Friends and Family

Its seriously February?  Holy.

Part of me is okay with that, as it means its closer to getting out of this winter.  Do not understand this as bitching, as a lifetime Saskatchewan resident, it goes with the territory.  But when we get up with -38 and a windchill on top of that, it gets old fast.  -20 seems warm.
Another reason I am okay with it?  Closer to a new addition to the family.  We are going to have another baby at the end of March, and we cant wait.  Jamie cant wait because she is in the uncomfortable stage of things, and I cant wait to have another addition to the family, its going to be great.

So, since I last made a post on here lots happened, let me get through some of it.

December.  This month was unlike any December I have had for a long time.  This year, I am not in the retail industry.  Wow, what a difference that makes.  The month seemed to fly by, not drag out.  I had time after work to do the regular things, and fit in shopping and such.  It was great.  I spent the first full week in Vancouver on Kodak training.  I was being trained on our Kodak Generation News CTP (Computer to plate) machines.  We have two, and they cost just a bit of money (sarcasm!), so training was welcome.  It was a great time.  I had a chance to work directly with one of the engineers that designed the entire thing.  It was quite the experience. It did not snow, but it sure rained a lot there.  Their +5 weather is quite cold, due to the humidity.  They can have it.  I would rather a dry -20 day in Saskatchewan!

Our basement is completed to where we want it right now.  The only remaining peices are the ceiling, and finishing up the bathroom.  Our living room, spare bedroom (toy room) and my office are all completed.  The living room is now nicely equiped with my projector.  Its screen is 109inches of pure awesome.  Its incredible.  Full HD supported, with HD feeds of the new appletv, and Xbox 360.  We did hook up standard satellite there, which works great, but we rarely use it, so have no plans to upgrade it to HD.  Most of what we watch is the AppleTV.  We have tons and tons of movies available to us, and we have started to use Netflix quite a bit now (as content becomes better and better).  The xbox on the big screen is incredible, and makes my jaw drop still when I fire it up.  mmmmm…1080p!

And then there is Christmas!  What a wonderful time of year.  I spent christmas eve at Jamie’s moms house, where we had her Aunt Penny (Muffin!), her two kids (Jamie’s cousin’s), Britney, Brock, and his wife Erin.  I didnt work christmas eve at all or boxing day, so I had 3 days off in a row.  It was very nice not to rush around, just had a chance to hang out and take things slow.
On Christmas day, we went out to my family’s farm, spent the day out there, played games, presents, ate too much, same old.  It was great all around.
Boxing day we spent….doing nothing!  It was very nice.  We had an off day to play with toys, read books.  Was a nice change to getting up, doing the retail thing.
I would also like to mention how people are so nice at Christmas. It amazes me.  I have some good friends that I met while in retail, who always delivered baked goods during christmas.  This christmas, they tracked me down to give me a tray of goodies again, and some amazing porkies (think bun with pork inside – cant go wrong!).  Not only do they do that, but they also include a beautiful card, picture of them, and money.  This is not the first time they have given us money, and we have put it in a bank account for our daughter for school.  This is something I still cant get over.  Simply amazing people.  The world needs many, many more people like them.  You know who you are!

So, then the new year came upon us.  The month of January seemed to blink by.  I renovated (with some help of a friend) another bedroom, for the new baby, and as of last night, it was being mudded and should be painted within a weeks time (I think).  Then carpet, door, and finishing.  Jamie has everything else taken care of (what would I do without her?).

With that, I will draw this post to a close.  I have imported a bunch of pictures which I hope to get to editing this weekend, and get then up here.  Christmas and random stuff since then.

Just a heads up, my photography site will come to life in the next bit, I actually had some time devoted to working on that, and a friend and I are cooking up something new as well.  Stay tuned!