Road Trip!!!

***Unbelievable. I'm finally posting another entry***

This Friday, Ashley, our friend Taylor Moran, and I will be heading to up to Sylva. The purpose of the trip is to go to the Hootie & The Blowfish concert at Harrah's Cherokee Casino on Saturday night. I've been a huge HBF fan since 1994, and the chance to see them playing near my hometown couldn't be passed up. Taylor has been quite a fan as well, and since he hasn't had a chance to see them in a few years, he's pumped. Ashley, who wasn't a big fan before we met, has mercifully given in to my attempts to prove to her that they are the best band ever, and is now a true, die hard, singing-every-lyric fan just like myself.

I'm a little weary of how the show is going to be, however. Since the general Harrah's Cherokee crowd is quite different from the average HBF crowd, I'm not sure what the vibe is going to be like. This, combined with the fact that they don't serve alcohol at the casino, could certainly produce a sit-on-your-hands type crowd. I know Ashley and I will gladly be the only ones standing and singing the whole time if we have to be, but I certainly hope it doesn't have to come down to that. I think I'm going to go in with low expectations so that I have the chance of being pleasantly surprised.

The trip will also give us the opportunity to see the Sylva clan, although our time with them will be somewhat limited compared to other trips up there. Part of our Saturday will be spent in Asheville at the Rockin' Riverfest. We plan on meeting up with my old friend Bo Carpenter and his fiancee, Megan Apple.

On Sunday, we MAY stop by the Eagle's Rest Hillclimb (a car race up the ski resort's access road) in Banner Elk on our way home.

It will be a busy weekend, but should be a blast.

new addition (to the blog)

So as you can all see I have added a few of my favorite blogs' links on the side. I love this feature on OPB because it always opens my eyes to cool new sites. Please check these out and hopefully they will become some of your favorite sites too.

Well hello there July

So you would think since there are two of us that we would be better about updating this thing, but alas we have failed. When I read other people's blogs (OPB) I feel like I should go back to school and take a creative writing class, b/c well my writing is not so creative.

Any who ... let me think of what has been going on in our lives since early June.

June 7th - We went to the Jimmy Buffett concert. It was so much fun. We tailgated with 4 other couples and had quite a nice set-up. 2 tents, chairs for everyone, a fan, lots of food, a grill and lots of excellent decorations. It was over 100 degrees outside so that was less than ideal, but a few beers and Buffett made it all worthwhile.

The whole crew at Buffett

June 14th - 16th - We headed up to Sylva for a birthday weekend celebration. Sean's Gramma Lib turned 90 and our nephew Brandon turned 1. It was great getting to see all the in-laws and celebrate such a milestone with the Libster. Also, we felt very blessed to actually be in town for one of the niece/nephews birthdays. We have 5 of them but they all live up in the "high country", so we are the bad aunt and uncle that never get to be there. There was an excellent pinata game with a bunch of 1-8 year olds and a whiffle bat. Needless to say - the pinata won but it provided us grown ups with a lot of great laughs.

Sean and Gramma Lib at her 90th Birthday Party

Brandon sporting his blue icing

July 21st - Sean headed off to CMP (Carolina Motorsports Park) down in SC for a long weekend of racing. I stayed home and went to the Toby Keith concert on Saturday night with Kim and Ashley Wilson. Though a big fan, I had never been to a country concert before. It was a lot of fun and definitely a concert I could sing along to. We got some crazy weather that weekend. So before the concert a monsoon hit and it down poured for 3 hours straight. Lucky we had a tent and had gotten it up before it started raining. Two concerts in the same month and completely different weather - thanks NC weather!

The group at Toby Keith (before the rain)

July 28th-29th - This past weekend was much more low key. We had two cookouts to go to but no traveling was involved - thank goodness. I studied a bunch because I had my second ARE exam on Monday. Hopefully I will be posting in a few weeks that I passed - cross your fingers!

