like pumpkin and I was so nervous someone would walk up. Looking at this photo makes me feel bad for this poor tree - but we've seen it since and it's all healed up and still bares our initials for everyone on the path to see.

Thats a fun little trip down memory lane. Now I'm off to eat that delicious looking cake of mine! Yum.