Happy Birthday Old man!

Fun Fact of the day:
You're officially the oldest man on earth who can still use email!

We still love you though! Happy Birthday! When you come down we have a couple of presents for you...but you can't know what they are until you come visit!

Love Ray and Claudia

Super Bowl at our house tradition continues, but this we are upping the ante.
We are no longer playing around here.

Packers v Steelers.
February 6.

Bacon Log
Meat Balls
Pigs in a Blanket
Bacon Log
Chips and Dip
Assorted Beer
Bacon Log
Tentatively considering other drinks
Perhaps other food items that have been featured on ThisIsWhyYoureFat

Go ...Packers? I think I am pulling for the Packers.

Y'all should get some horses!

Despite their attempts, I haven't stopped saying y'all yet. Nor have I forgotten how to say WELL DANG! But my southern accent isn't the point of this post, the point is that y'all should get some horses. While mucking out their stalls is really not the high point of my day, horses are pretty cool. And I think Ugg would agree.

This past Sunday, I attended a horse show in Spanaway, Washington. Some of our neighbors were showing their horses and wanted us (my stepmom and myself) to come along for moral support. SInce I had never been to a horse show before, I thought it would be neat to check it out. There were parts of it that weren't really for me, but I really enjoyed watching our neighbors show their horses. We had a few mishaps with misbehaving horses, but our 10 year old neighbor came away with quite a few ribbons and prizes.

Anyway... Ugg had a good time at the horse show as well! Check out his photo-ops below!

Ugg with Tracy, one of the competitors.


Ugg with Smokey, the misbehaving horse.

What if I move to Canada?

Don't worry, I'm not planning on it any time soon. But I really liked the sights! So, I spent the better part of Friday listening to funny accents and taking lots of pictures in Vancouver, British Columbia (that's Canada in case you didn't know that). Since it's January, most of the sights were closed, but we did get to cross the Capilano Suspension Bridge and walk around the treetops of the forest. We also headed into downtown Vancouver and walked around historic Gastown which is one of the oldest cities in Canada. Since then it has been absorbed into Vancouver and is mostly just a spot for sightseeing and souvenir shopping.

Check out the pictures below and drool...

The Suspension Bridge




On the nature walk


In the trees (but I'm not a treehugger)



Cool View of the river


My stepmom and I



Steam Clock in Gastown


Downtown Vancouver


Waterfront in Vancouver



Also, look at this video


-Britannica

iContact's CEO

Pretty exciting article about the co-founders of iContact... thought you might be interested in checking it out... They are number 4 on the list just under some other superstars: Zuckerberg, Mason and Mullenweg (CEOs of Facebook, Groupon and Wordpress respectively)...

Ryan and Aaron started iContact in 2003 to help small businesses better manage their email marketing campaigns. The company started by solely marketing through Google AdWords and has grown to over 63,000 customers today. In August 2010 iContact closed a new round of funding at $40 million.

Full Article

Adventures in the Pacific Northwest

You wanted to hear about them, so here is the first one (if you don't count laying down my motorcycle).

Today, Brandon took me on a true Northwest adventure. We hiked up to the top of Wallace Falls, approximately 5.5 miles round trip. 5 and a half miles might not be much on level ground, but hiking in the mountains is a different story! Luckily, Brandon lent me his hiking poles so that the stress on my knees was not nearly as great. He also let me set the pace cause my lungs and heart were just not able to keep up with him. Gonna change that, but for now it was nice to set a slow pace. We hiked from about 1015 to 1415 and discussed a wide range of topics, from health to religion to weather to the adventures of Dr. McNinja. Take a look at the pictures below, these are just a selection of all the beautiful pics I got from our hike.

Oh, and did I mention it was snowing?!?!


See the falls in the background?


Had to leave my mark on the trail...


Isn't it beautiful?


So cool!


Also, Ugg (as I have affectionately named my... pet?) made it to the top of Wallace Falls with us!

You Will Be Missed :(

Today is the day Britt has left NC to venture to the west coast of the US.

Britt, even if no one else says it...I'll miss you. I'm so glad I got to see you two days in a row even if it was to tote you around town. I love you Britt. Don't forget we need to set a skype date.

The Lion King

I can't thank Britt enough,,, that was a great night. I took these off the internet to show what Britt described. I ate at the Mellow Mushroom within walking distance of DPAC then inside for the show..... here is what it looks like.

Specktacular Specktacular!

While that may not be the right musical reference, that word describes the Lion King the Musical perfectly! As a Christmas gift to Rusty, I purchased us tickets to a performance of the Lion King and we both found that it was money well spent. A few notes about the performance:
(1) The costumes were phenomenal! As Rusty said, only took a smidgen of imagination to make it REAL.
(2) The set design was beautiful and everything was constantly moving, you were rarely watching the same set on stage for more than a few minutes.
(3) The singing was amazing! Rafiki (which actually means friend in Swahili) in particular blew us away, and in this performance was actually a woman.
(4) If visiting the DPAC, pay the extra money to at least get lower balcony seats, we sat in the upper balcony and discovered it was just too far away.
(5) In order to really experience the Lion King, you simply have to go see it, it was beyond all my expectations!

Here are some pictures to remember the night by:

CSS Powers, Activate

New template created while all the code I wrote while on vacation got passed through our automated testing process. Let me know what you think.

--Johnny Cakes

Andrew Luck

Just to get rid of any worries that any of you might have, if he declares for the NFL draft this year and the Panthers select Andrew Luck, QB, Stanford.... Here are a few clips of what we'll be getting..

Congratulations Claudia,

Congratulations Claudia

Well Played!!!

McLEONARD SUPER BOWL APPROACHES

OKAY "LADIES"

THIS
IS
WHAT
YOU
ARE
PLAYING
FOR!