Spring is on it's way!

We can't wait. Penny loves walks in the park! So do we. When we move we are definately going to miss the park that has been our front yard for almost a year. We are going to call about another house tomorrow. Not sure about this one though. It's in our price range, and from the outside it's a HUGE brick house, the ad says three or four bedrooms, which means one room is probably more of an office type space. We don't really need to have that many rooms, but if it's nice enough, the price is right. You just never know. The only way to find out is to get a tour. It's in an almost iffy part of town, which is one bad thing about Quincy. There are "iffy" parts of town all over town. One side of a street can be VERY iffy, as in very run down houses w/ "NO TRESSPASSING" signs on the sunken porches, but the other side of a street can have brand new looking houses, with perfectly cut lawns. We are just going to take a look. We have our set criteria that we are looking for. We might have to give a little on some of our criteria, but we've talked about it ALOT and we have even placed our criteria in a most important, to possibly optional "needs", which really translates into wants.

PS. Don't you LOVE the pic for today! :) Allen and I really laughed out loud at this!

Penny is a mini-kangaroo!

News of the day: Penny can successfully jump high enough to jump into our laps, (of course only when invited)! :)

Want to hear to the whole story about the house that's not for rent?

We saw an ad in the paper yesterday for a farm house for rent available May 1st, which just so happens to be the same day our lease is up. So, we figured, sure, what could it hurt to call? Well, it wasted my ENTIRE 15 minute break at work and made me two minutes late from getting back! I called the number, the lady who answered the phone told me in the first two minutes of the conversation that she and her husband have decided to move into the new house instead of renting it out. Rather than letting me go, she proceeded to tell me all about the house that is no longer for rent AND the house she is currently living in now. WHY ARE PEOPLE SO NUTS? I even told her at the VERY beginning of the phone conversation that I was calling on my break at work to inquire about the house for rent. Oh well, if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be. In the mean time Allen and I are still looking for a new place , and still job hunting. We are planning a trip to Sturgeon the weekend of the 13th. We are definately looking forward to it! Penny has a cousin now! Matt and Nicole have rescued a miniature dachshund from one of Matt's co-workers. His name is Sammy. Very cute! He has blue eyes. Penny can't wait to meet him!

Well, to everyone reading this, KEEP IN TOUCH! :) We want to hear from you! We love you all. Hope this week is an easy one!

Job Security! :)

So, today I had to be at work at 7 a.m. for the office wide meeting. Anyone who knows us, knows neither one of us are morning people. Thank goodness it's Friday!

We are supposed to have one once a month I think , but we haven't had one in a while. The meetings frustrate me because almost always everything they have to say in the meetings could be put in an office wide email that takes 10 minutes to read. One good thing that came out of the meeting this morning was that I feel even better about my job than I did before. I've always known that I'm very blessed to have the job I have. It's a great corporation I work for, that truly does invest in their employees. We had a few corporate people at the meeting this morning speaking about what a financially conservative corporation HCSC is. Last year the stock market ended at negative 38% for the whole year. HCSC is a non-profit, which means that it does not have investments in the stock market, so as bad of a year as it was for businesses everywhere last year, we only lost .5%. Instead of people losing jobs, jobs were created, and instead of cutting benefits, our 401 k match went up from 4% to 6%, which when you think about it in the long run, is a REALLY GREAT thing. There are some things that I dislike about my job, but that's with any job for anyone.

Hmmm...well, that's all I really have to say for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Seaquest

It's what we're watching on Netflix. Do you remember the show? I have good memories of watching this show with the family. Allen remembers watching it with his. Yes, we're nerds. We know! Thinking about you all! Love ya!

$850

That's how much they wanted for the house on Oak Street, PER MONTH! Needless to say, we didn't take a tour.

Wonderful Weekend

This weekend was fantastic. Allen and I both had Saturday AND Sunday off for a change. Saturday was one year from when Allen proposed. What a fast , exciting and wonderful year it has been. We celebrated by eating dinner at the same restaurant we ate at last year after the proposal, Lake View. It was a very nice and romantic meal. Good thing we had reservations because the place was packed. Sunday we went to Mom and Dad's to visit. We watched a couple movies and got to see Charlotte's AMAZING pictures from Hawaii. What a once in a lifetime trip. Her pictures are so beautiful. Wish it wasn't such an expensive trip. Allen and I would both LOVE to go Hawaii. Maybe we will someday be able to afford a trip to Mexico or something like that, but not any time soon. The countdown is on for looking for a new place. I'm itching to get moved into a place where we can put things away instead of having things sit around in random piles. I think that our options are going to be pretty good. Every where we look there are for rent/lease signs. Today we drove past a home on 29th and Oak, that looked pretty new and it would be five blocks for me to get to work, and just about the same for Allen, the sign said for lease. We are probably going to call, just to see.

Penny got a new toy! We had to throw away the blue bone/ rope toy we got her on Thanksgiving because she tore it to near shreds. We bought this cute raccoon, named Bandit on Saturday, which she LOVES. We gave it to her as soon as we got home, and she bled all over it immediately. While we were gone she lost one of her puppy teeth, so she was still bleeding from that. So, Bandit had already had a bath. LOL! She's really cute playing with it. It is half her size!

