Jason Ritchie - TV Star!

Jason was on TV last night.

Our local news does these Extreme Makeovers, just like the one that is on ABC with Ty Pennington. This project involved renovating and updating a local women's shelter. All of the handyman work was done by Handyman on Demand, which is the company Jason uses for Handi Habitats. The guy in charge of the makeover, Charles, is good friends with Jason, and asked him if he wanted to be involved.

Jason donated a threshold ramp and also put Charles in contact with this company that donated a tricked out handicapped-accessible walk-in tub. A few months ago, Jason went to the site to install the threshold and they videotaped him.

The show aired last night and Jase looked awesome! He was so comfortable on camera - way more comfortable than the majority of people on the show. They even cut to him sawing the threshold ramp like a blue-collar stud.

There isn't any video up yet on the site but you can read about the project and see Jason's logo, which links to our new site. Our friend Monica recently updated the site and Matt, our webmaster, got it up and running. Any suggestions you may have on the website are welcome - we need to tweak the photo section and we want to add some stock photos, but we don't know much about website design so we are open to any suggestions anyone may have.

I'm really proud of Jase - he created this business out of nothing, just an idea we had one day. And now he's on the news. Pretty amazing.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Jason's parents at our house. I may not be a good cook, but I am a hell of a reheater, lemme tell ya. I ordered the turkey, potatoes, stuffing and gravy from our local grocery store, precooked. The turkey was super plump and really really yummy - and it only took 90 minutes to reheat! I made a traditionally midwestern Green Bean Casserole (Campbell's soup - mmmm mmmm good) and Jason's mom made a sweet potato casserole that was so sweet it could have been dessert. But dessert was covered - Jason's mom brought three pies - for 4 people. It was excessive, but man it was good.

The next day, Matt, Jen and Theo came over - they were in Riverside visiting Jen's parents - and we had a great morning with them. Charlie and Theo get along so well. They really enjoy each other. There are never any issues between them - they always play so nicely. I'm pretty sure they are genetically wired to be friends. Matt and Jason have been friends since they were six years old, and Jen and I became close friends the instant we met each other over 12 years ago. It's a shame we don't live close to each other anymore, but we're working on the recruitment speeches to convince them to move down here. They would be close to Theo's grandparents, and extended family is so important in a child's life. Besides, the weather is great here year-round - Theo could get a lot of outside playtime. The housing market is tanking, so they could get a great deal on a house. And they are both so smart it would be cinchy to nail a 6-figure job. See?

So a great Thansgiving weekend topped off by Jason's TV debut. Pretty cool.