And now here we are in July - I swear time is flying this year.
Yesterday we went out to dinner with Kim, John & Aidan for Kimber's birthday. It was great to see them and celebrate with her. Yesterday was also Bo's 8th birthday. I got him a "doggie peanut butter cupcake" which he mostly just licked but seemed pretty excited about. We also got him one of those Benafulls (sp?) meals. He devoured that and ended his birthday with a full belly asleep on the couch. I still can't believe he is 8. He's such an old man.

Bo licking all the icing and sprinkles off his cupcake

We are staying in town for the 4th weekend. Tomorrow we are walking over to Brian & Kim O'Days for a cookout and fireworks show.
We hope you all have a safe and happy 4th of July!
Happy Birthday America :)!

Materials and Methods: Check

Just wanted to share my exciting news ... I passed my first ARE exam. I only have 8 more sections to go. I got my letter a few minutes ago and couldn't contain my excitement!
I'm currently studying for Construction Documents and will be scheduling my test for this month soon.

Jimmy Buffett is this Saturday!!!

As the weekend approaches, Sean and I are gearing up for the Buffett show. I am currently jamming to a little Buffett on Pandora.
We realized when we were buying tickets a few months ago that it has been forever since he came to Raleigh. And the last time he came the concert was inside during the winter, which is not the ideal way to experience Buffett. All of these reasons are probably why the lawn seats sold out in 7 mins.
There is something really invigorating about a Buffett show. This will be my 4th one and from what we can tell it will be Sean's 11th. He started young!
I can't wait to wear a cheap lei, drink a margarita (or corona-rita) and belt out all the lyrics to my favorite Buffett songs. Everyone we are going with this year is what we call a Buffett-virgin. They are all in for quite a treat. Fat men in grass skirts and coconut bras anyone?

"Stay in touch with my insanity. Really is the only way.
It's a jungle out there kiddies. Have a very fruitful day!"

Anything but that

So I felt I had to post just to move the word turd further down our page and not as the title.

Once again things are busy as usual in the Dennis household. We are both playing on an adult kickball team (which is as fun as it sounds). I am playing volleyball with FreemanWhite in the local architectural volleyball league and Sean will soon be signing up to play basketball in the YMCA's Men's league. So we can't complain about our schedules because this is all voluntary.

I am also studying for my ARE Licensure Exams. This is the series of 9 exams I have to take to become a licensed architect. I take my first one the second week of May. I then plan on taking an exam a month. With a break for the month of December, I should be done by February of next year. I am actually rather excited about this added stress in my life, because it means that when it's all over I will have achieved one of my lifetime goals. I will probably force you all to call me Architect Ashley - I think that has a good ring to it!
Along the same lines, Sean will start his grooling study schedule soon to take his PE exam in October. This is the exam he has to take to become a licensed engineer. But I don't think Engineer Sean sounds as cool :).

I have also be selected by my firm to participate in our Leadership seminars this year. This is a pretty big deal and I am hoping to learn a lot. It is a series of firm-directed seminars that we attend in Orlando. I will get to meet people from the other offices and learn more about how are firm functions. The first one is in mid-May for two days.

So as you can tell 2008 has been and continues to be an extremely busy year - but it is also bringing lots of excitement. We will keep you posted ...

Turd Polishing

I washed and waxed the race car today. It is something I typically do about twice a year. I usually rinse it off at one of the do-it-yourself places in between track events, but the special, hands-on job I did today is a rare occasion. I feel silly every single time I do it. Mainly because after an hour of hard labor I end up with a car that looks like a 4 rather than its normal 2 1/2 (out of 10, of course). I think maybe it is just a way of helping me cope with the fact that I can't be driving it on track every moment. One of those "if I can't drive it, at least I can work on it/wash it/etc." kind of things. Plus, it is not a bad way to take advantage of the beautiful, 78 degree, not a cloud in the sky weather we had this afternoon.

Well...that...and the fact that I once heard a race car engineer say they could see an improvement of 1/10th of a second or so based solely on how well the car was waxed.