Remembering Uncle Don

On Sept 17 we lost Uncle Don, it was a very very sad day in all our hearts. We will always remember his loving and care free attitude. He created so many memories with each of us that we will never forget. Although his life was cut short....he brought a lifetime of happiness and joy to all our hearts. Uncle Don will always be in our thoughts and we pray that he has gone to a much happier place where he can enjoy his life and live without pain.

To view additonal pictures of Uncle Don please go to www.mem.com and search Kerslake.

Uncle Don, Uncle Bob, Mom, Uncle Dale, Uncle Dennis

I promise to happily carry on Uncle Don's tradition of a huge plate of mashed potatoes with the perfect crater in the middle to hold the gravy :)

Love, Nell Bell

Blog Updates

On my recent trip to Washington I realized how many family and friends actually read our blog, yes this blog that we have been horrible about updating. With the facebook craze it has been easy to not update the blog. I am sorry to everyone that has been missing out, or not missing out.

I promise that in the weeks to come I will start updating the blog more regularly again, or maybe I can talk Brutus into keeping it up to date for us.

Well we are off to Nashville this weekend for a Tanning Expo, not really sure what to expect, should be interesting. I am really tired of living out a suitcase though and once we are back from Nashville I don't plan on traveling until at least December..haha.

Look for more updates next week!

Lazy Parents

Ok, so the parents aren't really lazy but they seem to be too busy to keep up on their blog these days. I thought since I am kind of a pain sometimes and cause them trouble that I might write a few things for them in hopes of helping out a little around here.

Grandma and Grandpa Troiano visited in the begining of July. I was still having some issues from my surgery and still had that darn cone around my head (which actually worked out well for me because Gma Sandy really felt sorry for me. She kept saying how pitiful I looked with that thing on....and she put up with me real well. I got a few licks to her face in and she didn't even get upset with me...haha...kind of like the spoiled grandchild already).

So, I guess this is what the outside of "The Childress Winery" looks like. I would say it is a very beautiful place and no idea why I would have had to stay home on this trip. I swear I would have never jumped in the water of the fountain or ran around peeing on the flowers...I would have been on my best behavior.

One evening they all left me home again as they headed down into Charlotte to go and eat at the famous Penguin Restaurant. Mom and Dad had heard about this place from a few different friends and then one night they saw it on "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives" and decided they had to go check it out. As you can see from the picture the place is pretty small and most often you have to wait for a table. I heard Dad say there were some people there that had driven 3 or 4 hours just to eat here because they had seen it on "Triple D" also known as "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives".

As you can see from the next few pictures our last couple of weeks in July were filled with rain. I don't mind when it rains so much, but it does really limit my outdoor time. No playing outside in the rain, I am pretty much limited to being put out the door to pee and then called right back in.

I heard the weather man say that in a week and half our area had recorded 14 inches of rain...man that sure seems like a lot. That must be why the back yard is always soggy and wet. We have even had a few episodes of hail. Which brings me to my next and final update "The Garden"

Mom has been really bummed about the garden, it hasn't done as well as she hoped. But really with so much rain all summer and hail storms, and then when it isn't raining it seems to be 90+ degrees with lots of humidity, I don't think it looks too bad. I think the worst part for her was she wanted to have fresh peas and she only got a couple of pods off before all the plants died. It was just too hot for them to survive this late in the summer. We are starting get a few cucumbers and we still have corn growing (although the corn seems to get pretty beat up in the wind and rain) it is surviving and has some ears growing.

This is one of the few pea pods mom got..I go out there with her all the time to check the garden and she was so excited when she started seeing some pods on the few plants we had left, then slolwy one by one before the pods could mature the plant would die. I watched mom eat a couple just so she could say she had some fresh peas, but I could tell by the look on her face they werent really ready or what she was hoping for.

Well thats about all I can think of that has happened in July..now we move onto August. I will try to make sure mom and dad do a better job of updating the blog.

Until next time, I will try to stay out of trouble.

Love Brutus

PS I have my own facebook now so if you havent already become my friend, check me out. You can search for Brutus Troiano to find me.

Thanks BT Fan Club

Well I am happy to report that I survived my not so little surgery. I want to thank the Brutus Troiano Fan Club from Ohio for the thoughtful card...it really did help me get through 3 weeks of misery.

