Mike decided Michigan is not cold enough so he traveled to Quebec. Well, not entirely true - he went for work. Stryker has a division in Canada and Mike and a few other employees needed to go up there to help with a project. I'm not sure on the details (not that Mike can tell me anyways - most stuff he does is confidential and protected by Stryker's privacy policy - blah) but there was some reason Stryker Canada needed them to come up for a few days. Either way, Mike was up there Monday - Wednesday. Overall he said the trip was a success and they accomplished a lot. He mentioned they were very fortunate to have a former Canadian resident with them who spoke French so they could communicate in the town. I'd forgotten Quebec is mostly and older French town and they don't have many English speakers. I just think Canada and I think second America =) Shows what I know... Mike said he'd love to take me back sometime for vacation. Obviously when it's warmer - the weather was much colder when he was there as you can see by the picture he took of the thermometer on their rental car (-23) =) I will also post a few other picture he took while he was there. Unfortunately since he was there for work he didn't get a lot of photos in the day time.
Monday night I think I sat on my behind and watched TV. Tuesday night I went to my parents house where they were kind enough to make me dinner and I gave them a tutorial on using their On Demand system. I can't believe they haven't utilized the free movies and options before! Somehow I imagine they still haven't and are waiting for me to come over again before they try it on their own =)Wednesday morning I received a call from Mike telling me that his flight had been cancelled. They were supposed to fly from Quebec to New York and then to Grand Rapids. Unfortunately we were having bad weather that Wednesday in New York so no flights were leaving or landing. Mike and his coworkers really wanted to come home to the "warmer" weather (heh) and their spouses so they booked this crazy flight to Toronto I believe and then they rented a car and drove home from there. It took over 5 hours and Mike was home very, very early on Thursday morning. I could not wait up =) I remember him coming in but I think I went back to sleep...
Thursday, January 29th -
Mike sleeps in - Deb goes to work. Granted, he deserved the sleep. After such a ridiculous trip from Canada, I figured he'd want to sleep in. We arranged it so he slept until lunch and then I picked him up on my lunch break and took him back to work. After work we made a trip to Adam & Jessica's house to bring over a coffee cake I had made them and Maya's baby gift. We had a really nice time but didn't stay long. Jessica's mother was in helping them with the baby and Hannah and Mike was exhausted from his trip. Maya is growing and Hannah is a doll =) We had a great time and left with Mike drooling over Adam's new TV in the basement. I believe a new TV is on Mike's list of things to buy when we win the lottery...
Friday, January 30th -
After work I met up with Mike and some of his coworkers at Wings Etc. We didn't stay too late because Mike had plans to go with some friends from work to another coworkers house to watch a movie in his home theater. Apparently this is quite a pimped out location. There's a giant TV and some button that brings down a screen for movies. Oh, and of course the new movie furniture you see in stores now days. Mike really enjoyed it. He's already measured our basement for future modifications when we win that lottery I mentioned earlier =)
Of course this was a boys night in with pizza. beers and some crazy movie so I didn't want to go. I enjoyed my evening alone at home watching a new phenomenal series On Demand called Rome and eating Chinese. Rome is great - I'd never seen it before but I am absolutely hooked. I made it through 7 episodes before I realized On Demand only had half the series available now. I won't be able to watch the rest of it until next month!! I need to go to Blockbuster and just rent it but I"m too cheap... Sigh. Now I"m getting into The Wire's first season. I watched the last season with Mike but it's neat to see it from the beginning. I watch too much TV...
Saturday, January 31st -
Today was great - it's the day I finally got my DINING ROOM SET!!!!! What started out as just chatter at our weekly breakfast out - this time at Uncle Ernie's - turned into a casual drive to some furniture places in town, and then out of town. Mike's mom suggested we try this new place up the road from them. So we drove to GR and gave it a shot. At first, I was highly discouraged and ready to leave at once. The very first table we saw was $18,000.00 JUST for the table and then an additional $1000-$1500 for the chairs. (faint) I immediately realized this store was beyond any budget we can dream of on our salaries. Mike, however, thought this was a great game and wanted to see if the store had anything MORE expensive just for the fun of it. I did not enjoy this game so I wandered around looking at other ridiculously expensive furniture. I was attracted to this very unique coffee table (just $3000 - a steal!) that was made completely out of pebbles and glass. I can't find an exact replica on the web, unfortunately, but it looked kind of like this but much classier and more coffee table like:
Anyways, while I was admiring this awesome table, Mike found me and asked about a dining room set near where I was. I told him it was nice but probably too expensive. Thank goodness he looked anyways because apparently it was a floor model and they had slashed the price way, way down to get rid of it. We were so excited we sat at the table until a sales person wandered by so we can stake our claim. We found out it had only just gone on clearance the night before and we were the first to catch the sale. We ended up getting a dining room table, china bench and two extra chairs for a very, very reasonable price and much better quality than we originally planned. I will post pictures below.
The table and 6 chairs will be delivered this coming Tuesday. The rest is on order and should be here within 6 weeks. We're so excited. It only took us a year to get a decent table =)
After our successful shopping trip, we came home and celebrated Louis's first birthday with tuna and gifts. No, this is not something we do all the time but we don't have kids obviously and our cats are the closest thing =P Plus, it was fun. We bought him a new feather toy and I guess really a gift for all - a new fountain water dish that also purifies water. It's a glorified fountain really. Louis loves water but hasn't really used the water dish as we thought he would. Oh well. I did get some great shots of Mike with Louis and his tuna birthday cake and reaction to his new water dish. The pictures are priceless!
Sunday, February 1st -
Superbowl Sunday was spent cleaning the house and clearing off the drive. After that very exciting work, we invited Melanie, Bruco and their son Ethan over for boardgames, pizza and an occasional Superbowl comical. I can't say I watched any football but we had a very close game of Taboo. Unfortunately Mike and I lost =( The rest of the night I spent doing laundry and Mike had to get ready for another business trip - this time to Kansas City.
Monday, February 2nd -
Mike's gone again and I'm home with the cats. I did have a productive evening. I hammered out the last of the ice at the end of the drive and shoveled slush until my arms ached. Then I picked up some dry cleaning, returned a book to the library and took out some CDs to burn, then went grocery shopping so the pets could eat. By the time I got home I was just in time to watch an episode of "17 Kids and Counting" before heading to bed.
Tuesday, February 3rd & Today, Wednesday February 4th-
Tuesday I ran a mile! Mike and I are training for a 5K which really means we're trying hard at the gym. I was so exhausted but proud of myself. I think I pushed a little too hard because today my muscles ache. Not a bad ache but just overworked. I will try again tomorrow and hope it works out better. Running is hard work... Mike's much better at it than me =P
Mike got home pretty early last night for a business trip - around 11 p.m. I was pretty much in bed again but I at least could wait up for him this time. We crashed early and went to work as usual today. Mike's catching up on some more work (geez, he's starting to sound like a workaholic but I promise he's not - completely...) while I finally have some time for my blog.
Writing this blog is more challenging each time. First, I have to find time to sit down and think about all I've done in the past week. Second, I have to fight for my spot at the computer because Louis believes the mouse on the compute screen is his own personal laser toy and insists no matter how many times I put him down that it's a game we need to play every time I'm at the computer. I have no idea how to change his mind since he has the concept right but the wrong location!
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