Cleveland's Horseshoe Casino

One of the newest attractions in Cleveland is the Caesars owned Horseshoe Casino

The Horseshoe casino is located in the public square area of downtown cleveland.  While the exterior (pictured above) is a bit drab and dull, the interior is filled with fun flashing lights and sounds!

Mitch, Dom, KW and I all decided to try out their Spread Buffet.  The buffet was delish!  It had different sections, such as salad, american, asian, dessert and 4 others.  Mitch found a piece of bread that was longer than her forearm!  While she made a good effort, she only got 1/4 of it eaten.

I had to go to work shortly after lunch so I was all fancied up.

KW was the first adventurous one of us to play slots.

After loosing 5 dollars he cashed out and we moved on.  Mitch decided to put a dollar in one of the machines.  After a few spins she had almost doubled her money and decided to cash out.

Dom started playing Blackjack, but my time was up, so I had to head off to work.  Some of us won money, others lost, but everyone had a good time!

Condo Warming Party

For the past few weeks I've been working on moving into my new condo.  Sunday, July 22, 2012 I was finally ready for a condo warming party.  I invited a bunch of people, but since it was on a sunday, only a few showed up.

A couple of hours before the party, Mitch came over to help me out with the party.  Thank goodness for Mitch.  She helped with vacuming, setting up trays and chairs, (so much more that I can't remember), and most important, she kept me calm and relaxed!

I stocked up on soda (mt dew, diet coke, pepsi, sprite and dr pepper) and of course beer for anyone who wanted to drink.  Only 7/30 beers got drunk, so I sent the rest home with whomever would drink them!

Sadly, my dining room table had not arrived yet, so Mitch let me borrow her TV trays, which we piled high with food.

There were grapes and homemade cookies/rice krispie treats (made by my dad when he was here)

For those more health conscious, we had a veggie tray with cucumbers, celery, broccoli and baby carrots.  There was also ranch and french onion dip for dipping:

We have sweet treats, healthy treats, but we can't forget about salty!  There were chips (2 kinds) pretzels, and popcorn (which, once again my dad found for super cheap when he was visiting.  Is there anything that man can't do?!)

When Dom came over he had made a cake!!!  It was so good!  It had sprinkles on the outside and the inside!!!

A bunch of friends from one of my previous employer showed up.  Honestly, some of the BEST people in cleveland work at PC Helps (or worked at pchelps)

Steph did not want her picture taken, but that's not an option when friends with a blogger...actually, now that I think of it, no one wanted their picture taken!

While looking out the screen door, the boys noticed a tree with fruit on it.  It wasn't obvious right off the bat what kind of fruit it was, so Dom braved the wilds and picked some fruit for us!

Ken Wilson then took the tart smelling "fruit" and cut it open.  It was green on the outside and green on the inside with a huge pit.  We still don't know what it is

That's the question of the day.  What is that ^?

Dinner with Dad and Delightful Friends

While in Cleveland, dad took my friends and I out for Bob Evans!

We all met up around 8pm for dinner.  Mitch and Dom came right from work:

I don't know where KW came from, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was up to shenanigans:

And then there was dad and I:

Things we learned at dinner:  There are only 3 places in the good ol' US of A that have escrow closing (both parties do not have to sit down together for closing).  Can you guess what they are?  Cleveland, Los Angeles and somewhere in florida.

I also learned that KW is good at charming people.  My dad thinks he is a stand up guy.  Oh if he only knew!

I'm sad that this is the last full day I'll get to spend with my daddy.  We get tomorrow, but then I have work in the evening and he leaves on thursday to go camping with mom.  It's been a fun few days!

A Visit from my Daddy

As many of you know I recently purchased a condo (Yippeeeee!!!)  A week after closing my dad came out to help me get everything in order.  He got to Ohio around 7pm yesterday with a carload of stuff from philly.  We unpacked and then went to Value City to look at sectionals.

We ended up getting a sectional (pictured here), a side table for the bedroom, a dining room table and chairs and a TV stand.

The TV stand was less than $100, but you had to put it together yourself.  THANK GOODNESS my dad was here, or it would not have happened!

We got home and unpacked all of the pieces for the TV stand:

Dad spent about 2 hours putting it together, but around 11:30 we ended up calling it quits

The next day we went shopping for a bunch of stuff for the condo.  We ended up getting tools (hammer, saw, electric drill), lamps, folding chairs, camp chairs, paper towel holder, stepping stool, mat for the bathroom with matching towels and a light for the burned out bulb in the kitchen.