I am not sure which part of the surgery was the worst (well we know which part was actually the worst as is evident by some missing parts now, but aside from that)...the feet and legs (from having my declaws removed) that had to be wrapped and constantly itched or the damn cone that had to be on my head to try and keep me from chewing on my feet. I honestly think the cone did more damage than it helped..I managed to run into everything and get myself stuck. Plus, after a few days I figured out that I could use the edges of it to rub off the bandages and get to my feet anyways.

So after numerous trips (and I mean so many that everyone at the Vet now knows me and Dad by name) to get my legs and feet rewrapped and to make sure I didnt rip out any stitches (yeah I did get the bandages off numerous times and caused them to bleed quite often), antibiotics becuase I got a little infection, many different doses of "Doggie Downers" to keep me calm and relaxed (haha...the Vet had no idea who he was dealing with here), a plastic cone that was broken into about five different pieces that Dad had to keep taping back together, I can officially say that I am recovered and back to playing and causing trouble.

We did have a slight panic one morning when I woke up to find my feet about 3 times their normal size. As you can see in the pics below they were pretty big and funny looking. The Vet said apparently I had slept wrong on them and since they were bandages all the blood had pooled in my feet and were not getting any circulation....oh is that all...haha. Thankfully they went back to normal after a few hours and having the bandages redone again!

At least this whole mess is behind us now and I can get back to life as normal...although I keep hearing mention of some kind of obedience classes and I have no idea what this could be all about but I would imagine by the two words "Obedience" and "Class" I can not imagine it is good! Thanks again to the BT Fan Club....I feel very honored to officially have my own fan club.

Thats all for now until my next adventures.....

Brutus

Hey... I'm Going To Rehab Tomorrow

So a couple of weeks ago, one a Saturday that we FINALLY had off from Tiki Tan, we decided to take a trip up to Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, NC.

If you don’t know what Bowman Gray is, it is the longest running weekly short track that is still sanctioned by NASCAR. Who really cares right? Well, that is true. But what makes the place cool is that it is a quarter-mile track that is built around the outside of a football field that the local Winston-Salem Division 2 or 3 college team still uses. The stadium serves as both a racetrack and football stadium.

On top of that, it is just a cool looking place and they pack fans in there every week for just regular weekly shows. They get maybe 6,000 to 8,000 people normally… and for big shows, can get over 10,000. That is impressive for a weekly short track.

So after inviting everyone we know (ok, maybe not, but a lot of people), it was just Jennell, JT and Dale heading to the stadium. Of course, a tradition when going up there is heading to Kurleys BBQ. It is one of my favorite places to eat and has great food. They get it out to you faster than any fast food restaurant and have the best hush puppies going. It’s in Welcome, NC, which is where the Richard Childress shops are located. I guess a lot of the RCR guys eat there every day. It is a place straight out of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network. Of course, the day Guy Ferri goes there, I’m sure I’ll miss it!

After Kurleys, we were off to the stadium. It had rained plenty leading up to Saturday, but it wasn’t supposed to rain then. So things were looking good. Once we parked and paid for our tickets (we went on $1 ladies night… meaning all women were just $1. And regular tickets were just $10), we were decideing on where to sit. There are plenty of options there and not one bad seat. So we decided on the front row of the beer garden, so we could drink some beer.

Now the front row at BG is special because the track has no catch fencing, expect for in turns one and two. On the straights, you are sitting right by the track with nothing separating you from the track other than a concrete wall.

It was going well and racing was just getting ready to start. We had our beers in hand when came one of the track’s regular fans. And as you can imagine, sitting in the beer garden section, he was something else. Broken foot/leg/toe or whatever he had, he sat right behind us and eventually moved himself right down beside Jeremy. The guy knew EVERYONE! And he smoked enough for EVERYONE. And he didn’t care is his ashes were going into JT’s beer and left over hush puppies.

And, most unfortunate, his family was sending him to rehab the next night, so you know what they told him… go to the stadium and get drunk. And he was. And he told EVERYONE. He told us and we didn’t even know him. And he told everyone that was sitting in the front row, second row, third row and evern whistled and yelled to people in the top row to tell them. It was a real treat.

After one race, we decided that we’d had enough. And with the contact buzz we were getting from his beer drinking, we decided to find some new seats so we could watch the races and hear the race cars.

