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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Welcome Penelope, aka Penny!

About a month ago we took over raising my brother's dog, Penelope. We call her Penny for short. She is an Austrailian Sheep dog. She loves to play fetch and having her backside scratched. She and April get along well and they play and look after each other. My co-worker loves to watch them when we are out of town. I would say that Penny has grown accustomed to her surroundings and will fit in well with our family. Looking at the picture to the right, how can you not love those eyes, oh and I told you she loves to play fetch, that's one of their tennis balls in the picture.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Notre Dame Defeats Purdue & Tailgating!!!

My wife, her cousin (a Purdue fan, but otherwise a nice guy), & I went to West Lafayette for yesterday's game between the Fighting Irish and Boilermakers. We parked prior to the game and tailgated a stone's throw from the stadium. We enjoyed watching the gentle ribbing both teams fans were giving each other and after 4 beers each we decided we should head to the stadium for the game. Due to the past seasons of football, this year is make it or break it for Charlie Weis, so the Irish needed to win the game. Starting quarterback, Jimmy Clausen, was hurt with turf toe so Notre Dame did not have their usual air attack which meant they had to go to the ground attack. Notre Dame has recently started to use the Wildcat offense so that's what we saw a lot of. Notre Dame jumped out to a halftime lead however a blown coverage play gave Purdue the lead with about 4 minutes left in the game. Needing to go almost the length of the field Jimmy got the ball and lead the Irish down the field to inside the Purdue 5 yard line. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down came and went and it came down to 4th and goal and Jimmy rolled out and hit tight end Kyle Rudolph for the go ahead score!!! The southern endzone and Irish fans in our section went nuts and the rest of the stadium went home sad with a lose. Check out the pictures to the right and the scoreboard picture above. I will also post the go ahead scoring play here.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Running and Tailgating with My Cousin

Well I have resumed training for the Niagara Falls International Mini-Marathon. I ran close to 7 miles this past Sunday and I am slated to run 8 miles this week. I am slowly but surely getting to my goal of 13.2 miles. I will be twittering during the race and I may even upload some images if I can get that set up prior to the race. I run about 4-5 days a week and may even do some strength training. I have also switched Melissa's BodyBugg to my weight/height so I can start watching what I eat and resume losing weight. This weekend Melissa and I are going to meet up with her cousin and go to the Notre Dame vs. Purdue game in West Lafayette. Hopefully it should be a fun and exciting game for Irish fans since Purdue lost to Northern Illinois last week. I play Farmville on Facebook and if there was any question who I was rooting for you can see based on the picture to the right.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Notre Dame 33 vs. MSU 30 Scoreboard


Click To Enlarge

First Victory over MSU at Notre Dame Stadium since 1993

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Thoughts on the ND vs. Michigan Game!

Just got done watching the Notre Dame vs. Michigan game and I can't believe the Irish lost it :-(. There were a few miscues on the game that I want to talk about. I cannot believe that the touchdown in the first half was overturned. The video evidence was not inconclusive and therefore the call on the field should not have been overturned - I blame the refs! Second, the Irish should not have been throwing the ball when they had the lead in the forth quarter, you run the ball with the lead - I blame the coaching! Third, there were 3 seconds stolen from the game that need to be addressed. There was a reason that the refs ran from the field after the game was over - Again the refs are to blame! Now as I told some of my Michigan fan aquaintances that I don't mind losing, that is IF I LOSE FAIRLY, and I don't feel that that game was a fair game. Now with that said, bring on Michigan State and I now have to root for OSU, cause I hate USC!

Monday, September 7, 2009

Notre Dame 35 vs. Nevada 0 Scoreboard

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Go Irish! Keep It up!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Tenn. Trip Day 2 – Smoky Mountain Waterfall Hike!

