October 19, 2009:  Welcome to Fall, at least here in Seattle anyway.  In the last week we have had all that Fall normally has to offer, crazy wind, insane amounts of rain, beautiful sunny days, and super cold mornings.  It came a few weeks later than we're used to but no complaints here, that's for sure.  Work has continued to be busy and to add to that both of us are about to travel, we have house guests arriving, Lisa's Dad has his surgery and I have mine just after the Halloween party.  Lisa takes off on the red-eye tomorrow and I take off early Thursday morning.  His surgery is Friday morning, at the same time as my work meeting in NYC.  If everything works out I'll be able to meet Dave, Lauren and Elle at their place Thursday night after I land in Newark, it's only ten or so miles from where I'll be going.  My meeting is first thing in the morning and I'll be flying back to Seattle right after it's over.  Stella will be staying at Sweet Creek and I'll be picking her up on my way home from the airport late Friday night, she'll be mostly recovered from her surgery but we don't want to bring her to the normal boarding place, she'll have a ton of fun playing with Leroy and the rest of the gang.  It looks like her skin is starting to turn around and look better but it's going to be a while before it's totally back to normal.  The one thing that we've noticed is that she is more playful than she's been since before she was last in season.  She hadn't touched a toy to speak of for over three months and this week she's played with almost every one in her baskets, she actually wore a few of them out!  We really think that she has something funky going on with her hormones and that we made the right decision.  As for house stuff I've been busy accomplishing small tasks here and there, fixing a clogged sink, a bathroom exhaust fan, raking up the mess from the wind last week and getting started on the generator transfer switch.  Anyway, it's late and I'm beat, Lisa just rode in on her bike from work so we're going to go for a soak, have a great week and I'll have updated from Sam's surgery as soon as I can. 

October 11, 2009:  Hey again, how's things?  Not bad here, busy as always of course.  Things are really heating up at Lisa's work now that they opened the new Trader Joe's next door, it seems like it's really going to increase their business, which isn't all good because their quite under staffed.  It's even making it hard to park in the lot but Lisa's been riding her bike to work a lot lately so that hasn't been such a big deal.  She's been gearing up to be able to ride through the Winter, hopefully the weather will cooperate enough to get a couple rides in each week.  I have to fit her commuter with fenders this week so she's ready for the weather.  Stella's skin issue got quite a bit worse last week and after a discussion with two vets, Eric and Isabela we decided that having her fixed may solve her recurring issues.  She won't be able to be in shows anymore but she'll still be able to chase the fake bunnies, which I think she likes more anyway :)  The next few weeks are going to be so busy for us that the only real time she could have the surgery was this week.  We were able to have it done on Thursday and she's been doing very well since.  It's going to be tough to keep her activity level low for the next 10 days but the weather will keep her in the house so that should help a bit.  Hopefully the skin issues clear up and she is back to normal before we know it.  Lisa is still on schedule to fly to Florida in about a week for her dad's heart surgery, I'll be sure to post updates after.  Things are changing at my work and I will likely be moving to a different team to do a somewhat different but also kind of the same job.  The first couple projects I'll be doing I've already been involved in and will probably have to fly to NY and VA for meetings in the next two weeks.  It's crazy that I'll be in the air about 30 hours for a total of eight hours of meetings, apparently conference calls aren't good enough!  Other than that there isn't much to report, we both got to ride the road bikes this weekend while taking turns keeping an eye on Stella, Lisa even got to join the "girls only" shop mountain bike ride yesterday!  Today I was able to winterize the sprinklers and outdoor faucets and spent some time working on the kegerator.  It's ready to go and pouring perfect beers for the most part, still have to get the perfect pressure and temperature set but it's very close.  A few accessories for the top are on order but they'll be here in plenty of time for the Halloween party.  It's back to work tomorrow so time for another beer, a soak in the tub and bed.  We'll talk again soon, have a great week! 

October 4, 2009:  This may be one of the longest lapses in Jay and Lisa dot org history, sorry about that.  Unfortunately the excuse isn't much different than it always is, we've been insanely busy.  I'm sure you don't believe me and there's no way I can go through everything you've missed but I'll capture a few just to give you an idea.  In the last month we have done tons of cycling, Lisa has been to Florida once to see her folks and is going again in two weeks when her father has heart surgery, I found out I'm having surgery in November to remove the metal implants from my leg, Stella has had some kind of allergy that caused most of her hair to fall out, Lisa took up commuting to work on her bike and got another one to use for long distance rides, we've started to get the house and yard ready for Winter, Stella did her first successful full loop at a lure coursing trial and did awesome, Stella's mom is being bred this week and if all goes well we'll have a new puppy in about 4 months, we started building a new keg-er-ator that you can see the progress of in 'Projects', I've worked a couple 60 hour weeks and there doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel, I fixed the garage door problem that has eluded me for months, we've begun planning the Halloween party for this year, and lastly we've been trying to enjoy the last few weeks of nice weather before the rain and wind get here.  So that sums it all up, mostly anyway.  We're going to try and ride as much as we can before my surgery because I'll be out of action about four months before I can start riding again, just in time for Spring if it all works out.  I've added a couple of new pictures to my niece Elle's page on the left, she just had her first birthday and sure has turned into a cutie.  Other than all that we haven't had a whole lot of free time.  I'm going to bail out for now but keep watch, don't give up on us, we haven't forgotten about you!