the beginning of the end

Saturday began my last week in Ohio. Slowly, I've been saying good-byes and see-you-laters. It doesn't seem real that I'm leaving. I firmly believe that it's never good-bye, but only see-you-later; our paths will always cross again. I'm not worried about seeing my close friends again, I know that I will. And the same goes for my family...I'll surely see them again (whether I like it or not ... haha).

By way of catch up, here's what's been going on:

Saturday: Once a month we have an activity with our church where we get together and hangout. Since we've gotten a new branch president, and he lives in a fabulous house and has a great backyard and pool, we've been doing them at his house. This month, it was finally warm enough to swim, and we had my favorite food of all time.
When I lived in Charleston, SC, we called it either Frogmore Stew or Beaufort Stew, but regular people call it a shrimp boil. In effect, you boil red skinned potatoes, corn on the cob and shrimp in salt and cayenne pepper water. It's absolutely fabulous! I could eat it every day. We dumped the food onto the table and dug in ... no utensils or plates necessary. We then hung out, swam, played volleyball and later made s'mores. This is one of my favorite activities!

Sunday: Sunday was my last day at my singles branch here in Ohio. It was really sad... it's been my "home" for so long, and I have met all of my friends through it. Two of the talks in sacrament meeting were on friendship and loyalty, and then our Sunday School lesson touched on the Holy Ghost. I was really happy to have had these lessons and talks, it helped me remember that my friends are my friends no matter what. We talked about the difference between knowing someone and knowing of someone. I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful group of close friends. Which brings me to Sunday night. My great friends threw me a "Surprise" going away party. ( I say "surprise" because I knew about it, I just didn't know where it was).

I've realize just how great my girlfriends are, and that I'm really going to miss them. It's hard to think that we've really only been friends for 3 years (and Catherine I only met in December) and we've become such fast friends. They know me better than I know myself, and they help me grow and support me in my decisions. We had my favorite, Dairy Queen ice cream cake, yum!!
Tuesday: Tuesday was my last day at work (thank heavens). My coworkers, Mike and Mickey brought me in a cake (from Giant Eagle ... boy I'm going to miss grocery store cake!) and it was business as usual. Tuesday night we went out to dinner at Danny Boy's in a nearby town called Rocky River. It's a pizza and pasta place with a Frank Sinatra theme. It's super good food (I got the penne with vodka marinara ... my brother got a buffalo chicken fold over, and my mom, sister and brother's girlfriend all shared a pizza). Following dinner, my friends and I met up at the Cheesecake Factory for a slice of heavenly dessert.

My two good friends Mike and Catherine were leaving Wednesday for vacation, so this was my chance to say goodbye to them. There was just a small group of us, which was fine. I got the key lime pie cheesecake, which is phenomenal. (as a side note, I've been eating non-stop for the last week, I'm bound to gain 9328493282 pounds).

This brings us up to date (see yesterday's post). Today (Thursday) I got new tires put on my car and the oil changed, and I renewed my drivers license (with a pretty good picture if I do say so myself...). Tonight I'm going to see the new Die Hard movie. I'll also post about that later...