5 months Later

To pick up where we left off with the birds, 5 baby starlings hatched, the mother bird flew away, 2 died, we named the surviving 3 Huey, Dewey & Louis, Louis died, we nursed Huey & Dewey back to health feeding them cat food and meal worms in the warmth of our garage, put them back outside in a box two weeks later, and low and behold the mother bird came back & fed them until they were ready to fly.

Just when we were looking forward setting them free ourselves and watch them fly away, we came home to find this note sitting inside their box written by our next door neighbor. Thanks a lot Carol…

We spent a couple weeks cleaning, painting and storing things so we could put our condo up for sale. Here is the listing. Maybe the fact we don’t have a basement and seeing Johnny Rowlands on the news flying 1,000 feet above your house with the camera filming a funnel cloud forming above our condo and watching said funnel cloud on LIVE TV tends to make you want to move to a place that will provide shelter. In the process of getting the condo ready to sell, Stephanie became quite the Horticulturist. It really is quite impressive. In June, Steve played guitar in a wedding for our friends The Cleveland’s. Here is a recording of that song, Songbird. On vocal is Lindsey Klein (no relation). Songbird (originally by Fleetwood Mac & re-recorded by Eva Cassiday) We spent the day and night in Weston at the winery’s and stayed at the Inn at Weston Landing. We spent the 4th of July at Barb & Veryl’s. A couple days later we went to our 2nd Miller Family Shindig in Leon, IA, where we got to ride in a 2-seat airplane (1 for the pilot and 1 for the passenger). At dusk is the state of Iowa’s (and possibly the entire country’s) largest fireworks display. This is no joke. Take this video clip, and put it on repeat and watch it for and hour and 15 minutes to get the idea how long and utterly insane this display is. You think I’m kidding? It’s sick… We both were summoned by the same judge in the same court with the same lawyer (different day) to take 8 hours of defensive driving as a probation agreement for keeping points off our driving records for speeding on the same road, going the same speed, being pulled over by the same cop (different day). But on the bright side of it, during lunch on the day of our driving school we discovered a wonderful Jamaican restaurant in South Kansas City called G’s Jamaican Cuisine. To close out the summer, we made the annual trip up north to Wisconsin to visit Steph’s Oma & Opa (that’s German for grandma & grandpa). Where we golfed and visited with family.

Aunt Mary

We finished our trip on the beach at Lake Michigan to stay with our friends the Sypkens. Some of the concerts we went to were The Steve Miller Band (in the pouring rain), Colective Soul & Live (it was free) Filter (free too), Foo Fighters (awesomely free), Beck (loved it) and, Xavier Rudd which we both thought was unbelievable. I promised Concert Chris I would post a couple pictures and a video clip of Green Spandex, since he personally requested it from Xavier earlier that day at an in-studio performance at 90.9 The Bridge, so here you go Chris.
Green Spandex (by request

Fall is here and it will be our 2nd anniversary in a couple weeks. Until then stay safe. Oh, and our condo is still for sale.

Steve & Steph

Xavier Rudd - Shiver
Beck - Timebomb

Birds, Bikes & Baseball

So, the other night I went to the grocery store to buy some ground beef for the year’s inaugural hamburger on the grill. I spent a good 20 minutes making sure each one had the perfect blend of spices and marinade. Quite frankly, I was looking forward to eating them all day at work. Let me back up a bit and say that the cats have been spending a lot of time looking out the window and meowing at all the birds flying in our back yard. We have been scattering seed for about a week now, and noticed all kinds of different species flying around. Needless to say, as I was quite startled when I opened up the grill to light it and found this massive birds nest. At first glance, it scared the you-know-what out of me because I didn’t know what was going to jump out at me.


