Lots of older photos....finally room on the new hard drive to download!

A few weeks ago, my mom and I ventured down to Nashville to hang with my sister for the day. Since it was so nice, we decided to take a nice 2 hour walk from my sister's current house to see her new condo she will be moving into on Christmas. Down the block from my sis's new place is this cool park with a giant Dragon made of mosaics...it was so cool just looking at the whole dragon!

As you can see, it is very detailed. I definitely can see myself going back there next time because you can't look at the whole dragon in one day...there are just so many cool pictures in it!

Here is my cute mom and my evil twin (kidding of course) hanging at one of the many pieces of dragon.

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PUPPIES....well, the foster puppies are no longer with us. We miss them terribly. Below was a shot taken of them the day before they left....they tripled in size from when we got them 4-5 weeks earlier. We miss them sooooo much!

Cole and Penny loved sleeping in the couches.

Cole, Penny and Fisher LOVED playing together....Fisher doesn't know what to do now that they are gone. He is back to pestering us and Ippon again....

A random shot of me with both the babies....

When we first got the pups, I could hold them both easily in one arm....here are a few shots showing how big they really got.

Penny hiding in her favorite spot on the couch.

Awwww...they were so cute in Smap's make-shift pen out back....

Here they are on their first day at our house checking out Ippon....they were sooooo tiny!

My little brother Nic at the doggy rescue the day I picked up the foster puppies....he is holding Buddy (a foster at my dad's), and in the cage is Sam...Nic's/Dad's/Joyce's pit...he is the one that got us all started on the whole pit bull rescue thing. He is a super cool dog!

Here I am meeting little Penny for the first time.

The little ones....they had two sisters that my little brother Nic and his girlfriend fostered for a little while.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GO VOLS....notice the score on the scoreboard....this was the Florida game....the one and only game I went to this year.

Hanging with my little brother Nic before the Florida game...he has a cool condo in the Fort, so Smap and I go down there from time to time to make ourselves feel really young by hanging with 22 year olds.

My sis Kate....she is from Czech Republic and gets a lot more excited to see the Vols play than I do.
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Shots from Audie's dinner party for Lizzy and her then boyfriend a few months back....now they are engaged!

Lizzy and her fiance'........Matt? Jeff? Uggg...I am so bad with names....

Derek, the Wedding Crasher (he totally just showed up at my reception on my dad's farm because Jeremy called him to tell himi what a fun party it was). I still give him a hard time. :)

Lizzy and me when she was in town shortly a few months back.

Smap and Lizzy's fiance'.

Our host for the evening of Lizzy's dinner, Audie Smith (center) along with friends Dave and Elizabeth. Audie and his wife Sandra are awesome dinner hosts.

The Chandlers at Audie's dinner party for Lizzy.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Roller Derby Fun

Here we have Goblynn....or Amy Lynn I should say....she is a crazy roller derby gal. Smap and I love throwing her our support.

Goblynn again!

Teri was the coolest boss I ever had....at Dagger Canoe and Kayak. We had too much fun at times traveling around the country to shows and demos. She is getting into the Derby with my friend Amy Lynn...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Smap's birthday this summer....

Jay (Smap's middle brother), Barbara (the Best mother-in-law ever), Leslie (my beautiful sister-in-law), and baby Anna (about a month old), all at Smap's birthday dinner this past July.

My lovely Smap on his birthday in July.

Smap hanging with my lovely mom and stepdad Sam checking out their airplane they are building in their garage.

One last shot of Smap and me downtown at our friend's birthday party at our friend's bar, The Grotto....we love that place!

Until next time....this computer is just so old and slow.....see ya!

FALL = Down time...

It has been 3+ weeks since the 12 hour bike race and I have yet to get back on my bike. It has been super nice though. I have spent a lot of time getting my money's worth out of my gym swimming, doing weights, and other indoor workout activities involving machines.

Smap and I are also doing a lot of work on our house...in the attic putting up a radiant barrier (Smap is doing this, I just hand him things if I am up there), mopping the hardwood floors (our puppies are gone so we are now doing some heavy cleaning), getting ready to paint the kitchen (finally), chopping and stacking all the wood from our down trees in May, and many other "projects" around the house.

We also use our down time to visit my dad's beautiful farm. Below are some shots taken a week ago when we needed to go out to pick up some llama poop (for Smap's worm farm).

Pups...

We got our foster pups back on Monday. I took them to get fixed on Saturday and the lady in charge of them kept them to make sure they healed up okay. My dad had Smap and me over Monday for dinner and laughs since we were out there. We love going out to the farm. There is never a dull moment and always a lot of laughs (Dad's farm is called Laughalot).

Above is a cute photo of my little ones.