Freaky Friday

Friday the 13th definately did not disappoint. People were VERY rude today, and most of them were acting like they didn't have brains. And to top it all off, this story was on Comcast's homepage. Allen and I are both VERY disturbed by this. So disturbed, we thought we would share our disturbance........ http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-world-europe/20090213/EU.Britain.Father.at.13/ .

Slow week

So, we haven't been able blog very much this week. Don't worry, you're not missing much. It's been nothing but work, work, work this week. Allen has a cold. I'm trying to avoid getting it too, so we are sucking on zinc lozenges and drinking orange juice. This wierd weather definately doesn't help! Yesterday morning Allen had an interview with the manager at Casey's General store on 36th and Maine. They are hiring for an assistant manager position. It's a two interview process, and we're still waiting to hear back from the first one. It would be full time with benefits, but the lady who did the first interview couldn't tell Allen what the starting pay was. So I guess we will have to wait and see. Keep praying for us!

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th. Allen and I don't think we should go to work tomorrow, neither one of us. LOL! :) Hope you all have had great weeks.

Sleep, Sushi, and Sun

Ugh...Monday. Not just any Monday but a full moon Monday. They are the worst kinds of Mondays. I don't ever even have to look at a calendar to know when it's a full moon. People always go a little nutty around the full moon. "A little nutty", is actually an understatement. People go absolutely loony. Oh, well, at least it only lasts for a little while.

So, sorry no posts this weekend. We were too busy sleeping in, eating sushi, enjoying the wonderful weather this weekend, and Netflix! Friday night we ate at the sushi restaurant, for the first time. It's been around for almost a year, but we've never tried it. We met Jim and Amy there. I have to say we will probably never go again. Trust us...one time paying $20 for a plate of appetizers is enough for us. Don't get us wrong, it was REALLY good. In fact, good enough that I would really like to try making it ourselves sometime, but we seriously we paid $20 dollars for a plate of rice and raw fish. We ate, and then we went home and fixed something else to eat later.

Saturday we had a wonderful day in the park with Penny and watching movies from Netflix. Our first month subscription has already paid for itself.

Sunday Allen had to work, so I spent the day rearranging the living room. I know, I know, we are moving in two months, so why bother? I couldn't help it. I got tired of looking at the same boring furniture arrangement, plus I wanted to set the living room up so we could sit comfortably closer to the computer screen to watch movies. Mission accomplished.

So tomorrow...70 degree temps forcasted in February. Curious....eh?

Seriously, it's like Christmas!

Allen and I may never be bored again! We have just discovered the absolute wonders of Netflix. Now, previously we had thought about this and decided against it because we didn't think we would use it enough, plus the prices were higher than they are now. What we have been doing ALOT of lately is Red Box, which is literally a vending machine for DVD's. It's pretty great because it's just $1 / day, and their selection is usually pretty good. When we say pretty good, we mean there is 75% chance that the movie we want to see is in the box. We did the math, and we've been getting about two movies a week, sometimes more. Netflix offers a plan that is $8.99 per month for 1 DVD out of over 100,000 available, at a time, unlimited times per month, with just a few days turn around time and in the mean time there are over 12,000 videos available for instant play online, with unlimited viewing. It also includes something called Starz Play, which means you can watch online all the movies stars is showing on their movie channels. It all seems too good to be true, but for the skeptics in us, they are offering a free two week trial. So if we try it for two weeks and we don't like it, then we can cancel it. There's not any long term contract to sign. When we decide we don't want to do it anymore, we can cancel. Now Allen and I will be making a list of all the movies we want to see. If you have any suggestions for us, put them in the forum!

Do you ever?

When you see a sign like this, do you ever think to yourself, "What if I do open it? Will the alarm really sound?" Do you ever for just even half a second think about opening it? I'm not talking about seriously contemplating doing it...just letting the thought briefly run through your head, or I guess maybe if you are Allen, serious contemplating it... Why do we? What is it about human nature that makes us want to test things like this? Like when we are children and we are told not to do something. Sometimes we did it, not because we wanted to be bad, but we wanted to find out why not, or what happens if I do?

Ewwww...

Everyone has been getting this terrible flu! YUCK! If you get it make sure you drink LOTS AND LOTS of water. Popop, we're glad you're ok!

Are there even words?

Not exactly sure how to react to this story, but can I just say that these people are alot luckier than most of the people who have lost their jobs. http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20090202/BUSINESS-US-AUTOS-BUYOUTS/

Oh and....HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

So, Allen and I SERIOUSLY celebrated Groundhog Day by renting and watching the movie Groundhog Day. Only one copy of it at Family Video and we're the ones who got it! OH YEAH!

Superbowl Party-Super 3D!

So, this is a picture of Josh and his friend Brandon, rockin in style with the 3-D glasses for the Super Bowl commercials. LOL! We went to my mom and dad's house and had a blast. We ate tacos, hot wings, and crab dip! MMMMM mmmm! :) The game FINALLY got exciting at the end, and I have to say that this year the game was actually more interesting than the commercials, which is pretty sad considering the only really exciting part of the game was the last 2 1/2 minutes. How did you all spend your Superbowl evenings? Post your answers in the forum!