Renovations

For about a year or so, Kevin has been talking about expanding our kitchen. Our kitchen was tiny, and we didn’t really have room for a table in there (although we did have two fish tanks). We figured that we wouldn’t be able to do it for awhile with the whole grad school expense thing. Then we found out that our Christmas present/repayment for the time Kevin spent in Salina helping his dad work on a new rental house would be Kevin’s dad helping us expand our kitchen. It was a small project expense wise because we had leftover supplies from the basement.

I thought construction and demolition would start after Christmas; however, as I arrived home on December 11, the day before I had a major paper due (and I had only managed to knock out three or four pages so far), I found that demolition had begun and the desktop (the location of my paper and all of my notes) was in various pieces and places throughout the house. Fortunately, Kevin quickly got it back together. 

Now that we are over a month in, the project is nearly complete. The flooring is completed and the shelving is in. I think the biggest thing we have left is painting. We have already hosted family dinner at our house, which was really nice because we didn’t have to transport food to Kevin’s parents’ house. 

Here are some pictures of our progress so far (I don’t have a picture of the completed closet, but just imagine shelves in there. Also, excuse the mess; we live busy lives, and unfortunately that is currently not at the top of my priority list.) The last picture is of the remnants of the wall. When we finish I will post some before and after pictures.

Christmas

 I had the “opportunity” to work Christmas this year, as such I worked on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; however, this meant that I did not have to work any other winter holidays. As such, we celebrated Christmas at my parents’ house the weekend before. We drove up there on Saturday and came back on Sunday. It was nice to be home with my parents, but it really didn’t feel like Christmas. Nevertheless, my parents spoiled us as usual. The Lunar dog even got a nice jacket.

Overall, Christmas was good this year. Even though I had to work, at least I was spending the day with my work family. My days at work were rather uneventful, although I did have a slight scare with an infectious disease and I delayed eating dinner and opening presents until I could shower (it was just me that needed to eat and open presents at that point, so the others weren’t really affected). Glenda gave me this beautiful nutcracker.

 As a side note, Kevin’s boss gave us this bowl as a Christmas/Goodbye present (she is moving to a different department, and Kevin is getting a new boss). She seemed like a really nice lady, so I hope his new boss is as well.