So I guess, I had pass on cooking the burgers on the grill. WARNING – DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME - So I opened the oven, laid our some aluminum foil on both the top and bottom racks, and cooked our burgers in the oven. The bottom layer of foil thankfully caught all the grease that was pouring off the burgers. I realized I was a mere minute or so away from condo-fire #2, so I had to abort my mission and finish them off in the microwave for about 30 seconds. I must say for all the effort put in making them, the burgers were pre-tttty tasty. And I saved the bird eggs from a firey grave.
Frankie Valli - Grease

I bought a mountain bike from Eric Huggins last week. I don't have a picture yet, but will post one soon. Here is a song in the mean time.
Queen - Bicycle Race

Yesterday, I made it to Royals game #3 with my good friend Chris, whom I haven’t seen since our wedding. Chris was able to score Dugout Suite seats. I have never been in these seats, but you know they must be good when you have this sign WARNING you upon entry.


Wow what great seats. Thanks Chris.

Final score: Blue Jays 5 Royals 2

Spring Has Sprung

Hi everybody, it's Stephanie and it is my first post (with a little help from Steve). I am excited to learn how to write updates and fun stuff for this Blog. Of course Keller and Marty will be stealing the show most of the time.





But I will also post other things such as fitness stuff and our family. Such as the good time we had with Dad and Cindy at the new Rolling Stones movie, Shine A Light. We got to spend some time at Steve's parents house this past Sunday. Here are some pictures taken throughout the day. Spring has Sprung! We tried to play golf but it didn't work out. We played basketball with Adam and baseball with Emma, Josh and Adam. Adam tried to slide on the hard wood floor but didn't slide because he didn't have anything on.

Of course we all held the NKOTB, Hanna a lot.

Here are a couple songs for your Springtime enjoyment.

The Rolling Stones - Shine A Light
New Kids on the Block - Step By Step
Nirvana - In Bloom

A Day Off from Work...to Work

Turkey Season opened this morning, so dad and I made our annual trip up to the farm bright and early (3:00 A.M.). It had rained about 6 inches of rain the past week, so the conditions were soggy. We didn't get a turkey, but we took the opportunity to do some work around the property. We knocked down trees, added gutters and patched up a couple holes in the tin roof.

Here are some Pictures of the day.

Carrying a load of Dirt

Knocking Down some Trees growing next to the Barn

Pulling out a Stuck 20-Wheeler

Tree. Fall. Ouch.

Patching the Roof

One Shining Moment

It has been 1 week since Mario Chalmers shot the Kansas Jayhawks into basketball immortality. The Jayhawks ended 20 years of frustration by winning their 3rd national title in school history with an unbelievable 75-68 overtime win over Memphis. After I swore to never again to watch a KU basketball game with my brother Jeff because of the bad Karma-comments he makes, Steph and I watched the game at his and Tara's house with Doug. It was a great win as you can tell by our BLURRY celebration photo taken moments before the game ended.


I still can't believe they didn't choke...

University of Kansas Marching Band - I'm A Jayhawk (Fight Song)
Joe Esposito - You're the Best

Riding the Jayhawks high, I was able to once again score Opening Day tickets for the Royals v. Yankees game. The Royals won 5-2 with a strong pitching performance by Brian Bannister. This was also the first game they displayed the massive new 8,900 square foot HD Crown Vision scoreboard.

Here is a video of it in all its awesomeness.



This is definitely a great sign of many great things to come in the Royals future.

Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back In Town
Terry Cashman - Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey, and "The Duke")
Wilber Harrison - Kansas City

"hello, world"

Hi Everybody and welcome to our first attempt blogging. I wanted our welcome post to be something a little more Rock & Roll than the 1974 Bell Laboratories internal memorandum by Brian Kernighan, "Programming in C: A Tutorial", but Stephanie thought "Hello, Hello HOLA!" was lame.

Anyway, we hope this is a good way to let everyone know what is going on in our lives and have a little fun at the same time. We'll post some mp3's from time to time of some of the tunes we are listening to, maybe give a concert review, or talk about the Royals or Chiefs. I am sure there will be a ton of pictures of Keller and Marty, but we also want to post friends and family stuff here and there too. Who knows come December you may even get a sneak preview of this years Christmas Card before it arrives in your sticky hands. Remember 2005's?

Here are a couple mp3's of some concerts we were at that same year...

The Samples - Did You Ever Look So Nice
Wakarusa Festival - Lawrence, KS - June 19, 2005

Keller Williams - Crater In The Backyard
Liberty Hall - Lawrence, KS - March 1, 2005