So I left work early on Friday (one of the directors actually came around and said we closed at 3, I finished off what I was working on and left around 3:30). I ran some numbers did some calculation and some figuring.

When Shannon got home, I think I scared her when I told her I wanted to have a "State of the Union" talk...but really what I meant is that we need to figure out what we're gonna do, officially, with the downstairs room, how much we can spend, what it means, and set goals (financial and otherwise) for the future.

So we went over to the Gateway Market Cafe to have dinner and talk.

We agreed on a way to divide the chores around the house (The kitchen and all the things in it are my responsibility (cooking, cleaning, etc), the rest of the house is Shannon's...though this may sound unfair, the kitchen needs to be kept a lot cleaner then the rest of the house.). This also allows for me to have things place where I want them (which I can't really explain to Shannon cause there's lots of things in the kitchen).

We agreed that after we got the room downstairs the way we wanted it, to get to a certain point in our debt, before we can even think about buying anything large (this excludes the Wii and the trip to Ikea).

Afterwards we went shopping, and with all my internet research in hand made a very large purchase...what is it? Well that's a surprise.

After that, we drove it home, and put together some of the furniture that we had already bought for the basement. Shannon went to bed around 11, I went to bed around 2:30.

I was up again at 6, and headed out after my morning ritual, to get some screws and what not that I needed for the furniture. I came home, still tried to get it all together, and then read some more and went out and got the screws that would actually fit the mount and that was the trick.

So this is why we were a bit late to Ahnaka's first birthday party. Though it seems like we weren't that late at all. So there was some grilling, some food, some cake, watching Ahnaka eat and then play in her own chocolate cake (very cute, which I had brought my camera), and then presents (mostly opened by Jerry, since Ahnaka was distracted by a ball, a stuffed kitty (our gift), and then a stuffed bear bigger then her (Patrick's gift)...

After a bit, Shannon wanted to head out and go furniture shopping, and so we did.

After a lot of looking, we ended up at homemakers, and with the help of one of their sales people, (she's in the million dollar club and I can understand why), with the help of Chris, Shannon and her fashion sense, we got a better idea of what we wanted down there, and then she said we probably shouldn't buy it.

Why?

Well unlike the previous time we were there, where the lady said sure it would fit, she actually said it'd be tough to fit it into our basement (29 inch doors (garage to laundry room or hall to stairs to basement). She had us go home and remeasure. Since it would've been a custom order, we would've had to cover the down payment (25%) and the delivery charge. We needed to hit about 33 inches to get them in there...and if we got that it'd still be a maybe.

It was not meant to be. Shannon was actually getting pretty down.

We then went to another furniture store (we hadn't been to yet) and they broke out a measuring tape and found several pieces that could fit through the door.

With that, Shannon felt fairly invigorated and we headed back to Homemakers with that in mind. Furniture with legs (that are removable) and relatively short backs (with cushions or pillows that go up higher). After searching, we found one...comfortable, we both liked it and decided to sleep on it.

After spending Sunday morning cleaning (the house really needed it), we headed out to Homemakers again. Normally I wouldn't wait on a sales person, because generally I don't find them helpful at all, but I wanted to make sure she got our sale, because between her advice about colors and the getting it into the house, she's was very helpful. So we actually waited for her to get done with another sale, before she could help us.

Then we proceeded to buy a love seat (the room doesn't so much accommodate the couch, at least in the way we want to use it), two chairs and an ottoman.

Shannon felt good, the room is mostly finished.

We're going to wait to see how things look before we buy things like end tables or the like...That way we'll get a good idea on how things will shape up in the room.

So now our family room is almost done...this will leave some what of a hole in the living room, since we don't really have something to replace what we're moving down stairs and what we're getting rid off...but we'll see what happens.

So after that we ended up going to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3...which was...better then the second, but not as good as the first. While the movie was just starting, Chris called to ask about going to the movie...so...that was kinda funny.

I returned the call after the movie and we talked about doing something laterish...it was already 8 or so. We headed over to target to get a few more things (new pill case for me for the Metoprolol XL, since it's gonna be taken at night) and a bunch of other stuff. And we finally found one of Ben and Jerry's new flavors, Steven Colbert's Americone Dream...woooo! Anyways, after trying to go where their flavor locater said and not having any luck, we finally found some. So we'll have that sometime.

We talked to Chris about maybe making some ice cream...since we have an ice cream attachment to our kitchen aid mixer, that we've never used. So we got home, I figured out what we'd need to do...and found out that we needed to freeze the bowl first...so there would be no ice cream making last night. I missed the call back from Chris and by the time I checked the phone it was getting pretty late so we decided to call it a night anyways.

This morning I got up bright and early again (6ish) and went downstairs to make the food for our lunch today: a chicken salad with bleu cheese (chicken, bleu, celery, green onions, pepper and mayo), a fruit salad (apples, cherries, strawberries, and a nectarine, with a little bit of sugar and some lemon juice).

This being done, we're ready to head over to Jen and Madd's to have a picnic with the rest of the Cribzero crew.