"Sheesk. Sleeping wasn't this tough last week...."
Ally and Mingo, September 17, 2005
From Ally - our second guest author...
Wow! Mingo and I have been married a year...how time flies! We were married in
Cannon Beach, Oregon with a beautiful sunset and the Pacific Ocean as our backdrops.
Since we met on the softball field, we thought the perfect wedding would involve a
softball game and some brats & beer. How right we were...what a fun time. It will
always bring back wonderful memories.
Wedding site, Cannon Beach, Oregon.
Check out some of the photos.
Wedding album #2
To celebrate our first anniversary, Mingo announced it to 50,000 of our
best friends at the Komen Portland Race for the Cure. Since I started working for
the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, we've sort of resigned ourselves to the
fact that our anniversary will always fall on Race weekend.
Well, Mingo made sure we didn't forget during the chaos yesterday. He arranged to
get a spot on the main stage (I knew nothing) to announce that we were celebrating
our first anniversary. He called me up to the stage to tell me that he loved me
very much and he gave me a dozen roses! We got a big round of applause.
Mingo is one of the most thoughtful, caring and loving people I've ever met. We
love every minute we spend together and I can't wait to spend 50 more anniversaries
with him!
Happy anniversary, youse guys.
Ashley, 4 weeks old and 1,173 weeks later.
Ashley Renshaw Kyle was born on September 15, 1982, in Tucson, Arizona. Her parents are Amy Renshaw Kyle and Greg Kyle. Ashley shares this birthday with some great icons - Gannet published the first issue of USA Today on the very date she was born. And Jack Bailey, our great uncle and very popular tv game show host in the 50's, was born this day in 1907. (Note: more on Jack Bailey, later)
While Ashley was growing up, I would often call Amy and ask her to "tell me an 'Ashy' story". Without fail, Amy would tell me something that Ashley had just said or done. So, for Ashley's birthday post, I called around and got another fix of "Ashy stories".
Ashley, 7 months.
Whenever I'm asked why I moved to Arizona, I always reply that "I moved right after my sister Amy had her first child, Ashley. Since Amy and I had grown up in each other's pockets, I didn't want to miss her kids growing up." The unplanned benefit was that I was able to watch all the cousins grow up. Moving to Arizona was the best decision of my life for many reasons. Thanks, Ash - Lucia
Ashley, age 3.
Ashley and I were on a grocery trip when she was 3 or 4 . When we were passing along the meat section, something caught her eye and she looked so surprised. She saw a logo on a package of chicken that was a rooster on top of a roof. She looked up at me completely amazed and said, "I didn't know chickens laid meat!!!!" --- Amy
Ryan and Ashley, 2005
Ash and Kiff started a trend down in Tucson. When they went out and were taking pictures with their friends at the bar - or wherever- they would point at the camera. So, last New Years Eve Ash came up to Phoenix to go out with Shannon and me. That night, she started teaching this to us. Soon we were doing it all night in every picture. It is now the AZ trend, spreading like wildfire.
We now know this as the "family camera point". It has been seen as far as Greece. I'm quite sure it will be seen on someone's wedding day in the near future. But, it also created one of my FAVORITE pictures of Honey Bunny.
So Happy Birthday, Ash. Thanks for helping helping make one of the best pics of Honey happen... and happy wedding planning! --- Ryan
A current addiction, 2006 (the third year starts 9/22/06!)
My favorite thing to do with Ash these days is to analyze the tv show LOST. It's about a plane that crashed on an island and it details the lives of the stranded passengers. We are both obsessed with the show, and we talk about it every time we get together. She and Shane have watched it together over the past 2 seasons, and now they've even got Amy hooked! We have our own LOST cult! --- Shannon
It seems like Ashley has always had a job – and a lot of the time, two jobs. She's been working at Bank of America since she was a senior in high school. She continued working there while going to college. She worked hard at college until last year, when she decided to take a break for a while and focus on her career at the bank.
Focus helps! She was then promoted to head teller and was just promoted to the position of Personal Banker. She enjoys the work and opportunities at the bank and continually receives high reviews for her work. She and Shane have recently bought a townhouse and will be moving into it at the end of the year.
And just in case some you don't know....
Ashley met her finance, Shane, 5 years ago at the bank where they were both working. They are planning a wedding in January. We must make sure we get a photo of Ashley and Shane pointing at the camera with Honey between them...
Happy birthday, Ash
Ryan, 1 day old and 23 years later
Ryan was born in Mesa, Arizona, September 12, 1981. His parents are Julie Renshaw and Bill Swed. Ryan will be happy to hear that another famous Arizona native, Sandra Day O'Connor, took her seat on the US Supreme Court 9 days afer he was born.
Julie has often said that Ryan "willed himself to grow to be a basketball player." Maybe it was as the result of a silly basketball coach who said that Ryan wouldn't ever make a team (Ryan was 8). Hah! He went on to not only make it on one team, but to succeed on every basketball team he wanted to play on. He's been a Scorpion (Kyrene Middle School), an Aztec (Corona High School) and a Triton (UC San Diego).
He helped them win, too. He was a starter on the Kyrene Middle School team in 1996 when they won the Arizona State Championship. This was the same time "the Julies" were getting a new puppy - Champ - named for the "Champ"-ionship title Ryan and his team had just won.
The first time I ever figured that Ryan looked like Downer was when I matched these photos up.
1941 and 2005
Ryan graduated from the University of California San Diego in 2003, with a degree in Public Law. He worked for Vanguard mutual fund company for the next 3 years. He earned his Masters in Finance while working there. He has just started attending Chapman University School of Law - which he absolutely loves. The irony is that Ryan's third grade teacher told Julie that Ryan should go to law school.
Opa!!! I love Greece!
He says his current goal is to return to Greece next summer - a place and people he absolutely fell in love with in the summer of 2006. Ryan says he's going to learn Greek to get ready for the trip. (Note: Shannon says that learning Greek mostly motivated by his desire to be able speak to all the gorgeous women he saw in Patra)
On the other hand, he may have been working on getting himslef ready for Greece for a while....
Hanging out in the water, 1982 and 2006
Happy birthday, Ryan.
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