Austin Visit

Over the weekend of Jan 25-27- Sarah, Jenn and I flew to visit Joni in Austin! We all agreed months ago to sign up the 3M Half Marathon, but really we all just wanted a reason to get together! We had a great weekend and even enjoyed the Half Marathon(my first!) Joni was a great host, and it was so nice to see her new place!

On Saturday before the race, ahem event, we took a spin around Austin.
This was our first stop- the famed Whole Foods flagship store... you may ask yourself- "self, why is the picture so blurry? Shouldn't this be of the huge bakery counter and candy counter?" Well, yes, except that if you pull out a camera in said store you get accosted by a lovely employee who sas- "nooooo, no pictures!!" so- here you have the one photo I snagged as I was getting "yelled" at! Anyhow, it is AMAZING- my grocery store heaven actually!


Then we headed to lunch, and finally to Amys! The ice cream is tasty and the performance of flipping the scoops is very cool- I highly recommend Amys


And it woulddn't have been a trip to Austin without seeing a vehicle like this... AWEsome- love the horns-

Austin 3M Half Marathon Day

Here is Joni, me and Jenn pre-race! we look pretty smiley for 6am!
And this is us post race- everyone did great!
More importantly, this is us at Chuys later that night enjoying some nice frosty beverages (virgin for Sarah :) )
And the carnage after a well-deserved post race dinner! So tasty, I can see why Lance comes here to blow his diet!

Merry Christmas 2007!!

Merry Christmas!

We will be headed to Pittsburgh this year for Christmas- but here are a few shots from our Charlotte Christmas! My parents are also coming down to Charlotte today, so we will have a few times to celebrate before the big day!


Here is a shot of us and Akula- he wasn't too excited about the paprazzi, so you can see he is trying to get away! Sometimes the paparazzi can be so tiring, I mean just ask Britney! (allso Nate did not grow a horn, just a poorly placed tree branch behind him:) )

And here is one of just Nate and I

I swear I am going to get out the yearly letter and Christmas cards soon, but until then, we wish everyone a very Happy Holidays!!

Megan's work travels

So- I got to do a run through Michigan last week, and since most everyone knows my love of moose and polar bears I thought I would share the fun of our visit to the Detroit Zoo- now I know most everyone else would have thought I spent time on 8 Mile with eminem while in Detroit, but no such luck ;)

We have a run at the zoo that we sponsor, so it made sense to visit the zoo, if anyone was wondering! If you go to Detroit- you have to go to the zoo- they have the best polar bear exhibit- I did not take my camera, so I have to rely on some utube stuff- but check these out, they are very similar to what we saw

Video 1

Video 2

I wanted to bring the 3 year old cub home with me, but to my dismay, the zoo folks said no! Seriously, Akula would love her-- maybe I can make a better case on my next visit

Good times ;)

Akula's new look

So, I came home from work one day to find our lovely little kitty had managed to wound himself- he had a huge wound on his head behind his ear- so I thought I would share some of the fun...


" I asked for a mohawk- this is what they gave me"




"wait, I kind of look like the Boz, and I don't really want to because, 1. He was a seahawk and 2. he was kind of a disappointment after college- but I guess he was kind of tough"... "bottom line, I am not going back to that barber"



And here is a glance at the fun called, franken kitty.... his final comment of the whole fiasco "seriously, this barber sucked- what cool cat wants to look like a poodle, luckily I stopped him after one leg"

Ryan Shay Tribute

And while in NYC at the Olympic Trials for the men's marathon, both the Notre Dame and running community suffered a great loss with the passing of Ryan Shay during the trials.

Here is a nice tribute to him

Please say a prayer for his family and new wife.

New York City Marathon

So, I have now made it to two marathons in less than 2 months- and again, I have not yet run one- and do not see it happening soon ;) As part of the new role I am in I joined the Chicago Marathon team in NYC for the Olympic Trials and the marathon- it was a gorgeous weekend- a bit chilly, the wind and the clouds would normally settle in by the afternoon- but it was still a good weather weekend considering it was the first weekend in November- unreal! Every morning it looked like this...

If you look just to the left of the picture you can imagine Conan O'Brien- as we were walking to check out a non-existent cheering zone 3miles away in Harlem (just ask, I can tell you the story some time) - we ran into Conan and his family- very cute! So after we stopped and had a quick chat with Conan we continued the quick walk to Harlem - we then stopped on our way back to cheer on a Kellogg friend, and now husband to my ND room mate, Brian- he says the hills were a bit much- but hey, Chicago is not known for its hills- and he did all of his training there. But he did really well! Congrats on a great finish!

