Janna's Birthday...and a BIG hello from Texas!

So, yesterday was Janna's 16th birthday. We had a short little party--with the ENTIRE neighborhood. It was great. I haven't seen the house so full in a while.

This is with Christine, from next door.

These are some of Matt and Janna's friends. Laura D., Colleen, Pat, and Eda. They are such a fun group.

Then the 3 girls went out for a nice dinner at The Roma in Portland. Don't they look nice?

But--before heading out, Janna recieved her final birthday present, a 20 guage shotgun. I absolutely love this picture...it sums up Janna so incredibly well. ha!

And--I am safe and sound in Austin. Typing from my hotel room! I made it down here with no problems--no hick ups--and I didn't even get lost driving to my hotel! On my flight to Austin, I sat next to someone famous! My seatmate was Nigel Sylvester. Ever heard of him? Nope, I hadn't either :) He rides BMX (trick bikes). So--picture the conversation. (he's a wicked nice guy by the way, and totally humble...I had to pull information out of him to figure out who he was...) We start with small talk--then he asks me what I do (after finding out I live in Maine) so we talk about my occupations for a while. His aunt used to sell MK, and of course I start talking to him about the men's skin care line...so maybe I'll have a new customer too :)

So then I ask him what he does. He tells me, he rides BMX. And I say, professionally? Yup.

OK...so how does that work exactly, how do you get paid for that? (Cause Kate is totally clueless about this stuff) he starts going into how he gets paid by companies to promote their products, and how he gets free clothes, and shoes and that sort of thing. So then...the wheels start turning in my head, and I realize that only a pretty well known athlete would be getting such things. So I say "So, does that mean you are pretty famous in the BMX world?" He got shy, and blushed (as much as a black guy can blush) and he says quietly "yeah, I'm pretty well known". But I couldn't leave it at that...so I ask "So, if I Google you, will you come up?" "yeah"

So go ahead...google this guys name. He comes up like the first 3 or 4 pages. I'd say he's pretty famous. Matthew confirmed that he is probably the second best in his sport. Crazy huh? So anyway...he was a super nice guy.

Tomorrow morning I'm meeting up with a lady at the church I'm going to, and we're going to go out to lunch, and she's going to show me the area a bit! So I'm looking forward to that.

Assuming the weather in New England cooperates, Dan should be here by noon or so on Monday :) yay!

Alright, I'm heading to bed...have to get up early to go to church! I'll blog again tomorrow I'm sure.