V-Day Cancelled: Several Wounded in Northern Illinois University Shooting

Jim and I where lucky enough to get a last minute reservation at a little Italian resturant called Angeli's. We had not been there yet and we are always up for trying out a new Italian resturant. Jim and I had just sat down to dinner, opened a bottle of wine, and started looking at the delicious looking v-day specials when Jim's phone rang....

MSNBC: Several Wounded in Northern Illinois University Shooting

DEKALB, Ill. - A man armed with two handguns and a shotgun opened fire Thursday in a packed lecture hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University, killing four people and wounding at least 14 others before killing himself, authorities said.

Jim and I had to leave the the returant immediately becuase Jim was off to Dekalb...over an hour away. The resturant was very understanding and they didn't charge us for our bottle of wine. We will definitely go back some time soon and actually eat a meal =)

I am very proud of my husband for the work that he does and we will have many many many more valentines days together.

Another weekend...more painting but, we also fit in some tile work and a game night!

Ok well...I thought we had decided on the paint colors for the family room but, we changed our minds again. Picking greens is MUCH harder than I thought. Our final choice, for the moment, Tate Olive and Wilderness.

On Saturday Jim did a GREAT job re-tiling the hearth.

Saturday night was our second game night. This month it was our month to host, good thing that we had the living room and dining room done!

We played one of our favorite card games, Phase 10. Last month Manuela and Frank were the big winners of the night but this month Jim and I came in one and two!! We always have a great time with Frank and Manuela, here are the pictures to prove it!!

Next month...Texas Holdum...I am going to start practicing now!!

This week we hope to finish-up the Family Room and then on Monday we head to Florida for 2 great weeks away from work and the Chicago Winter.

More Painting and the Super Bowl

In an effort to complete our goal of finishing repainting the downstairs by summer we have now completed the living room, dining room (minus a few touch-ups), and we have now moved into the family room. The living room and dining room we kept the same colors but the family room is going through a complete color transformation. The family room is currently two shades of blue but soon, it will be two shades of green. This might sound easy but there are almost as many shades of green as there are of white...it is VERY hard to decide!!! Also, in the family room Jim has chipped out all of the tile in front of the fireplace and he is replacing them with brand new, different, tiles. Many of the old tiles where chipped or broken...this has become more work than expected.

Here are the greens that we decided to go with...what do you think?

We did take a break from home improvements for Super Bowl XLII, New England Patriots (16-0) vs. New York Giants (10-6) and to EVERYONES amazement the Giants won. Well, everyone was amazed except me. My father has a great knack for accurately selecting the winner of the super bowl...whoever he says will win is bound to lose. I called my father on Sunday morning and he told me that there was no way that he could see the Patriots losing so, there you go; I know the Giants were a shoe in. We watched the Super Bowl at our friends Ed and Stella's and in the middle of the game there was an unexpected snow storm...here are the pictures.