Saturday, June 30, 2007

Less than a month to go!

Here we are already, with our new house is at less than one month from move-in. That's right, we are suppose to be in the house before then end of July! (And in case we didn't mention it, we did sell our current house -- we close July 31st!) Guess we better start packing up more boxes now!



The house is really starting to shape with the addition of a driveway on the outside.



There is all kinds of work going on inside the house. Here shows all of our base board and window molding drying in the basement, just about ready to be put up.



The change that has been the most exciting in the house is that addition of most of our tile work. This picture shows the dining area in the kitchen. We are thrilled with the look of the tile we chose. We were a bit concerned that it wouldn't look right. Glad we were wrong.



Tile may have been the most exciting change, but the most notable change is COLOR. Here are a couple of walls from our den (when it wasn't quite finished). We really like the maroon color in there.



As we have had before here are a couple of walk through tours of the house showing the changes from the inside and outside:





Tuesday, June 19, 2007

America's Got Talent . . . at least some of it does

Danny here! I have been saving a post about a trip I took at the beginning of May, because I was sort of under contract not to talk about it until it was over. Well, now it is over. Guinan and I were picked to be on America's Got Talent with a fellow Disc Dog performer Bill Camp and his dog Belle.

The trip out to L.A. was very stressful. I had to put my darling girl (Guinan) into the belly of the airplane. I stood at the window and made sure I saw them put her on board.



After a 4.5 hour plane ride we were picked up in a van and taken to the studio. Guinan was very excited to be traveling. In fact she called Shot-Gun for the trip out.



Bill, Belle, Guinan, and myself hung around in the dressing room with the other hopefuls for about 2.5 hours. So with some time to kill we got some pictures with the America's Got Talent Sign.




The first night we did interviews which took about 1/2 hour after they finally got to us.

It was a 2 day event, which meant we were put up for the night in a nice hotel. In fact the hotel catered more to the dogs than they did for us. The had a doggie goodie bag, a special dog bed and food dishes for the dogs in the room when we got there.



On the second day in L.A. we were actually put on Stage in front of the 3 judges: David Hasselhoff, Piers Morgan, and Sharon Ozbourne (who had a fourth judge - her dog Minnie - with her). They let us complete our whole Disc Dog routine. We only received one 'X' while performing and that was from Piers. After we were done they told us that we just didn't quite have what they were looking for. David said what we did he sees in the park. I want to know what park he is going to!

The trip back was uneventful. We didn't know if we were going to be on the show and if we were tonight was the night. And if you watched the show and did NOT blink, you will have seen me. We were on in the opening sequence with Guinan doing a vault off my back. It was about a half second long. Yee-haw.

Which means that if everyone is suppose to get 15 minutes of fame, I still have 14 Minutes 59.5 seconds still to go. :-)

On your mark...

A couple of weeks ago Danny and his friend Brian Reichenbach ran in Sunburst. Did they run something simple like a 5K or maybe a 10K? Nope, they ran the half-marathon. Brian had something to prove because the last time he ran it he passed out before finishing. Danny on the other hand was planning to run a 10K, but changed to run the half marathon with Brian. Peer pressure you know... :-)

It was a hot day. High of about 93 degrees. The race started at 7:45 and at that time it was already 74.



Here they both are looking pretty good mid-way through the run. After this point Danny explained to me that he had pretty much had it. Had a hard time continuing to go. I guess maybe he should have trained a bit.



But in the end they did finish in 2 hours and 23 minutes.



Jamie's brother Trever ran the 5K again this year and he bettered his time from last year by nearly ten minutes with a time of 26:42! He has become quite the runner over the past year.

Sydney Taylor -- new 8 mth old



Yep little Sydney is already 8 months old -- it really does go fast! From a cute sleepy slug to a super active, crawling, standing, climbing, tooth growing, swimming, dog-chasing, babbling, belly-laughing little entertainer!

Sydney has the start of at least 6 teeth already, babbles and giggles, and stands and bends to pick things up -- barely using one hand. As soon as she decides to she will walk (her mommy walked young too). She occasonaly "lectures" the dogs -- usually Frodo, who actually tries to get her to chase him!



We haven taken her swimming twice now - after the initial getting in she has loved it both times!

Here are some videos of Syd being Syd, enjoy!

Syd "talks" to her toys.



Syd wakes up happy almost every time-- this time more so because she had just gotten down a beanie baby dog fromt he back of the crib-- all by herself!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Off to Curwood Castle!

The Eggleston clan (Sydney, Mom, Dad, Guinan, and Frodo), loaded up the van early sunday morning and took a 3 hour drive to Owosso, MI to go to the Curwood Festival (Curwood Castle is a big attraction in beautiful Owosso). There was a Disc Dog competition being held there. It was a great day for a competition. There was barely a breeze at all. In fact the day was so nice that Frodo decided to try and get in some disc dogging.


Of course he didn't do very much...he has to keep his reputation as world's best sunbathing dog after all!

Danny and Guinan had a pretty good day. They placed 3rd in the distance competition and came in first in the Freestyle part of the competition. In fact there was a throw off for first place (both players had the same score from their freestyle routines) between Danny and fellow competitor Ron Watson. Lucky for Danny, in the throw off Ron had to throw first, and since his throw went slightly out of bounds all Danny had to do was get a 10 yard catch for the win. Phew!

Here is Danny's routine from the competition. Not too shabby!