Trip to Lincoln, NE

I took a business trip out to Lincoln, NE in August. Our company uses SDS/2 steel connection design software and we all

4 went out for the User's Group Conference. It was a great trip for us since we got to get a good look at the newest version of the software and learned several tricks for getting even more out of it. We flew out to Omaha via Chicago and rented a car to drive to Lincoln. While we were there we attended a private evening at the Strategic Air Command Museum. Huge understatement: we had a great time. We flew back via Chicago, so we got to see the Windy City at night, which was really neat looking. The pictures are, from bottom to top, a view out the plane window on our way home toward Chicago; the Blackbird jet at the SAC Museum; the Cornhusker's stadium, taken from our parking garage downtown; and then another picture from the plane without the wing in it. I just thought the clouds looked really pretty that evening.

Washington D.C. Vacation

At the end of September, Heather and I took Amtrak to D.C. for a few days. It was our first train trip and we enjoyed it a lot. It was nice not to have to pay for parking or worry about our vehicle breaking down or getting wreck or having to pay for gas. We walked and rode the metro everywhere. We stayed out in Rosslyn within walking distance of the Iwo Jima Memorial. We also took over 600 pictures. Not only were our feet tired every day, so was our picture-taking finger. It was a really great trip for us and probably ranks up near the top of our all-time greatest vacations. The picture was taken in the Library of Congress.

Family Reunion 2007

This is our whole family in the hallway of a building in St. Augustine, FL around Labor Day weekend. We were out doing some site-seeing and a scavenger hunt while we were down at my brother's house for our family reunion when it started to POUR rain. We made it to an old shelter near an old well near the old section of downtown and huddled up and tried not to get wet. Unfortunately, we ended up standing there for over an hour and still got pretty wet, especially our legs, because the wind was blowing. It was quite and adventure and we did get this good group shot out of it, so I guess it was okay.

Joseph and Elizabeth

My brother Joseph and his wife, Elizabeth were married yesterday on January 19. I took the wide angle shot with the bridge in the background in the park downtown on the night they got engaged a while back. Obviously, I played with it a little bit in Picasa. The close up is

not altered. But then I couldn't resist doing something wierd with it, too. Anyway, congratulations to Joe and Elizabeth!!

Addition To Our Cat Family

Condi (short for Condileeza) joined us in June of 2007, just a couple of weeks before June (the dog). We got her from the same place we got June, Heather's parents. As you can see in the picture, she and June are good friends. That is June licking Condi's tail while she is posing for the picture. Condi is a good cat, but she has learned a lot of bad habits from our evil cat, Sophie, who I've posted about before. She really enjoys playing with June. Sometimes June will be resting and Condi will come get her up just so she can hide and let June try to dig her out of various boxes, drawers, and bags. She likes to get into a certain basket and let June pick it up and toss it around and carry it from room to room. It is quite funny to watch.

One New Thing From Last Year...

One thing during our hiatus from blogging in 2007 was a dog. Her name is June and she appears to be a bird dog and dalmation mix. That is what most of the people at the pet store and the vet think. We got her from Heather's parents who had taken her in as a stray, but since they already had a dog, they decided not to keep her. We got her in June, thus the name (I know, I know-- very original). She is very smart and was already pretty much house trained. She will sit and stay and come and respond to "NO!!!!" We have to say that to her a lot. She weighs around 75 pounds and she doesn't realize that she is as destructive as she is. Her best friend is Condi, about whom I will post next.

It's Officially Been a Year!! Wahoo!!!

It has been just over a year since we've posted anything on our blog. It went by very quickly.
One of our New Year's resolutions is to be more faithful to post something... anything... on our blog this year. I'll post a long entry to let everyone know what we did this year in the next few days.