this is my present?!? thanks bro

So last weekend my little brother Ty was in town and helped us move some furniture around in our workout room and spare room. While we were working he found a Christmas present that my older brother Jay gave me a few years ago. I got such a great laugh then, I thought I would share it with the blogging world.

Katie Burgess,

International Star Registry is proud to inform you that your loved one, Jay Burgess, has purchased the rights to name a star after you, Katie Burgess. The star chosen for you is the twenty second star from the sun in the Piedes solar system in the Anorxa galaxy.

As part of the special deal, you are also the proud new owner of the Katie Burgess star. As owner of said star you have been given all rights to any and all natural resources found, including coal, rubies, diamonds, etc... and in the event of an inter-galactic war, you have the responsibility to protect said star and any possible inhabitants from total annihilation.

As owner of this new star, we know that you are very excited and want to thank the person who bought you this star as he is quite possibly the coolest person in the world.

Sincerely,

International Star Registry

Included in my present was a picture of the sky with my star circled and titled..."your star".

I always thought it was kinda funny that people did this for real. Who actually has the authority to give the right to sell stars to people? Jay did get me a real Christmas present, but I have to say that my whole family laughed for a long time and still laugh now when we talk about my star that I have to protect from total annihilation...thats A LOT of responsibility.

My Friend Janet

This is kind of a strange thing to write. Its wierd putting this in writing, telling you about my friend Janet, in a past tense. I've never actually done this since she passed away almost 4 1/2 years ago. I first met Janet 11 years ago. We met at Southern Virginia College where we decided to go to school and play soccer. Janet was one of the first people I met there. We quickly became great friends, teammates, and roommates. Janet is apart of most of my college memories. Even after we both graduated from college we kept in touch. Along with our fellow friend/roommate/teammate Adrienne, I went down to North Carolina a couple days after she had giving birth to her first son, Kaiden, the end of October 2004. It was so wonderful to see her as a mother and how much she loved that little boy. I remember just watching her as she held him with such natural ease and loved to play with his hair to form a little mohawk. That was the last time I saw Janet. It was just a few months later that I got a call from Adrienne with the horrible news. So I will get to the point of me posting this.

Janet with Kaiden at their home in Durham.

On April 26th, 2005 Janet was murdered in her home in Durham, North Carolina. Kaiden was in the house with her but wasn't harmed. As I am sure you can imagine this was a very hard thing to deal with and try to make sense of. A lot of us were able to gather together in Buena Vista, Virgina where we all attended college, for her funeral. It helped to be together along with her family, however most of us are still void of any closure. We have accepted or are continually trying to accept the fact that there may never be any resolution to our friend's murder. However, just recently I received some exciting news. On Wednesday, August 26th, in a just a few days, they will be airing Janet's case on ABC's Primetime Crime. Please tune in to see her story - check your local listing for the time. I don't know how much of the episode will be dedicated to Janet and I don't know if this will bring any new leads to the detectives. This is what I do know, due to my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we will see Janet again, that family relationships and friendships can and will endure beyond on the grave.

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" -1st Corinthians 15:55

We got her!!!

We are so excited! We went to meet her tonight and the couple liked us so much they let us adopt her right then and there! The "mom" was really sad to give her up, but they live close so we promised they could visit anytime. She is even cuter in person and has such a fun personality. She is a 4 month old boxer lab mix but really looks part tiger. I do believe she is going to be a good fit for Dan and I. They named her Selena, which is pretty, but doesn't roll off my tongue very easily, so we are thinking Selena for her middle name, but are looking for a first name. We are sort of leaning towards Brynn or Brindy, but are definitely up for suggestions..so share your ideas! We are so excited to be able to take her hiking and running and biking and for her to really be a part of our family. Thank you to Dan's older brother Jamie who cured him of his dog allergies so we could get a dog! I will definitely keep you updated on her training and cuteness, but for now I gotta go, I want to play before she gets to tired!

still in the running

This is the little boxador puppy that I am pretty sure I mentioned in a previous post. I got a call the other day from her owner to tell us that we are still in the running. We get to meet her on Monday! I hope we do well on the "interview" :). Her family is moving out of the country soon and obviously can't take her with them, so...thats where we come into play. I think she is so cute, I mean look at her little face! Dan has been reading Ceasar Millan's (the dog whisperer) book, The Pack Leader. We are totally getting ready, hopefully WE like HER and SHE likes US! Although I still hate to get a dog before a baby, but hey such is life.

Christmas in August?

On my day off last week I was feeling very crafty, so I went to a couple material stores to see if I could get inspired. I went into our (me and my mom, not me and Dan) favorite quilt shop and it was so busy - I found my favorite quilt lady - as I call her and found out they were having a huge sale...then she said, yeah, I haven't seen your Mom in here :) Told you it was our favorite. Too bad my Mom was out of town...or maybe it was secretly a good thing, I would have spent mucho more money with her to help me decide on material for a new quilt! Anyway. I got some baby blanket flannel which I choose not to post in case the recipient of a baby quilt looks at my blog. However I did see this really cute Mary Engelbreit Christmas material.

This "layer cake" is cool because you don't have to go searching for material that goes well together and they have already done that for you!

I think I am going to make a Christmas Tree skirt.

P.S. Too any of you fellow bloggers out there that have their favorite craft-type idea blogs that you would like to share, let me know! Thank you!

the fruits of our labors

We planted 3 squash plants, only 1 grew, but it seems like it will be providing us quite a few beautiful yellow vegetables. We had our first homegrown squash on Friday night. It was delicious! Why did I not like squash as a kid??

Action shot of Dan "harvesting". As you might be able to see, we haven't done a great job weeding our garden. I'll do better next year, one step at a time.

My attempt at a self portrait. Despite the man at bicycle village telling me I have abnormally long arms...I guess they aren't long enough.

Dan is much better at it :)

update on Annie

No Annie, you aren't allowed on the couch....oh well, you look so cute. We were cooking dinner one night and hadn't seen her for a few minutes started calling her name, Dan walked over to our family room, and this is what he found...I hope we do a little better job when we discipline our children.

Friday night we were playing in the backyard, this is the best picture I could get of her before our camera ran out of batteries. Yeah it's not a very good picture but oh well. She was going nuts! Running SO fast around in circles, she had Dan and I cracking up! If you look close you can see that she is in mid-stride. For a little dog she can really haul!

I love our backyard. We all still working on parts of it. We (as in my parents and us) put the mulch in around the grass last summer and we put more grass seed in the summer, its coming in ok. The rest of the grass looks great, lots of rain this summer and Dan has been fertilizing it quite a bit. Next spring we are going to get a few more trees to go along our back fence to get a little more privacy - eventually.