I love weekends like this!

I love days like yesterday. I woke up wide awake at 7:40AM and was ready to get the day started. Yes I like to sleep in, but then I feel like half the day has been wasted away. Anyway… I got the day started with some quality CFA study time and got the house cleaned (a semi-deep clean at that!) After that it was off to study with Ashley from Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Thanks for studying with me Ash, I had a great time! Since I was being productive, I decided Nick should join me. We hit up Costco for our every-six weeks Costco run (with coupons of course), then grabbed a new microwave from Lowes (the lady said Nick and I work great together because we agree right away), then to Petco for food for the kids. The car was completely full by that point, so we made a quick stop home to drop everything off, and then made our Saturday trip to Fareway. Let me tell you, Fareway in Norwalk is not busy on a Saturday night at 7PM, we may be doing that more often. I think we were out of there with our food for the week in about 15 minutes! Since it was getting late, we decided it was a good night to go out for dinner- sushi it is! And no, I don’t eat raw fish, I don’t eat any type of fish. But the Waterfront makes an amazing veggie roll and even better mango/cream cheese roll (upon request). Then a little ice cream and we were on our way back home. On the way home I asked Nick, what are we going to do tomorrow? He replied- relax. He also mentioned something about a bike ride- which I hope he means just him (it’s a little cold for me to be biking already). The relaxing part sounds good to me!

I LOVE getting everything done on Saturdays, so Sundays are a relaxing day of reflection and time together. And this Sunday will include some live music from Toby Keith- cannot wait. And likely some more studying, it is always nice to get ahead. Overall a very fun weekend! Too bad it is over half over, or just under half left if you look at it from the positive side.

Some of you may already know, but for those that don't- FBL Financial Group, Inc. let go of 76 people today. Nick and I both work for the company, and were extremely lucky to not be part of that number. Unfortunately, Nick's former department is now being outsourced, as well as another department. We are glad he found a new position in the company when he did (about 2 years ago), but are thinking of all of his old co-workers, and others let go from the company, as they go through the changes ahead of them. If we can be of assistance to any of you/them in any way, please let us know. We will be keeping you in our thoughts and prayers.

These economic times we are in are, in one word, "crazy" and hard on all of us. We only hope the turnaround comes soon and things start looking up. It is days and times like this that make us so greatful for what we have and remember that everything happens for a reason, even if we don't see what that is right now.

Welcome to the Family Rosario!

No, we did not add another pet to the mix- we got something to help with them instead!

Rosario, our new Roomba, was added to the family on Saturday in order to help with inbetween floor cleanings. With Kara studying and Nick gearing up for biking season, we decided we needed a little help around the house in order to keep Kara sane. Thus far Rosario has been used almost once a day and she does a great job! She isn't as good as Kara's weekly deep clean, but it works for during the week and is sure to come in handy come spring when the animals start shedding more. The best thing is we can schedule her and she does it all on her own while we are gone, then goes back and recharges herself! Now if we could get her to empty out the dirt container (we can dream).

On a different note- a shout out to a fun Saturday night at the 'German Bar.' And a late Happy Birthday to Megan- way to take part in the boot game.

Same Old, Same Old

We realize we haven’t written much lately, but there really isn’t much going on in our lives right now. It is the same old, same old.

Kara was sick starting New Year’s Day and lasting a week or so. First the flu, then a cold, and then an ear infection. We figure the year can only go up from there. Luckily, Nick managed to avoid all of it- allowing him to wait on Kara while she was under the weather.

Kara started studying for the Level II CFA exam in December, taking up about 15-20 hours each week. Thus far it is going good and she is a week ahead of her study schedule- knock on wood.

Nick is pretty excited about his new cyclocross bike that he put together last week, which is probably about the highlight of 2009 thus far. Kara is glad he has something to do besides snow-blow the driveway. Now that the weather is getting nicer, he is sure to be off on more outside bike rides.

That is about it for us. No current home improvement projects, no trips planned, nothing too exciting. Just hanging in there.

It's Shopping Time!

I feel like we haven’t been writing as much on this thing lately, so I will tell you what I have been thinking about even if it isn’t exciting. And yes, I do remember that we still have some of the redone rooms to show- I just keep forgetting to take pictures of them. I will get to it, someday. Anyway….

It is about that time of year again- Christmas shopping time! But I don’t mean ‘Day after Thanksgiving’ shopping. For the third year in a row, Nick and I have a goal to have all Christmas gifts purchased prior to Thanksgiving (more my goal that he has adopted). Some people may think that is weird (yes we do get odd looks when we start asking for lists in October), but if you think about it, it really makes sense and allows us to enjoy the holiday season MUCH more. After working in retail (at the mall) for three holiday seasons, I see nothing fun about shopping with the crowds. And do you really save that much money to make up for the stress of driving in the city with people who have no idea where they are going, as well as trying finding somewhere to park at the malls and Target?

So, our tradition is to take the day BEFORE Thanksgiving off and hit the stores in search of perfect gifts for everyone. Yes, we are boring and have people make lists so we don’t have to search for ideas of what to get them, but it makes it so much easier to pick up gifts and we know they will use them.

Wednesday it is, I have already started charting out our plan for the day, and with the gifts we have already found we should be on our way to having Christmas shopping done by Wednesday night! I will admit the first year we did this Nick was a little skeptical (basically he hadn’t decided what to get everyone in advance), but now he loves it!

Then on the day after Thanksgiving we can sit down, put in Elf and wrap the presents. The rest of the season we can just enjoy the beautiful decorations and relax. I will admit that we may hit a store or two on the day after Thanksgiving, but more for fun and not because we have to get something (Ace Hardware usually has some really nice deals that day and the store is hardly busy here in Des Moines.)

Off topic a little- I must say I am the luckiest wife around because Nick doesn’t complain about shopping at all! I don’t think it is his favorite thing to do, but he doesn’t complain. It also helps that on this shopping day we always make a trip downtown for lunch at South Union- something we don’t get to do very often since we work in West Des Moines. Thanks for being such a great shopping partner Nick!

How Time Flies!

It hard to believe that we have been married 6 months already! It seems like just yesterday we were having the wedding and going on the honeymoon (although we would be game for another honeymoon any time). We celebrated by cooking up the pheasant Nick caught the previous weekend, cracking open a bottle of champagne and enjoying the strawberries (thanks for the gifts Nick).

Happy Halloween!

We hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween! Here are a few pictures from our 3rd Annual Pumpkin Carving Night! Thanks Mike and Megan, we had a great time!