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Sarah and I just got back from our 1 year anniversary vacation. We went on a tour of Florida. I’ll write all about it later, but first I want to put up this photo from the trip. A Key West sunset.

My hair was long so I decided it was time for a cut. I didn’t feel like paying somebody $20 to cut my hair when nobody does it how I like and it takes 5 minutes to do. Below is my solution to this problem.

Long Hair Craiger

The Mullet

The Hawk

The Patch

The Britney

I thought about keeping my incredibly crooked hawk for a day and going to work with it. Sarah advised me otherwise. I lost 7 ounces in the process and you can’t even tell that half my hair is really gray anymore. There are so many great reasons to give yourself a buzz cut I could make an entire blog about it. Great idea, look for it in the future.

Bailey turned 1 on November 16th! We celebrated with elmo party hats and a really big doggie cookie and doggie cupcakes. I think she is pretty much done growing, she hasn’t gotten much bigger in the last few months. She is 55 pounds and is about as high as my knee. I would have expected her to get much bigger, more like a full grown lab, but this has not been the case. Sarah and I can’t imagine not having her around, and she has turned into the greatest dog a guy can have. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAILEY!!!

My brother decided he had enough of Michigan and was ready for a change, so he packed up the Grand Prix and headed south. He’s spent the first few days putting applications and resumes all over the tri-county area and is trying hard to find a job.

This is a little different lifestyle than he is accustomed to, I go to bed early… he goes to bed late. He likes to go out, i do as well… just not as much. I am going to compare his arrival to that of a man trying to break a wild horse, the first few weeks are going to be crazy… but then he’ll settle in and know who’s boss! haha, just kiddin little brother… he’ll do just great down here. He’s even talking about going to college to be a police officer. I’ll bet they’ll love that when they see this picture:

 Welcome to Florida Justin. I can’t wait for all the good times we’ll have together. I think we’ll plan the cruise to the Bahama’s first.

Ryan Shay collapsed and died while running in the Olympic Marathon Trials in NYC Central Park on November 3rd. I was a freshman when Ryan was a senior at Central Lake High School and I remember the countless times I would watch him win a race or see his name on a banner in the high school celebrating another state championship. I remember when our high school honored him with “Ryan Shay Day” as he left for Notre Dame, where he also dominated.

I had followed his professional running career closely as there aren’t many folks from a small town of 1,000 that ever make it big. Ryan made it big and he did it the right way. I was excited for the trials and had told Sarah numerous times in the two weeks leading up to the race about what was going on. He had been listed in several running magazines that I read as the “dark horse” to make the team. I remember coming back in from my Saturday morning run and going straight to the computer to see the results. When I opened the link on espn that said a runner had died during the race I went numb.

How does a person in seemingly perfect health and during the biggest race of his career suddenly die? I don’t understand and suppose I never will. Not that it is for me to understand anyway. Countless people die unexpectedly for inexplicable reasons. I just trust that there was a higher purpose for them to go to and that they are in a better place.