We sat in turn one, up high this time. And the view was awesome, as you can see. You can see the whole track well and really get a feel for the racing, even though you aren’t right on top of it.
So after the second race of the night… the wide started blowing, and before you knew it, the rain was falling. Most people headed for the exits, but we just stayed put. We thought it would pass. And it did. But then it started raining again. And after about 2 minutes of thinking about it, they called the race.

So Jennell’s first stadium experience was a short one… but it included all of the highlights… big crowd, good seats, Kurley’s BBQ… and even a possible trip to rehab.

We can only imagine what she’ll see in a full show there. We’ll be back soon for sure!

He's Not A Happy Puppy!!!

Hey there everyone. We just thought we would write and give you an update to a couple of things that have been going on and keeping us busy and away from the computer to update you all on this blog. It was such a great idea in the beginning and still is, but it seems like we just never have time to keep it updated.

Brutus has been doing some of the updating for us lately, but as you all know from the last post, he isn’t really able to update you now. He wanted to, but his “typing” fingers, aka his front paws, are all bandaged up right now. So instead, he’s sitting here and we’re just doing short-hand for him while he is “barking” out (pun intended) instructions.

Brutus had a great day on Thursday. He went to a new vet to get a “major” surgery. He became half a man, as he said in the last post. In addition to that, he had his duclaws removed, hence the bandages on his front legs. He also got updated on all of his shots, which were due anyway. All in all, it wasn’t one of his better days! But it is all for the better.

When we went to pick him up, he came out of the back with a protective cone on his head… ala the great 80s movie One Crazy Summer (if you’ve seen it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t go rent it. This cone protects his incisions and keeps him from trying to lick them or get at them.

Even though he doesn’t find it too funny, it is rather comical. The cone extends plenty far around his neck, allowing him to pretty much run into everything in the house. Going up the stairs, down the stairs, around the couch, around the kitchen table… no matter where he is, he bangs that cone on everything. He often gets hung up on something because of the cone… and when he does, he just looks at you with this “what the hell is going on” look. Now that we know he is feeling better, it is rather comical.

Even less funny for him is that face that he will have to wear the cone until his front paws get better enough to where he won’t gnaw at them. We wanted to take some video and post it on the blog, but we didn’t do it early enough and he’s figured out, for the most part, how to walk around and not hit everything!

The vet and vet techs said he did a great job while there and got through the surgery just fine. He was a happy puppy going in and everyone there loved him. Not bad for a monster like him going into a new vets for the first time.

And don't worry everyone, we're sure he'll be back behind the keys of his computer soon enough.

This May Be My Last Post

Hello Everyone, its your favorite dog Brutus! I am not sure what to tell you but I keep hearing mom and dad say I am having some kind of surgery on Thursday...and I really don't understand what that means and if I will be able to continue writing. I also don't know what I am having surgery for as I seem to feel fine and do "whatever" I want all the time. They don't have surgery for stubborn dogs who seem to always get into trouble do they???? Oh know, what could this mean.....

I think this surgery talk came up a while back because I was getting into a lot of trouble and really not being too good of a dog, but hey what do they expect from me, its me Brutus :) But thankfully I hadn't heard anything about it for a while, but then suddenly when Dad was gone for the week to Ohio things changed and as soon as he was back home I had a surgery scheduled. Now again, I am really not sure what this is all about...I have heard mom say I will be missing some manly stuff (ouch that doesn't sound good). And I have heard Dad saying how funny I will be with some cone thing on my head....boy what have I gotten myself into here...

I guess that maybe my decision to start chewing on the granite in the bathroom and eating the corner of the wood molding was not the wisest decision in hind site. I think mom and dad may have been slightly upset about this.
I mean really come on, from this picture it doesn't look too bad...right? They can easily replace the wooden molding...as far as the granite goes it really does look worse in person. I have managed to get some chunks out of it and leave lots of teeth marks and deep scratches in the top part of it.

Or maybe this was the bad decision...when I decided that one corner destroyed wasn't enough so I wanted to see how the other corner tasted. As you can see I was able to get a big chunk off the bottom on this side.

Well enough about me and this surgery deal because it is depressing me to talk and think about. Not sure why I have to lose some of my manlyhood on Thursday and not really sure how that is going to fix the granite in the bathroom...but I guess we will see.

As far as other happening around here....it is supposed to start raining her today for the next couple of day. We have sure had a lot of rain so far this summer. And man when it rains it pours. I know mom and dad are getting tired of the rain. The garden has gotten too much water from the rain and the yard is just like a swamp all the time, it never dries out and the grass seems to be dying in a lot of spots.