When we got home, I put the lamps together while dad finished up the TV stand.  After another solid hour or 2 of work dad completed the monstrosity that is the TV stand:

It turned out AH-MAZING!  Now I have somewhere fancy to put the BEST housewarming present from Dom and Mitch (the beautiful flat screen).

I am soooo thankful my dad has come out to help me put together/help pick out furniture, and make general decisions on what is best for the condo!  BEST DAD EVER!

Babysitting Adventure

Believe it or not I have friends with babies!  Said friends, Jared and Chel, needed a couple of hours to go shopping sans kids.  I jumped at the chance!  They have the cutest kids ever!!  

Their oldest, Stella, went to bed early, so I only saw her for 10-15 minutes before her parents put her to sleep.  Most of the time I got to hang out with Luella.  Luella is the most adorable 7 week old  baby you will ever meet!  We had a blast!  She was so happy to hang out with me she gave me baby gifts (read spitup and diaper presents)!

The best part of watching Luella was the adorable faces she made as she fell asleep.  Her little eyes would slowly roll up in head and then she would jerk awake as if sleep was the worst thing possible!  She eventually passed out and I got some cute pics of her:

I had so much fun hanging out with Stella and Luella!  Honestly, I don't know how mom's do it!  I was only dealing with one little baby for 2 hours and at the end I was ready to go home and pass out.  Special thanks to all the moms out there who do such a great job!!

Dinner and a movie

This weekend was fun, but not super adventurous.  We kicked off the weekend with dinner at El Jalapenos in the fine city of Lakewood.

After having some troubles with the closing on my Condo, so I ordered a margarita.  Mitch took a sip too, but it was CRAZY big, and super yum:

The boys were there too, but they weren't drinking anything fun, just taking awesome pictures:

Dinner was delish!  The boys went to see a concert, while Mitch and I went home.  I worked on sorting out Condo closing problems while Mitch read.  When the boys came home we all played Civ V till around 11pm, when I gave up and went to bed.

Saturday was super busy.  KW and I went to Target to get stuff for our new abodes.  I ended up buying 3 sets of sheets, 2 comforters, a vacuum cleaner, and a towel and wash cloth.  KW bought pillows, a vacuum cleaner (same as mine), a skillet, a soup pot and a thing for his cats to scratch.

I went home and picked up Mitch and Dom.  We then all drove into Cleveland to the capitol theater to see Moonrise Kingdom.

KW loved it!  Mitch, Jnet, and Dom thought it was ok.  We then went furniture shopping to Daniels Furniture.  It was pretty shady.  The second floor was not air conditioned, and devoid of human life.  I honestly was worried that there was a serial killer hiding in wait for us on that floor!  Needless to say, no furniture was purchased that day.

We went to a chinese buffet after that.  Mitch and her hubby Dom was being especially adorable:

**Big thanks to Dom for taking the pictures with his new Samsung galaxy (II??) phone**

We all went back to Mitch and Doms house for 3 hours of Civ V, home made Fajitas and then Mario Kart with some PC Helpers in Philly and East Side Cleveland.

2 funny things happened Saturday evening during Mario Kart.  The first happened to me.  I was getting a drink from the fridge.  I closed the fridge door, and standing behind that door, not saying anything was Ken Wilson.  I SCREAMED bloody murder, causing Mitch to scream in fear too.  KW, just ran away laughing...good thing too, because I would have smacked him something awful for scaring me so bad!

The second funny thing was KW was teasing Mitch.  She stood up in defiance of KW and he said something to the effect of "sit back down...we both know you're not going to do anything".  Enraged, Mitch came over and started running her hands over KW's face, which was confusing and disorienting to poor KW.  He was eventually overcome by Mitch's attack!

Anyway, we didn't have any super fancy adventures but it was a really fun weekend nonetheless!

Happy 4th!!

The fourth of July is great for fireworks, bbqs and shopping!!  As most of you know I bought a condo (closing on the 9th of July) and KW bought a house (closing on the 20th of July).  This means we need furnishings for our fancy new houses.  The biggest, most important thing a new house/condo needs is a bed.  I needed 2 beds.  1 for me and 1 for the guest bedroom.

KW tried a bunch of beds:

And we both tried out some furniture

And in the end we each ended up with at least 1 new bed!!  Mine will be delivered on saturday the 14th to my fancy new condo, while kens are being delivered to Mitch and Dom's house next thursday!

Feeling like real, grown-up adults, we decided to celebrate our major purchase by going and getting a fancy meal at chic-fill-a.  Yum!

Anyway, it was a great 4th, but if I see another mattress again it will be too soon.