Its been awhile....

This was 8hrs into the ride and we look a little rough.. getting RESTLESS much?!

Driving into West Virginia

The lake where Dan spent his summers...Sylvan Lake.

So life has been crazy these past two weeks. Crazy in good and in bad ways. I guess because I am trying to be optimistc I will start with the good. Last weekend Dan and I made a spontaneous road trip to Indiana- Yes- I said Indiana- meaning 10hr car ride from Charlotte to a little hole in the wall town called Columbia City. You see Dan's grandfather is 94 years old and I have never met him. He sends us Christmas and Birthday cards like clockwork and out of the goodness of his heart always includes a little cash. After talking with Dan's father, Jack, we heard Grandpa S. was having to move out of his townhome into assisted living. We decided that we needed to go up and help Jack move Grandpa S. and also meet some other relatives that were unable to make it down to our wedding. Let's first start off saying that I was in a slight bit of culture shock once I arrived in Columbia City. I am not joking when I say when you are driving all you see is 100 acre farms, then the old farm house, and then another 100 acre farm. There was only a Dairy Queen and a Pizza Hut... and those seemed like the hip places to hang out for all the teenagers. Bloggers I tried my best to stay loyal to my weight watchers diet, I even booked it to the local Walmart to stock up on Smart Ones, but alas the Pizza Hut salad bar was my demise (but I'm back on as of the day we got back into town).

So not much happened the entire weekend we were there.. just helped move Grandpa S. into his new little apartment. I did get to see my first Amish horse and buggy though- let me tell you I was so excited to actually see this that I was nearly hanging out the car trying to take pictures of them troting by lol.

Ok so now on to the horrible, awful, depressing, maybe worst thing that could possibly happen to us. Dan lost his job.

Yeah, for real and totally not kidding and I have been bumming about it since last Wednesday. SO much so that I couldn't even bring myself to write on this blog since it seems like most blogs I read are so cheery and I thought this post would just bring anyone down that read it. Well, I realized that this blog is for me to get my thoughts out there and cover the good and not so good of our life. So here we are... our family of two has now joined the ranks of the unemployed. The whole situation was entirely fishy and the guy who made the most at his position ended up being the one let go. Dan has worked for Home Depot for the past few years and was in their management program. He had just been promoted to Department Head and his 5 yr plan was to become and store manager (for real the SM make close to $80-100k). The whole story of how this came about could equal about 5 blogging posts, but I will spare you all. Dan has an interview with Lowe's tomorrow so we will keep our fingers crossed. All I can say, and it might sound biased, but Home Depot lost a seriously good employee and a damn good future store manager. Hopefully Lowes will scoop him up. I have to keep thinking that everything happens for a reason, that there are not accidents, and that maybe there is a reason we live so close to the Lowes headquarters and we are living in LOWES country? I just have to keep telling this to myself. I guess we pick ourselves up and keep moving forward, right? Ugh if only it was easier to do than say. So I'm putting this out into the blogging world as well since I know Charlotte people read this blog or may come across it... if anyone knows ANYONE at a Lowes store or in management or if anyone knows a company looking for someone with management experience please get in touch! Thanks to everyone and anyone who read this and all my blabbering. Its nice to have a place to put it out there.