Moveage

Believe it or not, I am writing from my 95% dead laptop which is now 100% fixed. For those of you in the area, I use the Ruschman Bros. (http://www.ruschmanbros.com/) I have known Brett for a couple years and his company is great. I gave him both my computers to transfer files (about 7GB) from one to the other since my efforts didn't work. Then he totally re-imaged my 95% dead laptop and voila! it works again! He works amazingly fast and I had both laptops back the next day. Just let him know that I referred you.

In other news, the grand move has begun. Tuesday night Jay and I packed up both our cars and headed to Falmouth. Much to our surprise when we arrived, our house was right in the middle of a massive two block radius "no-drive" zone. There were 4, count them 4, helicopters landed two yards down. Apparently, a head-on collision occurred in front of the house next door to the parsonage. It was quite the scene. We had to wait for the choppers to take off before they would let us through. Tonight, more packing of boxes. Thanks to Amy she brought tons, and I mean tons, of boxes and we have been putting them to good use. We actually ran out of duct tape before we ran out of boxes. If all goes as planned, we will start moving all of our major stuff on Saturday.

Kentucky Horse Park

Jay returned from Pennsylvania on Friday night and the next morning he took me to the Kentucky Horse Park. I have been there before for the Christmas light display but never to just visit the park. It's a pretty cool place for horse lovers like me . In 2010, the Horse Park is hosting the FEI World Equestrian games and they are doing a lot of construction on a new covered arena and they are repaving the roads to prepare for the games. This will be the first time the FEI World games have ever been played outside of Europe so it is a huge honor for the Kentucky Horse Park to host. And of course, I would love to attend some of the games, especially since the park isn't that far from us. Here are a couple minis just munching away.

Thoroughbred racehorse, Cigar, holds the record for the most earnings with well over $10,000,000.

American Quarter horse

The narrator rode a half Quarter, half Andulsian horse.

Tennessee Walking Horse

Arabian

Spanish Mustang (I love the rider's outfit)

Thoroughbred demonstrating a small jump

Appaloosa

English Shire

And the best (in my opinion), two black Fresians being directed by one rider. I have never seen this type of riding/training. The horses were unbelievable!




Absolutely gorgeous horses and the patience of the rider with his horses was amazing. Both horses responded beautifully together, trotting at angles and stopping right beside each other. Just really beautiful.

Statue of Man O War, who incidentally is buried below the statue


Me and my honey


Here is a video of the two Fresians working together.

The Wild Side

It was a beautiful day for a ride...a horseback ride. But alas, I don't have a horse to ride, so my boss offered me a ride on his Harley. I absolutely loved it. He has a really nice bike and that back seat was very comfortable. There are even round speakers for the passenger and the sound is really good. You can kinda see the one speaker just under the right passenger elbow rest.

Putting on a helmet, not because my boss is a bad driver, but who knows what kind of wackos are on the roads.

A friend helped buckle the helmet.

Awaiting instructions on how to get on. I can mount a horse much more easily than getting on this thing.


My boss smiling as he explained I shouldn't really lean much in the corners, to just lean with the bike slightly.

Waving to Cathy (photographer) who had been instructed by the other boss to take pictures since he had a meeting and couldn't be there for my pilgrim "voyage." Right after Cathy snapped this picture, he gunned the engine and I let out a little squeak right in his ear, but what do you expect? Overall, it was very enjoyable and relaxing. We went on some back country winding roads. I wasn't really use to the leaning because it felt like we were going to tip over. I knew we wouldn't, but sometimes it felt like we were leaning way over. Thanks, Boss, for the bike ride :o)

Hillbillies

Charlie aims at the target during the 25 yard shooting contest.

Dad circling the shots so they aren't confused with someone else's.

My cousin, Steve, and his little boy.

Mary shooting. She actually won the contest with 28 out of 30.

We had timed go-kart races. My 2 lap time was quicker than everyone else's except for Dad, but he had home "track" advantage :o)

Then it was off to the Trailer race. If you remember my post from last year, to win the race you must still be able to move around the track and you must be pulling something.

The dude pulling the boat lost it before the race even started!


Me and my lil sis, Ally. I believe this will be the last time I get to see her. She is leaving for Hobe Sound Bible College in the next few weeks. Good luck, Ally!


Well, alas, I am at home alone this week. Jay is out in PA at a youth camp. Apparently this is his 24th year in a row to attend this camp and he just can't miss one single year.

95% Dead

My laptop is almost assuredly dead in the water for a while. I actually got about 2.5GB backed up on the internet before the laptop seemingly went to sleep. I've tried everything short of beating it against the wall to try to get it to stay on, but alas, it does not listen.