This is what happens to the backyard when it rains (which over the last couple months has been at least a couple times a week). Now don't get me wrong, I love to run around, splash and play in all this water....but that usually gets me in some trouble. It might be because then I like to run in the house and shake all over everything. I do see how the grass has a hard time growing when all this water sits on it. I guess when the contractors built our backyard they forgot to level it out or make any grading so the water would flow away instead of just puddling back there like a lake.

Garden update: well mom and dad have managed to keep me out of the garden with the fence, which I don't really like. Things seem to be looking good in there, although I notice some plants starting to yellow a little bit and in my previous life I had some gardening experience that tells me things are a little too wet in there. I know there is nothing mom and dad can do because it just keeps raining, but I hope it can dry out and survive ok because mom and dad both seem pretty excited about their garden. Mom planted a few more plants this morning in it, she added some cilantro, banana peppers (hot ones), and jalapenos....none of which really excite me.

Well since I may only have a couple days left...I better get off this computer and enjoy them! I will probably cause some trouble, just because I can...I mean really how much worse can it get? Hopefully mom and dad will keep you all up to date on my status....and please, please don't laugh at any funny picture of me with a cone on my head. I think I will talk with the vet/doctor about this and see if the cone thing will really be necessary.

Wish me luck

Brutus

Garden Project

Well it has officially been a month since our last post so I guess that means either we have been really busy or we just don't feel like posting on our blog anymore. Actually I have no idea where the last month has gone, so yes we have just been really busy. I had the great idea that we should plant a garden this year, especially since Jeremy is such a vegetable lover..lol. If anyone needs any veggies this summer there will be plenty to share because there is no way I will be able to eat all this myself and Jeremy will only eat the corn.


After some debate on where the best place to put the garden would be, we realized the corner of yard by the house really would be the best and make the most sense, although we knew this would not be the easiest location to put it....as you will see in later pictures.

Yep, thats the spot. Perfect know just dig up the grass and get the soil ready to plant a garden. What do you mean the ground is too hard, where are your muscles?

Ok, so just rent a tiller and the ground will be all ready to plant. Why do I see standing water where we are planting the garden? Oh thats right our crappy yard tends to all puddle when it rains and apparently we have picked one of those puddle areas. Once we get the ground all tilled up we will be ok though.....right?

What do you mean you spent all day with the tiller and this is all you got done! I don't see standing water anymore, but the ground doesn't really look ready to plant a garden either. So after a few days of hard labor, a rented tiller (that really did no good..although we should have known this because when they were trying to put up our fence they had to jack hammer the ground on this side due to all the hard rock underneath) we are moving on to "Plan B".

"Plan B" consists of making a raised garden, which is really what we wanted in the beginning anyway. Here is the first truck load of soil. And the guy that loaded it told Jeremy "this dirt with grow some good tamaters" so I guess the pressure is on, although we didn't plant any tomatoes.

Here is truck load two of soil and the start of the retaining wall.

Ok, wall is complete and soil is ready to go. Now someone just needs to plant, plant, plant.

I took over the planting since Jeremy said he had no idea what to do, plus he had already done all the work by getting the thing made and ready to plant. So on I went planting rows and rows of seeds and hoping like heck they actually grow.

This half of the garden is by far the most important: 3 rows of corn and 3 of peas!

Corn was the first thing to start popping up, lucky for Jeremy

A few bean sprouts then followed....man the peas better come up or I will tear this whole garden out :) And I am happy to report everything came up over the next couple of weeks and we have a healthy and growing garden. Now we just have to keep watering it and wait for all the good fresh veggies.
This is what the garden currently look like. We have Corn, Peas (of course), Green Beans, Lettuce, Onions, Artichokes and Cucumbers.

From One Dog To Another - GET OUT!

Hey everyone. I know mom and dad haven't written on here for a while. They always seem to be busy running around and doing a lot of things. I think their businesses are going good, because dad is always on his computer and both mom and dad look really tan. So I guess that means things are really good for them.

I guess things have been going too good! Or maybe I've been too bad, because when dad came home from work one day and let me out of the bathroom, I went outside and there was this other dog in my yard. I looked at her, looked at dad, looked at her, looked at dad, licked myself, looked at dad again, looked at her, peed on the grill, looked at her and then looked at dad again. I mean, what the heck, how do they get another dog already?

