Looking Forward

Sarah and I are into our marathon training, and it is going pretty well; the marathon is in March of next year in Napa Valley. Since our last post, I have filmed a couple more weddings and have been getting steady work from Frontside Films doing his editing.

There's a chance I'll be filming many more weddings next year (cross your fingers) for Frontside by picking up the jobs that he normally has to turn away due to being booked already. We are hoping that I can pick up enough work for Sarah to go back to school next year to work towards her Master's. Sarah's job has picked up considerably due to the loss of one of their closest competitors. She still enjoys what she does and gets along with her co-workers really well, for the most part. :)

Sarah and I are really enjoying our new church and the sense of family and closeness that comes with a smaller church body. Sarah has been volunteering with AWANA every Sunday night for the past month or so, and is committed until the end of the school year. I just started attending the high school group and hope to be able to serve there as I have at our previous church.

We also went to the pumpkin patch on Sunday and got our fall decorations!

Steve and Mojo are still doing great, as long as you don't count Mojo's hairballs.

We're Debt Free!!

No student loans, no car payments, no credit card payments, nothing!

Many of you know we have been on the Dave Ramsey program for about three and a half years; during that time we paid off $35,000 with an average salary of about the same.
During that time we survived going back to college, several layoffs & cut hours, but we just kept moving forward.

Thank yous' go out to our friends the McChesneys for introducing us to The Total Money Makeover & Sarah for all the grocery planning and budgets!
WE'RE DEBT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Felt like writing something...

The last thing you expected was another blog post, but oh well.

Some quick updates for those who may not know or just plain forgot:

Sarah and I are attending East Parkway Church in Granite Bay and are really enjoying it so far. It's a much smaller church and the people are super friendly and welcoming.

Sarah is still working at Bob Murray & Assoc. and I am still freelancin' it as a wedding video editor.

Things are finally getting back to "normal" since Sarah's surgery (thanks again to all our friends and family who helped us out tremendously during the recovery period); we went to Monterey again on Saturday and had fun hitting all of our favorite spots: Campagno's for lunch, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Asilomar Beach and the Monterey Plaza courtyard for some coffee by the ocean.

Steve and Mojo are doing well; Mojo is barfing much less since we switched him over to yummy canned cat food. Steve is clearly jealous since he will eat some of his food and then shoves Mojo out of the way to eat his, which is why I now have to watch over them as they eat.

Not much else to say other than I miss my family. It was great having everyone in town at the same time several weeks ago, but now I miss everyone that much more.

Painting is Finished!

I eluded to the painting on my last post which "everyone" read. Now, here it is.

What We've Been Doing Lately...

I have officially finished college! The last assignment I turned in for my online class was on Aug. 6th; just so that we are all 100% clear, unless I decide to get a bachelor's degree in the future, I am done! I finished with a 3.6 GPA and all A's my last summer semester. My GPA would have been higher if I had done better when I first started college back in 2001 (I returned to college on academic probation).

Now, I am putting in more hours with my internship at the church to get more "real world experience" as well as put a good portfolio of my work together. Which leads me to the other thing I recently finished, my web-site. I have posted five videos that I have edited so far, with new ones to come in the future.

http://www.wix.com/seankenney/videoeditor

Sarah and I are still training for a marathon, however we have decided to change it from the CIM to the Napa Valley Marathon next March. The reason being that we do things together, and the CIM forces the men and women to finish at different places, and that was not acceptable to us.

In other news, I had a great 29th birthday, thanks in large part to Sarah for my great gifts and the large amount of time and energy she put into planning everything; she made andouille sausage burgers (best burger ever, by the way) and we enjoyed them with Sprecker's Rootbeer. We also went with friends to a cabin near Bass Lake where we wake boarded. A big thanks to our friend Carrie McChesney for taking lots of video of us actually getting up onto the board (video soon to come). Tip for getting up on the board: think, "meatball." :)

I am also nearing completion of a painting that I have been slowly working on for months (or a year), but stopped for a while during school. I am hoping to have it done in the next few days; I might post a picture of it when it is finished.

Nothing Much

Why haven't we updated lately? Because we just aren't that exciting. :(

Not much has happened since our last post:

Sarah still really loves her new job.
I have 2-3 weeks of school left (2 weeks of physical classes, 3 until my online class ends).
Steve and Mojo are still doing very well.

I was training with my friend Jason for a marathon in December; unfortunately he injured his foot doing so. Now, Sarah is training with me. Jason and I will pick up training for something else once he's back on his feet, literally.

The Sacramento Zoo's ice cream social is this Saturday, and we are taking our niece Kaidence with us. It will be our first play date with her, and her first time at the zoo.

Other than that, I'm looking for a job in the video production field now. The good news it that there are lots of those jobs out there. Bad news is that they are hundreds of miles away.

Home Sweet Homewood Suites!

(Top three pics are a few of our new problems. Bottom three was our Homewood Suite)

We are officially back into our apartment as of last Thursday. So, we stayed at the Homewood Suites from April 15 'till May 20th. No, it was not like being on vacation for a month; it was more like,"Would you mind putting most of your life on hold for a bit? Thanks." Yes, the apartment management paid for the hotel, and breakfast/ dinner was provided to us most nights as well.

We are very happy to be back home, unfortunately we came home to an apartment that was not renovated well at all. So, the apartment issues will continue for a while longer until the maintenance guy fixes what the contractor "fixed."

ON TO HAPPY NEWS!

Sarah got a new job! The pay is better, shorter commute, close to zero phone calls, interesting work, nice co-workers, a boss that respects her and an excuse to buy new fancy clothes. What more could you ask for? She is now a Senior Consultant for an executive search firm. So far, she loves this new job. Thank you Carrie M. for the hook-up! :)

I finished my last full semester at American River College; I got four A's and one B! Now I have to take three classes this summer, and then I will be FINISHED! I will be taking a Photoshop class (again), an Illustrator class, and a sociology class. Unfortunately, the graduation ceremony isn't until May. So we will just have some parties with friends and families this summer, and then do the ceremony thing later. Big thanks to Nate Romo for his hours of help on my Adobe Flash projects this last semester. You rock, Nate!

Some final random things:

We loved the LOST finale; we thought it could have been better, but it was very satisfying.
We have started to watch 24 on Netflix. I think we are the last people on earth who haven't watched it yet.
We started drinking decaf coffee at night from home; it's a great way to end the day.
The kitties are doing great. Mojo and Steve play and fight with each other on a daily basis.