Below is a shot with my new cell phone (my old Razor got run over by a car after dropping it while commuting home one day). The new phone takes great shots! Much better than the ancient phone I had to use while waiting to get a new one..... Anyway, here is a shot of the upstairs bar at Barley's downtown. The two kayaks were given to Barley's by Dagger when I worked there. When we had "work" parties, we would always venture to downtown Knoxville to celebrate. Dagger enjoyed bartering for things. One night we bartered two kayaks to hang on the wall for pizza and beer. It was a good trade! It is hard to believe I was hired on to work at Dagger in early 1999....almost 10 years ago! Wow! Time flies.... Working for Dagger was definitely the coolest job I ever had.

Foster Pups again...

Penny (aka Fatty Patty) and Cole exploring in the front yard.

Penny LOVES the couch.

An AWESOME shot of Cole that my mom took. For the first time, he is not dissappearing in the shot.

I hope someone who really LOVES dogs adopts our puppies. Fatty Patty Penny is a handful because she likes to cry when she doesn't get her way, but she is a sweetheart. Cole is just precious. Smap is really trying hard to fatten the kid up by sneaking him a little oatmeal in the mornings (Ippon gets two large spoonfuls on his dog food every morning and Fisher the cat also gets a little). We all love the organic oatmeal.

I think Ippon is over the puppies. Penny wakes up during the night if she hears the smallest noise. Little Cole really doesn't cry...we can hear him whimper, but that is all. They are funny though. They LOVE to play with Fisher. Fisher will tackle them and bite on them and let them bite on him. It is pretty funny to watch. They all three are getting "fixed" on Saturday. Poor little things don't even know what is about to happen.


Here's my mom visiting her foster grandchildern. She LOVES them.

I am keeping busy with cleaning up all their poop and pees. They definitely prefer to go the bathroom outside, but they still aren't getting the concept of peeing on the newspaper. They just go when they need to. They really aren't too bad. Anyone want to adopt some cuties???

2008 12 Hour Hill of Truth RACE!

Smap gave up racing this year to tend to our foster bullie mix pups....Cole and Penny.

Here I come finishing my second lap. Smap is there watching me and the pups (who are under Dave's car).

Jen Smelser and me coming up the road finishing lap #3. Jen did her first two laps on her single speed, then switched to her trusty gears.

Odd/gross looking photo of me taken by my dad. New Belgium donated two tasty kegs to the event. Their cool tent in the back ground.

Smap and me between laps.... (Cole is blending in to Smap's sweatshirt, but he is actually there). Penny is trying to get a kiss too. I think I am heading out to my third lap here...

This year's 12 Hour Hill of Truth race was pretty fun. I raced my single speed as a one woman team. I did okay getting in 6 laps in just over 6 hours, but then gave in to the pain mostly coming from my feet. This year's race course was a close repeat of the original course in 99'. The push up Red Hill and the other steep hills proved just too much for my feet in shoes with barely any cushion. Later on, I thought about the nice commuter shoes I have that would have been perfect for the race...oh well. If I continue to race long races on my single speed, I will just have to invest in a really good pair of insoles.

My friends Emily Parker (the 15 year old phenom) and Jen Smelser got 2nd and 3rd! Emily incredibly got 9 laps and Jen got 8! Very impressive for both of them! My friend Dave Holmes did 13 laps (I want to say) to place 3rd in the solo men. Dave did 6 of his 13 on his single speed. I am not sure if anyone did more than 6 laps on a single speed? Another impressive result was my and Jen's friend Kelly. She is relatively new to the mountain bike scene (she was a UT runner) and VERY new to the single speed scene. Kelly did a VERY impressive 5 laps on her new 29'er single speed. Next year, she will kick my butt probably. I also have to mention my favorite girl team that raced (there were only two female teams racing this year). My friends Missy, Rebecca, Abby and Amanda kicked some butt for first place in their division. Way to go!

As I mentioned under a photo above, New Belgium donated a couple of tasty kegs to the 12 Hour festivities. They also donated a cool New Belgium cruiser to be raffled off with the proceeds going to our local SORBA affliliate club here AMBC. Smap and I put a total of $7.00 in for the running, but obviously we didn't win.

This year at the 12 hour, they had a stage set up for a really groovy band. They played a lot of cover songs from what I heard, but they were really good. I left a little early this year due to my sore feet. I was tired and just needed to be on my couch at home with my pups and my big dog, Ippon, near me. I think I had enough fun last year to cover this year anyways.

I will post some other photos this weekened. I have been extremely busy after school with the puppies and working out, so I have not touched a computer at home in several days. We did finally get a new hard drive, so we are actually going to be able to download all the photos off the camera...FINALLY!!!!!