Day 2 started with Melissa and I having a nice big breakfast and then we went to the outlet mall for a few since it was raining outside. Once it started to clear up we decided to head to the Smoky Mountains State Park and go to the Cascade Falls.
We knew it was going to be a 4 mile strenuous hike and knowing this thought we should take a flashlight with us since we were headed out at 4:30 PM. According to the park map we should be able to make it out to the falls and back by 8:30 PM. Well we hiked and hiked and hiked, took several pictures and finally made it to the beautiful Cascade Falls. Check out the pictures to see how beautiful it was! We then started back and got about half a mile in to the hike when it started to get dark. Around mile marker 2 it was pitch black dark and we had to use the flashlight. Melissa slipped and sprained her ankle at mile marker 3 but was a trooper and kept going all the way to then end. We were able to make it back and now we have an adventure store to tell :-). Leaving the cabin and already miss it.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Tennessee Trip Day 1 - Dinner @ Ye Old Steakhouse

For dinner I decided that we should go to a local place called Ye Olde Steakhouse. I had seen it on a "Taste of the Town" segment that ESPN does during its Thursday night college football games. If you call the number for the business you find out that they don't serve alcohol, just beer, so we had to bring our own wine which was something new for Melissa & me. The draw to this place was (obviously enough) steaks. The way they cook them is on the grill, then the cook them in vegetable oil and then back on the grill again. The steak was very, very tender & very, very good. For desert we had a nice warm piece of apple walnut pie with a scoop of ice cream, the perfect way to finish any dinner.

Tenn. Trip Day 1 – Waterfalls & ND Football!

After we were done Ziplining we made an executive decision to head to the Smoky Mountains State Park and head for some hiking and to take some pictures of the waterfalls they have. We got out of the car right after the game had started and ND had scored its first touchdown. Now, before I begin I hope everyone realizes this was hard to not watch this game: home opener, high hopes, first game of the season – but don’t worry I have it TIVO’ed. We started out on our hike to the Laurel Falls and the skies started to look threatening. We kept going and started to hear
“There’s a bear on the trail” and “Yep honey that was Yogi Bear” which made us a little curious and we kept going. As we approached the falls someone was pointing to a place on a nearby cliff and sure enough there was a small bear! I snapped a couple of pictures that didn’t turn out but we kept going and took several pictures of the falls, and wouldn’t you know it as we started to take pictures the rain came. We hung out under a tree/ledge and were dry for a while and as it started to let up we headed out. We got back to the car and I immediately jumped on the phone and checked the text messages that Melissa’s brother Nick was sending us about the game. “28 – 0 ND at the half” he said and we decided that we would head back to the cabin we were staying in and get ready for dinner. We got back to the cabin and were able to see some of the highlights of the game and from what I saw I think we are going to be good this year. If we can beat Michigan next week that will be the litmus test for the season, win there and we should do well for the rest of the season.

Tennessee Trip Day 1 – Ziplining

Well Melissa and I woke up on our first day of vacation and had some eggs, bacon, and a biscuit for breakfast. We took the dogs out for a little bit, watched some ESPN College Gameday and then we headed out to stop by Wal-Mart for some items prior to heading out for our day. On our way to Wal-Mart we saw a place that was advertising Ziplining.
Melissa & I have never done this before and Melissa said “That sounds like fun!” So we found a place that takes you up to the top of a mountain and you Zipline down. We signed up, finished our lunch, and headed on our way. Mental note: Krystals = White Castles. The Ziplining was a blast. We headed up with 2 guides who were cool and funny. Our group was great too! I was able to snap some pictures of Melissa using my Blackberry, check them out. I would suggest that anyone who has the option of doing it does it because we had a lot of fun.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Lost In Mountainous Tennessee!

This weekend Melissa and I are going to mountainous Tennessee for the weekend to relax and have fun.  We plan on hiking and taking the dogs for a walk and having a lot of fun.  We are going to be staying in a cabin that has no internet connection so we will be out of touch for the weekend.  The picture to the right shows the view from the back deck.  We will take plenty of pictures and I will post them after the weekend is over.