As we watched Brian pass at mile 24 we continued back into Central Park- where I quickly got us lost- I felt like we could use some off-roading I guess bc all of a sudden we realized we were on dirt and not the pavement- luckily a squirrel showed us the way out and we made our way back to the finish line with time to spare. Oh, about 2 hours later Mr. Tom Cruise arrived at the finish line to await his "amazing" wife's finish- while holding Suri- she really is adorable! And do not fret- at no time did Tom take his aviators off- or stop chomping on his gum-

And after 30 minutes or so- we (well Tim, really, then me- because it didn't look like her in my opinion- Katie and I are close you know) saw Katie and her posse running towards the finish line- she crossed around 6:05, but adjusted for her chip time I think she was just under 5:30... right behind Lance- who we heard was running into the arms of some 12 year old as he crossed the line 3 hours earlier... yuck

And here is one last shot of Tom praising his "amazing" wife at the finish line-
The one thing I just could not get over was that as she crossed the line and did the PR thing- no one ever got her a bottle of water or gatorade- I mean really folks- help a girl out.

Thanks to Tim who waited with me at the finish line to "watch the finishers" which really means "wait for two hours in the cold to see Katie and Tom" - while everyone else had returned to the hotel for a beer :)

Halloween Punkin Carvin

In honor of kids getting dressed up and asking fro candy, oh and my birthday, we had a Halloweem Punkin Carvin BBQ
Before...

...during
Mary-Logan is helping her Mom, Lacy, carve theirs
And I am pretty proud of myself, and looking just like the 25 years old I am ;)

Halloween (Cont'd)

And the after...

Backyard Improvements

We had my parents in town a few weeks ago, and in adidtion to just enjoying the weekend with the fam, we also dug up our backyard and did some landscaping... not manscaping- LANDscaping sillies!
No before shot, sorry, but it basically had a bunch of the small green bushes in rows

Here is the more important "after" - This is Jean Claude, our bew Bloodsport, I mean, Bloodgood maple tree. I wanted something called a Beni Otake so I could call our tree Beni (bc honestly, isn't it all about talking to your trees?) - but this one won out- with a name like bloodsport, shoot, bloodgood, how could he not! We also built in a little fire pit- so next time you vist we can make s'mores! Yummy-- it is always about the s'mores! (Please see JH post)

We also added some of these little arborvitaes and added some cool rocks we found at the construction site next door- all around we are very pleased. It is a huge improvement- and again thanks to my parents for helping- well really Nate and my Dad did a good amount of this while my Mom and I watched ND lose to someone, but I can say we helped a bit ;)

Bank of America 500- Megan

Hello, real time blogging (almost) will wonders never cease!

The past few weeks have been crazy- Marathon in Chicago (get that out your mind- of course I did not run it.. but I did get to work- and see the ops side of it, it was great- and I somehow have no pictures...) and then on Oct 13- we had the Bank of America 500 here in Charlotte. It was a blast- we had gorgeous weather, and just an all around good day.

Nate's Dad came in for the race, so I will let him share his side of the day... but I enjoyed working the race to help out fellow teammates. I do not have the same photos as last year, but by the end of the night we did finally run into Nate (who had the camera) and I got this pic of part of the team...

Jerrold, Sarah, Karen and me

More to share... but I will leave that to Nate..

BAC 500- cont'd

Here is one more photo of KB, Me, Tim and Jason- this was their first NASCAR race- and when they left we could hear them fighting about who was better, Gordon or Johnson- unreal, I think they are believers :)

Bank of America 500 -- Megan

And just in case Nate did not include this in his post... here is the one photo of us from the evening- it kind of makes us look like giants (definitely a bad angle)... but still, nice flagscape in the background

We're back!!

So, it appears our idea of keeping up with this blog means maintenance about every six months- I would love to say we are going to be better - but we will see!

We have had a lot going on over the past few months- so I will try to backdate as much as possible to keep things in order.

We are still in Charlotte-hey, we only tend to move every two years or so- and we actually might stay longer now that we have no military or business school to move us! Anyhow, come visit if you can!

And the real reason we were in JH

Jenn and Bryan's wedding!!


Jenn's parents and Grandma

Jenn and Bryan taking their vows

First dance


And lastly check out the full photo commentary at my picassa site

Rehearsal Dinner-

Making S'mores is very serious bidness

Ahh- very happy, s'mores are in my belly!

Jackson Hole... here we come

Entering Grand Teton National Park... holy cow, did you see the Grand Tetons on that park? And while we do not have a photo of it- bc I was in awe-- a Moose came out to visit us as we drive into JH. It was like it was meant to be...

Jenn's Dad took us on a hike... wow, do we not live at altitude.

One of the views from the top of the mountain we hiked

Fishing the Gros Ventre- this was Nate's biggest catch of the day-

Beautiful, Wish you were here!

Words cannot do this justice- it was amazing!