Jus and Elyse

North Carolina!

2007-06-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a very brief preview of our vacation to North Carolina. We have plenty more pictures of everything in case you're interested, just let us know and we'll send more.

This is me at the Matt Kenseth Fan Club Headquarters in Cambridge, Wisconsin standing next to the car as it left victory lane in 2000 when Matt won his first ever Nextel Cup Race at the Coca-Cola 600 in 2000, and ironically, we were on our way to see the Coca-Cola 600!

Here's some shots of us on pit road before the race. That's Elyse at Reed Sorenson's box, and me and Dawson at Matt Kenseth's box. Also, trying to keep Matt's car cool in the 38 degree heat.

The Coca-Cola 600! (sharing the fun with 167 000 others)

Our hotel on the ocean!

Working on one of Kasey Kahne's many cars at Evernham Motorsports.

Elyse standing next to Reed Sorenson's car at the Chip Ganassi Racing shop.

Elyse sitting at the piano that Elvis Presley played in the room where he recorded over half his songs back in the '60's. (This little building is called Studio B, we took a tour there courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which we were also at the same day.)

That's me after going 275kph in a NASCAR at Kansas Speedway.

Obviously I couldn't put all the pictures on here of everything we did (i took 428 pictures and 6 movies). Here's where we all went in chronological order: Mall of America, Matt Kenseth Fan Club Headquarters, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Carolina Beach on the Atlantic Ocean and the aquarium at Fort Fisher, Evernham Motorsports, Chip Ganassi Racing shop, Roush Racing shop, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and Studio B in Nashville, Grand Ole Opry House, and the Richard Petty Driving Experience at Kansas Speedway.

That's all for now folks!

28 weeks and counting...

2007-05-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

Well I am now into the third trimester of my pregnancy and I am just loving every minute. Baby is sure getting stronger and more active and likes to give me some good kicks in the ribs already. I have felt great throughout and love watching myself grow as the days pass.
I haven't gave an update in a while, so some of you may not know that my due date has changed from August 15th to the 4th which puts me at 2 weeks farther along than we thought (something I am very thrilled about). We are now finished the baby room and have even set up our crib and change table in preparation for the baby...and I was just too excited to wait! More and more everyday we look forward to meeting our little one...only a few more months to go!

Here's a picture of me at...26 weeks, I think...? Who know's, the days fly by so fast :)

We ain't no "Joe Nobody"

2007-05-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures of mine and Dawson's truck and trailer that we purchased recently. We just got the decals put on yesterday.

Recreational Activities

2007-05-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

Me and Ty doing some tree climbing in our front yard.

Just Get 'R Done

2007-04-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

Well tomorrow is my big day. They call it the IP (Inter-provincial) exam for becoming a red seal journeyman carpenter. That means i'll be recognized throughout Canada as a journeyman. pretty exciting. but also very nerve racking. i've been cramming all week trying to get as much info as i can into my tiny little brain space so i hope it pays off.

On a little lighter note, Dawson and i just made a deal on a new truck. it's an '03 Dodge Ram 1500, quad cab, 5.7L hemi 4x4 black. we are very pumped about it. it's wicked nice. i'll have pictures IMMEDIATELY after we buy it with the trailer and everything and i'll get those on here as soon as possible. so things are slowly coming together. we've been to numerous lumber yards here in town and quoted on a couple of houses that hopefully will be starting sometime in June. sounds like there is plenty of work out there, we're just praying for the right work to come along since we are not set up for many things right now. other than that not much else is new right now. except for TALLADEGA THIS WEEKEND!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

PS. yes this is a real photo from april 2006. dawson has it on video if you don't believe me. TALLADEGA!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! oh i said that already

Ahead of Schedule

2007-04-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Elyse and I went for the ultrasound last thursday. It was possibly one of the most exciting experiences I've ever witnessed. The baby didn't even look like an alien which is what I've been expecting all along. It actually looked like a real human being! From what we can tell it has all it's fingers and toes which is a huge blessing. It was actually drinking when we were watching it which kind of looks like a fish breathing under water. So anyway, the lady who did the ultrasound told Elyse that she measured 23 weeks where we thought she was only 21 weeks. So now we might be 2 weeks ahead of schedule which puts the due date at late July or early August instead of the middle of August. So we're not exactly sure which it is right now, but people say trust the ultrasound. And I know nothing better than to listen to people who've had a baby before so I guess that's what we're going with. I decided not to post any of the pictures but if anyone would like some we do have some pretty neat ones and we'd be happy to e-mail them so just ask. ta-ta for now.

