Newsletter: February 2003 Archives

02/24/2003 Newsletter

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Giant Swing
Giant Swing with Jason, Fred and Me
View more pictures in Dallas

February 24, 2003

The first part of last week was fairly normal. I am almost done with school finally. I am doubling up on classes for a few weeks, so right now I am taking a web class and organizational behaviour class that I missed when I first started. It is driving me a little crazy to have two classes, but fortunately neither of them are very hard. My last day of class is supposed to be the 19th of March!

I also spent some time at the dentist and eye doctor getting checkups and yearly exams. Unfortunately neither of them could find anything wrong with me, so the dentist just decided to prolong his checkup and gave me the most through cleaning I have ever had... I was there for a hour and a half. I walked out with a clean, but very sore mouth.

James' Weekend:

On Friday, my friend Jason and I headed to the airport for a flight to Dallas. Both Jason and I work for the same company. One of the cool things about my job is that I work at home, the bad thing is that I have never met any of the people that I work with. So this weekend the six programmers for RecruitOMatic got together. The goal of our meeting was to discuss our upcomming project, but we mostly ended up just talking and getting to know each other.

We had a very busy weekend. We met with Brett Rademacher who is the CEO of the company. He got us all fired up for cranking out Apollo (the code name for our new project). He also treated us to a very nice dinner and I got to have my first strech limo ride.

On saturday, we talked quited a bit more. Then in the afternoon, we decided to go to a Go-Kart place and play. We had a good time racing each other on the Slick Track. After that we had a massive air hockey tournament. We ended up the night at Joe's Crab Shack.

Sunday was the last day of our "conference", we had a few hours to kill before we had to get to the airport, so we decided to have another run on the Go-Karts. Across the street from the Go-Kart place was a bungee tower. Fred wanted to go bungee jumping, so we all went there. Three of us (myself, Jason and Fred) decided to go on their giant swing, the bungee tower, and a ride called the slingshot.

The rest of the day was uneventful, everyone got to the airport and back home safely.

Miekka's Weekend:

Soon to be filled by Miekka... wait with baited breath

We love you all.
James and Miekka Lance

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02/11/2003 Newsletter

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New Snow Fall
New Snow Fall

February 11, 2003

We got our first substantial snowfall this year! It started snowing last Saturday night and snowed periodically until Tuesday evening. The snow didn't pile up as much as it could have because the ground wasn't very cold. We are going to need alot more snow then this though before the year is up, other wise we are in for a hard summer.

Since I work at home now, I was going a little stir crazy for something to do. On Thursday night Miekka and I decided that it would be fun to drive down to Las Vegas. So Friday afternoon we jumped in the car and arrived in Las Vegas around 9:30. Our main reason for going to Las Vegas was so we could eat at the Paris' buffet. I went to the Paris Buffet last year when I was there for Comdex and I thought it was really good.

On Saturday we went window shopping and walked around the strip until about 1:00. Then we headed to the Paris and got in line for the buffet. My favorite part about the buffet is their cheese selection, and their dessert area. They have a really good dessert called bananas foster. Basically it is fried bananas in some kind of sauce, with either chocolate, or caramel and lots of whipped cream. We rolled out of the Buffet at 3:00 and headed to St. George.

We spent a few hours in Hurricane with Mark and Elaine. We enjoyed seeing their kids again. It is amazing how fast Maicey (sp?) is growing. She sure is a cute kid. We left the Hickens at 9:30 and got home at 1:00

We love you all.
James and Miekka Lance

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02/02/2003 Newsletter

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Kitchen Before
Kitchen before remodel
Kitchen After
Kitchen after remodel
Ultrasound of the new one.
Our newest creation... we call it blob.

View more pictures of our kitchen remodel
February 2, 2003

Well, it's been a really, really long time since we last updated you all on what's going on in our lives. There's been quite a few.

First of all, for those of you keeping up on our kitchen remodel, we are mostly done. We still have some trim work to do and some touch-ups. It is wonderful to have a working kitchen again with lots of counter space. We love how it turned out, but are a little burnt out on remodeling now (that's why the trim work hasn't been finished yet). Take a look at the pictures to see the dramatic change!

Second, we'd like to announce that we are expecting a baby on August 7th. We found out at the beginning of December and surprised our families with the news on New Years. So far Miekka hasn't been sick and she isn't really showing much yet, but the next few weeks will probably change that. We are extremely excited and extremely nervous at the same time. We often wonder what we've gotten ourselves into, but there's no turning back now. The Ultra-sound picture was taken when the baby was 8 weeks old and about an inch long. It's the whitish blob at the bottom of the dark circle. Last week we went to the doctor and were able to hear the baby's heartbeat, it was kind of surreal. The doctor said it sounded like a girl. I'm not really sure how that factors in, but hopefully we'll be able to find out what it is in 8 weeks or so. We'll be sure to keep you all updated.

Third, James only has a class and a half left before he graduates and we are counting down the days. He is frustrated with the class he's in right now, because it is an introduction to the Internet, which of course he already knows. He tried to get the University to waive it, but they wouldn't so he's stuck. Luckily he's almost free.

Other than those three major things, not much else has happened. We have just been taking it easy since the rush of the holidays. Starting this week, we should be back on our weekly letter writing schedule, so look for another letter from us next week.

We love you all.
James and Miekka Lance

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