Monday, January 31, 2005

Another busy weekend...

We had yet another busy weekend... On Friday, we decided to grab dinner at White Castle (we ordered the 10-pack of burgers with fries and chicken rings) before going to our favorite cheap theater to see Alexander. Whatever you do, don't see it. It was long and boring, and people in the theater got pretty restless a couple of hours in. Some even left.

On Saturday, we spent much of the day attempting to figure out how to arrange the furniture in the living room. We may just have something now, but we still don't have a TV up there -- though the cable guy is supposed to come on Thursday, so we'll see if he can fix it. Then we ran out to get some groceries (we also went to Old Navy, so I could do some last-minute party-clothes shopping).

The company party was on Saturday night. It was out in the middle of nowhere -- in farm country. And the building itself wasn't a lot nicer than your standard cafeteria. I kept thinking that the people in Andover would have had a cow had they seen it -- it was nowhere near classy enough for Bostonians. The party was fun, though -- and it was great to meet Paul's coworkers. I got to meet a lot of people -- and they were all so totally welcoming. When we were about to leave, Paul decided to stop in the bathroom, and all kinds of people came up to me to say hello -- even people that Paul had never met! After the party, we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for a drink and some trivia with Arjen, one of the guys from Delft, who's visiting for a few weeks.

Yesterday we did a little more gym research. There's one gym in the area that has great membership prices -- and they've got something like 7 gyms in the area -- but we've visited two of them, and we just don't like them (the one closest to us is actually in a deserted mall!). So despite the price, we've decided against it. Now we just have to figure out what to do about Bally's. We have our free membership through March 15, but they have a membership special going on through today. It's a great gym -- but it's a long drive.

We also did some furniture shopping. We still need tables and an entertainment center in the living room, and we started looking yesterday. Nothing yet, though -- it may be a while before we get totally settled in...

Still no car, either. We had a chance at two on Friday, but we still didn't get anything. We've been told that there's a Honda auction tomorrow, though, so we've got a good chance again tomorrow. The wait is getting a little frustrating...

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Nothing yet...

Believe it or not, we had three (yep...three) cars slip out of our hands yesterday. There were actually two cars at the auction -- a silver one, which went over our budget, and a sandstone one that was totally in our budget, but the guy didn't get to that particular auction in time. And we went to the dealership last night, test drove the other silver one, totally flipped for it, and then discovered that there was no way they were going to come down as far as we'd been hoping.

Back to the drawing board...

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Today could be the day

We have two chances for getting a car today!

1) Paul was online last night and found that there was a 2002 CR-V available at the local dealership. It's got all the features we want, and it's in our price range (well, a little over, but we might be able to talk them down a bit). We're going to check it out tonight.

2) Paul then called the guy who's looking at auctions for us, and he said there's a 2002 CR-V on the auction today. He's not sure of the features or the price, but he'll let us know as soon as he knows more.

So we've got a pretty good chance to gettin' some new wheels today! Yea!

Monday, January 24, 2005

Quiet weekend...

What was originally supposed to be a busy weekend turned out to be a pretty quiet one. On Saturday, we were supposed to go to a pub down the street to watch the Calvin-Hope game with the rest of the alumni in the area. And Paul's company post-Christmas party was supposed to start at 7. But Exact postponed the Christmas party on Friday, due to the expected blizzard. And on Saturday morning, we found out that the Calvin game was postponed, too, due to the snow in Michigan. We, on the other hand, only got about an inch or two, so we ended up doing some shopping and some home repairs instead.

We did, however, get to do some shopping -- we found a great outlet mall between here and Dayton, and we got some great deals!

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Coming soon...

We put in our order for our new car last night. When Paul called the bank over the weekend to check on loans, he was referred to a local guy who can save us a whole bunch of money. He takes orders from people and goes to auctions to find them what they want. So instead of paying all the extra fees and stuff that a regular used-car dealer would add on, we just pay auction price plus $950. He claims that he can get us a newer car than we expected with lower mileage -- for a lower price.

We test-drove a couple of cars over the weekend, and we decided to go with a Honda CR-V. That way, we'll have plenty of space -- for traveling, camping, and hauling Christmas presents. :)

Since the CR-V is a pretty popular vehicle, the buyer says we should have one in a couple of weeks or less...

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

We have furniture!

Our living room furniture showed up yesterday! Finally...people can come over and actually sit in our living room! It's not totally arranged to our liking yet -- we've got a long way to go -- but it's a start. It's not a big empty room with a lamp anymore. The one problem: we still have to spend our time in the basement, since the cable jack in the living room doesn't work...


Finally! Furniture! Posted by Hello

And...in other news...

I just wanted to show you that I grew something. I'm pretty proud of it. A couple of weeks ago, while we were in Home Depot, I saw a display full of little potted herbs. They're just pots with seeds somewhere inside, and you have to soak them and follow the instructions to get them to grow. This is my first plant to actually sprout -- it's chives. I'm still working on the parsley and cilantro.


I grew something! Posted by Hello

Thursday, January 13, 2005


The Whole Fam...Christmas 2004 Posted by Hello

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Welcome to our new blog!

Hey Kramers (and Taylors, too)!

We were sitting at the Ford dealership the other night, waiting for an oil change... I was knitting and watching Wheel of Fortune, and Paul was reading some magazine. I looked over his shoulder and noticed that he was reading an article about blogs -- and that got me thinking.

"We should make a blog for the family," I suggested. "That way we could all keep in touch." I told him about one of my friends from Michigan whose family started a blog years ago -- they were spread around the country, in all different time zones, and it was the best way for them to all keep in touch. Each day, they all checked in and read the latest family news.

Well, once I get an idea in my head, it won't rest until I give it a shot. So here's the result. I've been working with Blogger for a while, and it seems to be pretty easy to use. You can even download the Hello program and share pictures. It sounded like a great way to keep the whole family on the same page, so to speak.

So give it a shot, and let me know what you think...

Jill