So in my frustration, three nights ago I got on Ebay and found a used laptop store in Cincinnati and I purchased a dirt cheap, formerly used Dell laptop. I am currently restoring that 2.5GB from my backup drive to this "new" laptop. We would have eventually purchased a laptop since Jay's laptop was actually property of the YMCA and since he no longer works for them, his laptop was passed to his replacement. I just hadn't expected to get one so soon, but what can I say? I wasn't happy that my so called "top-o-the-line" HP laptop hasn't even last 3 years and it's already having major problems. Of course, I do realize that 3 years in the computer world is probably like an eternity with all the new upgrades and gatchets out there, but still!

Only a few more weeks..

I am getting so excited about Hawaii. We have the trip paid off. Now we are working on saving money for all the little things, like food, shopping and trips. Little stuff, yah know? Wink!

Yesterday, we sat down with our travel agent and she got us booked for a 4 1/2 hour Pearl Harbor tour. She is also looking into a sunset dinner cruise for the evening of our anniversary. Prices are absolutely outrageous down there so we will probably spend a lot of time cruising in our rented convertible and any free stuff we can do.

We are staying at the Turtle Bay Resort. www.turtlebayresort.com
(p.s. if you have dial-up or a slower connection, the above link may take some time to load)

It is on the north shore of the island and about 45 minutes from downtown which is exactly what I wanted.

Life Awaits

Thanks to all who prayed for us. All decisions have been made. As you may know, Jay has felt a definite call from God on his life to be in the ministry. He has been a youth pastor for a couple churches over the last few years. Over the last several weeks, Jay has been filling in for a church that hasn't had a pastor for about a year. Tonight the church voted unanimously for Jay do be their new pastor. It is a small church in a small town about an hour south of Cincinnati. The folks are sweet and seem to be excited that we will be coming. So, in the next several weeks we will be moving. FYI - I hate moving. It's the worst thing ever. One great thing - they do have a house that we wil be able to live in. It's about twice the size of our apartment so the extra room will be very nice. Pictures later :o)

My new look!

If you know me, you know that I like being a little different. So when I went to pick out glasses I immediately went for something different. These really stood out to me and I liked them when I first saw them, but my eyes were so dilated from the eye exam that I couldn't tell what they looked like on me. I went back a couple weeks later and found the same pair. The detail above the lenses is pretty kewl so I went for them.

They were pretty pricey but thanks to my HSA they were definitely affordable. If you don't know anything about a Health Savings Account, and your employer offers it as an insurance option you may want to look into it. Basically you have a regular savings account at a bank and a debit card to go along with it. When you go to the doctor/hospital/urgent care, you pay nothing up front. The bill is sent to your insurance and they give you a price break. Once you receive the bill, you use your debit card to pay. The awesome thing about my job is my employer gives me $4,400 a year for my bank account. The HSA insurance plan saves them so much money, that they help the employee out by giving back some of the savings. Glasses, contacts, dentistry, orthodontics can all be paid for out of that account. Pretty kewl. It isn't for everyone, especially those with high priced medications that they need monthly. So now, you have had a crash course in an HSA insurance plan.

Two bits

1: www.idrive.com I came home today and was trying to get my computer to turn on. It took about 15 minutes and I finally got the error screen saying my computer didn't shut down correctly so it was having a hard time booting up....yah think??? Anyway, after I finally got it booted up. I immediately found an online service that will back up my files for me. For $4.95 a month it will back any and all files that I choose. I have thousands of pictures and I am terrified that the laptop will fry and I will lose them all. So as I type, www.idrive.com is backing up several thousand files. Sigh....hopefully all is well.

2. This weekend a big decision will be made in our lives. We are pretty sure we know what our answer is, but we have to wait for others to make their decision as well. So depending on their answer, we might be headed for a huge change. So anyway, pray for us that all the right things will happen and that we stay in the middle of God's will for us. So far so good.

Independence Day

Fun with Friends for FREE!

Thanks to my boss, Jim, for the bunny ears.

Looking from the top floor of the stadium across the Ohio River towards Covington, Kentucky.

Mandy right after she opened her bottle of caffeinated soda. It exploded all over her and soaked through her skirt. I got a small portion of the blast.

After the game, they shut all the stadium lights off and they had an awesome fireworks display with patriotic songs playing over the speakers. It was great!

Thanks to my boss, Greg, for the 4 tickets. We parked less than two blocks from the stadium for free. The fireworks would have been worth the ticket price.