Decking the Halls, Home Improvement, and Date Night...

Well, I can't say my weekdays have been very eventful (mostly job hunting and Law & Order re-runs), but we sure have been busy during the weekends! The day after Thanksgiving, we went over to Matt's parent's house to meet Matt's step aunt and uncle for lunch as they were passing through town on their way to New Mexico. Grandma had hitched a ride down for the holiday festivities, so afterwards, we brought Grandma back to our house for dinner and had a great time catching up. On Saturday, we put up our tree and most of the decorations. It was pretty exhausting work, but the house looks really great. Then on Sunday, we celebrated Thanksgiving- Round 2 with Dan and Grandma over at Matt's parent's house. Mmmmm.... turkey.

I wish I could say this weekend was as productive for me, but Matt got a jump by asking Ian to come over and help reframe the plumbing stack enclosure. They removed all the yucky moldy wood and replaced it with fresh. Later, Katie came over and helped me prepare dinner and dessert- homemade pizza and fruit salsa... Yummy!! Matt still needs to finish covering the enclosure with luan, but he should be able to get that knocked out this week. Unfortunately, he will have a little more free time since his hours were cut at Vitran. All the "part-timers" were cut from 40 hours to 30 hours. The good news is that my application for unemployment has been approved and I should be receiving a payout this week and I also have an interview this week, too. I don't have too much info on the job, but I'm not ruling anything out. With all this additional stress, we decided that a date night was definitely in order. So, last night we used a gift certificate to go out for sushi and then drove around downtown looking at Christmas lights and other sights.

Turkey Perfection

While it has definitely been a rough 6 months for us, we still have a lot to be thankful for this year and yesterday we entertained both our families at our home to celebrate my favorite holiday. (Surprise! It's not Halloween!) After scrambling to get the house put back together after our "renovations," the place looked great and the food couldn't have been better. Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves, especially the boys who chased Denver around all day! He's one tired puppy today!!

Changes

Well, a lot has been going on with the Binnings these past few days. Saturday we got our new carpet which looks fantastic, Sunday we started putting the house back together, and today I was laid off along with 4 other people. Awesome. The good news is that they are covering my medical insurance through June so I don't have to worry about paying to have this baby. The thing that worries me most is that I may not be able to find a job that will hire a 4 month preggo. I will be keeping my fingers crossed that Matt gets this job at Proctor & Gamble, which pays a lot better than where he is at now. And if anyone hears of any job openings, please send 'em my way.

All our love,
Matt and Jen