Christmas Tree Getting Day

Bye!

5 Year Award

Saturday we went to my work's awards dinner, and finally it was my turn. I've been with Dollar Bank for 5, going on 6 years. Time at work doesn't fly like the rest of my life. I feel like I've worked there 20 years, so making it this far felt like a huge milestone. I was hired on March 22, 2004, and this year was awarded my 5 years of service award. The best part of making it to 5 years is that now I get 3 weeks of vacation and a pension. Cha ching! It's always a fun party, and it's wonderful that our company still celebrates it's employees, even in these hard times. Here's highlights of the night!2009 Service Awards Dinner- Landerhaven

Dollar Bank's "mascot" is a lion. There's a pair of them "standing guard over the people's money" outside the first branch on 4th avenue in Pittsburgh.

Here's one of the lions outside the branch Here's the outside of our Cleveland Headquarters at the Galleria. It was just renovated last year, and is now where I work.

A giant mural of the lion was constructed in Italy out of little 1 in. tiles and assembled behind the teller line at the Galleria Branch.

This was funny. In 1981 when I was born, this is the advertisement for our bank.

The theme this year was the Lion is King. For the first hour, we mingled around, and snacked on yummy hors d'oeuvres and martinis. This year they were missing my favorite, shrimp cocktail. :o(

This is my best friend at work, Blerina "B" Qorri. We've been through the last 5, almost 6 years together. We both were hired as CSA's, and now she's the Assistant Manager at the Mayfield Branch, and I'm in Mortgages. We still see each other at least once a month, and usually go to our favorite lunch spot, Cafe 56. Love you, B!

Here's the entrance to the ballroom. Great decorations!

The ceiling of the ballroom.

Here's the stage. To the left and the right were the staircases that the awardees came down.

Here's me getting my award, shaking the hand of some important Dollar Bank guy.

The ladies are the other mortgage originators and our administrative assistant that we sat with. And then there was this handsome guy sitting next to me the whole time! What a stud! The night wouldn't be complete without you, Honey!

Happy Halloween

Halloween was a really fun night for us. We carved out pumpkins, played with dry ice, gave out candy, ate chili, and lots of candy! Robb carved Jack Skellington with his rotozip (that's my tool guy!) and I carved a puking cyclops. I also have recently become a little obsessed with Martha Stewart crafts, and made a pumpkin luminaria out of a beautiful white pumpkin. Where's Waldo made an appearance at our house and handed out candy to all the little kids. Jack SkellingtonPuking CyclopsBig bowl of candyHere's what the kids saw when they came to our houseRobb as Where's WaldoMartha Stewart luminaria and spooky dry iceGlowing JackGlowing Cyclops
Good picture of Robb's rotozip workClose up of my white pumpkin

Fall Fun!

Here's some pictures from our recent trip to Dayton for the Doudican's Annual Clambake. It was an absolutely beautiful drive down with all the fall colors! Also, I got my hair cut 14 inches! (I'll post about that separately later) It was a very fast visit, we went down Saturday morning and came home Sunday, but really fun none the less! Robb says I was a bad documentor of the clambake because I didn't take many pictures, but I guess I was having so much fun and eating. I'm sure Jill will post some on her blog, so check out her site to fill in my blanks. Sunday morning we went to Jungle Jim's International Market, which was so cool, but we didn't take pictures there either. Here's what I did capture... Jill's "clam" cakePumpkins for the kids to carveFire that was the only thing keeping us warm outside. It was pretty cold, maybe in the 40's.Robb and Bob (Jill's dad) building the ladder golfThen Robb and Bob partnered and won their game of cornholeThe cooking station, food was delicious!The Doudican playroom (living room). Who needs chairs!Cutie little Braden! He's grown up to be such a little toddler!

Sweetest Night

Sweetest Day~ we have no idea why we celebrate it. Actually, I think it's a holiday made up by Hallmark, and mostly celebrated in Ohio. Anyhow, it gives us a reason to take a little time for something special. This year, I planned a love themed dinner. Everything we ate had an aphrodisiac quality, or so they say! Plus, I love to cook yummy food for my honey. They do say, ''the way to a man's heart, is through his stomach!" For appetizers, we had champagne and strawberries, and played some Skip Bo. Then our first course was a tossed salad of arugula with butter lettuce, topped with, strawberries, toasted pine nuts, pomegranate, blood orange, and chevre (goat cheese) with a raspberry vinagerette. After we digested our salad, our next course was firecracker shrimp pasta, with asparagus and roasted fennel. For dessert we were going to have bananas foster, but were so full that we decided to just relax and watch a movie. We still haven't made the bananas foster, so I made a really good chocolate chip banana bread with all our bananas. Our night out in was so romantic.