YAY Tal's Home!

2007-04-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

Well I guess Tal has been driving around with grinding brakes for a year so when she came home for easter this weekend dawson and i took the liberty of teaching her how to change the brake pads and rotors on her car. Ok it was mostly dawson doing the teaching, but that Tim Horton's coffee sure did taste good. I love having Tal around.

A New Look

2007-04-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

Well, after half a year of testing, the "Car of Tomorrow" finally debuted in Bristol 1 and a half weeks ago. Along with many behind the scenes changes it also includes a rear wing instead of the spoiler and a front splitter. In Matt Kenseth's case, he got a new secondary sponsor for this year in the form of Arby's.

Matt has been doing reasonable this year, staying consistent as always. After running 3rd in corner 4 of the last lap of the Daytona 500, getting sideswiped and finishing 27th, his worst finish in the last 6 races has been 11th. After the 500 though, he came back strong and won the Auto Club 500 in California the following week. He had slight problems during his victory burnout though, busting his transmission so the crew had to push him to victory lane.

Matt has 4 secondary sponsors that he will be sporting throughout this season, but the primary car is still the Dewalt Ford Fusion as you can see in a previous post.

Reed Sorenson, in his second full year as a driver in Nascar's elite division, is doing very well for being only 20 years old (Elyse's main reason for choosing him as her favorite driver, they're the same age!). His best finish came at Atlanta Motor Speedway where he finished 9th. He continues to stay in the top 25 in points and we're very hopeful that he'll pull out his first win this year after coming close multiple times last year having misguaged his fuel consumption and running out of gas on 2 occaisons. Here's a shot of his new ride.

I guess that's all the Nascar news for now. Stay posted!

5 down, 4 to go!

2007-03-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

Yes we are expecting! I am 21 weeks along now and starting to grow steadily. We have started to renovate a baby room, the painting is complete as of this morning. Now we are just awaiting the carpet and some furniture. We have an ultrasound appointment for the 5th of April and we are excited to see our baby for the first time. So far there have been no problems and things are going great.

This is a picture of me at 19 weeks.

Proud mommy and daddy to be.

(17 weeks)

Basement Reno

2007-03-31T13:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't been to our house since the summer of '06, we have renovated 600 square feet in the basement. We're kicking ourselves for not taking any "before" pictures but we have plenty of "after" pics. I (Justin) started the renovation just after September long weekend and was done a couple days before Christmas. In short form, here's what we did: gutted the whole thing and dug out the front of the house to repair the east foundation wall, re-insulated and drywalled the whole thing, painted, built the bar as you see below, and laid tile on the floor. In the end it turned out exactly as I had pictured it in my mind! Yay!

After all was said and done I had my mom paint some murals on the wall. I was going with the whole sports theme, turned out to be mostly a NASCAR theme, I haven't collected many things from other sports yet but it's definitely a work in progress.

In case you're scratching your head over the two numbers, 41 is Elyse's favorite NASCAR driver Reed Sorenson and 17 is Matt Kenseth. Stay tuned for updates on them.

I had lots of help during the three months we were working since I only had evening and weekends to do it. Jared, Dawson, and Tyrone helped quite a bit with the actual construction, Elyse helped with the drywalling, tile, and paint, Elyse's mom Darlene helped extensively with the tile since she was the only one who really new what they were doing, and my friend Tom did all the electrical. My parents, Dan, Marvin and Dylan also helped. I'm sure there were others and I apologize if I forgot you. Overall, job well done and we are very pleased to have a second floor of living space in our home!

2007-03-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

be patient with me, i'm still learning this whole blogger thing. and apologies for the matt kenseth pics but deal with it!!!!!!!!

yet another picture of the coolest man in the world

hello all

2007-03-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

hello