I then heard dad talking to mom on the phone and he said he found this other dog in the backyard when he got home from work. I don't know how she got there, but she is pretty small, so I guess she might have crawled under the fence. And pretty soon, I figured out for sure that is how she got in the backyard, because she kept trying to run away from me and escape by crawling back under the fence. But every time, dad would grab her and get her back in the yard. I kept trying to get her out of my yard and he kept saving her.

Then mom got home and dad took her away. I thought "good, she's gone." But not too long after that, here he came back with her. Still not gone. I think they even drove around and looked to see if anyone missed her, but again, she came back with them. Dad even took her to the vet to see if anyone had some sort of computer installed in her that would say if she belonged somewhere, but again, no such luck. I just couldn't get rid of her.

They gave her my old crate, they gave her some of my food, my water, my old toys. Was I being replaced? I know that they get mad of me every now and then when I eat things and stuff, but replace me with a little dog? What the hell? Then they even named her. They called her Ginger II first. Then they called her Daisy. Recently, they started calling her Cupcake. Geesh... I've only got one name and she's got three.

At first, I didn't really like her. But the more she is around, the more I like her. We've gotten to be pretty good friends. We chase each other all around the house. I think that might make mom and dad pretty mad sometimes, since we broke one of their plants. Of course, they put us outside and she always seems to try and run around on her own. She doesn't like to play with me outside. Instead, I think she is always looking for a way out. Mom and dad both have to try and catch her when she tries to crawl under the fence.

The other day, she got out and dad went running after her. And even better, he left the back gate open, so I followed. I was just chasing after her, trying to help dad get her, but she must have thought I was playing and she kept on running and running. Dad wasn't very happy. But he eventually caught her and we all went back to the house.

So here we are, several days later, and she is still around my house, eating my food, taking some of my attention.

I am pretty sure mom and dad are trying to get rid of her. I saw them working on their computer and print out a pretty flyer. I think they said they put those flyers up at the tanning place. And they keep talking about finding her a home. So hopefully soon enough, she'll be out of my hair.

She is pretty cute. Do you want her? Because I want her out of my house! She doesn't get the code of ethics of dogs. She can't come in all cute looking and steal my thunder!

So if anyone wants her, hit me up on email. Or let my parents know.

-- Brutus

We Are The People

Hey everyone. So it’s been a while for an update. And not much has changed. We’ve been putting in a lot of time at the salon (it never ends) and Jeremy has also been putting in a lot of time with 2 Dudes (check out http://www.andysanterremotorsports.com/ and http://www.mikeykile.com/), so that has left little time to do too much else.

But one thing that we did have time to do was go to the Jimmy Buffett concert a couple of weeks ago. Jennell had bought me tickets for my birthday, along with a few extra. We got a pretty quick “yes” from Mike and Camie on joining us, but the other two tickets sat there for a while without any owners.

We had quite the setup for the tailgaiting

A few days before the concert, we were talking with Mike and Camie and they brought up their friends Mike and Debbie Rogers. I’ve known Mike Rogers from his son, Andrew. Andrew was a former 51 client and raced in Legends car and the Pro Cup Series. So I knew them pretty well. Well, they took the tickets and were very excited to come. In fact, we didn’t know that Mike and Debbie are diehard Carolina Panthers tailgaters and had the whole setup.

Mike enjoyed some quality beverage

So we headed to Verizon Wireless and got all set up behind the two Mikes’ trucks. We had it all. A easy-up tent, full carpet, two grills, table, plenty of chairs and even a generator to power the blender. After a brief rain storm almost took the easy-up and Jennell (who was holding onto one of the legs) to Oz, we got down to some grilling and drinking. We even made friends with the friendly couple that was parked beside us and they joined our group.

Almost five hours of tailgating finally led us into the concert. And we had a lot fun. We had some good seats, had plenty of overpriced beers and enjoyed some great Buffett music.

The tailgating crowd was huge

And the drinks were yummy

The six of us will probably be back next year. And we are talking about some other things to possibly do together in the future. It was a fun group and one that will probably be together a lot more in the near future!

After we put down the ez-up, we were basking in the sun

JT and Nellie

Mike, Cammie and.... yeah.

Mike and Debbie Rodgers

Mike and Camie

Our group had some quality seats... close to the beer garden

Mike, Camie and Jennell enjoyed the concert, can you tell.

We enjoyed our night.