CADC Campaign Celebration - April 25

By Tara:

We celebrated the CADC campaign success on April 25 at Fountainview Mansion. It was great fun. Here are a few shots of the party. One picture is of me, Leslie and Melissa. Leslie works with CADC and with the Campaign Office. Melissa raises money for the Rural Studio. The other pic. is of the dean of our college, Dan, Leslie, and me.

UGA Women's Tennis

By Tara:

AJ and I went to the SEC Women's Tennis Championship on April 20. It was UGA vs. Florida. As die hard Auburn fans, it was difficult to decide how to cheer. But, the tennis was amazing. UGA won. They came back on Florida even though they lower ranked. It was very exciting. AJ celebrated with the UGA team. Notice his very orange AU shirt. The girls loved it and THEIR fans took pictures of AJ with the team too.

Excerpts from AJ's newspaper story:

By TONY JONES
tony@newnan.com

AUBURN, AL- No one will ever be able to doubt the heart and will of the University of Georgia women's tennis team.

Even after surrendering the doubles point, UGA's performance at the Yarbrough Tennis Center in the early stages of play on the singles side had the Lady Bulldogs in position to upset top-seeded Florida and repeat as SEC Champions.

Florida gained a 1-0 lead with a sweep of the doubles matches.... The entire Georgia team, just before singles play started, huddled with head coach Jeff Wallace. His girls responded by going out and winning the first set in five of the six matches.

Georgia needed to win four of the six to win the title.

Junior League 5K Art Walk/Run

By Tara:

AJ and I ran in the Junior League 5K Art Walk/Run. We invited Steven Segerlin and Ashley York to join us. Now, I am not a naturally good or fast runner so I encouraged our friends to run ahead of me, at their own fast pace. AJ started off with me, but eventually went ahead as well. My goal was to A: finish B: run the whole time, and C: not embarrass myself.

I didn't finish first and I got passed by 3 daddies with baby strollers, but I met my goals. There was no official timing, but based on my own watch, I estimated my time to be about 32 minutes.

We visited with some of the Junior Leaguers then decided to go to CiCi's pizza - very healthy. We asked the Powells to join us there. AJ went along with pizza even though he had eaten pizza for 6 previous straight meals (5 at Brick Oven and 1 at Shakey's). Steven and Ashley went with us too. We all figured we deserved a treat after our workout.

What will be our next race? Stay tuned......

Davis Cup Tennis - Winston, Salem 2008

By Tara:
Our first post - We attended USA Davis Cup tennis vs. France in Winston Salem on April 11 and 12. Before the matches, we saw the US team receive their championship rings from the 2007 season - Patrick McEnroe (captain), Roddick, Blake, and the Bryan brothers.

The first day we watched Andy Roddick play and then my favorite, James Blake. Roddick had an easy 3 set match. Blake battled through a tough 5 setter, but prevailed. For tennis fans, you know that Blake has struggled with 5 setters in the past. There were 14,000 US fans and 100 French fans. And there were tons of older/old tennis fans there.

On Saturday, I told AJ that I was going to get my picture made with Justin Gimmelstob. AJ really didn't question me as he knows I usually get my way with these things. We got there early and I just walked up to Justin and asked to have my picture with him. He was very gracious and said "Of course!" AJ visited with Justin and relived some of Justin's glory matches. Then, AJ spent quite a bit of time with Ted Robinson in the broadcast booth. Ted was eager to get AJ's comments on past and upcoming Grand Slam tennis events. Ted also thanked AJ for feeding him the line 2 years ago about Rafael Nadal being Roger Federer's personal kryptonite.

We then watched the Bryan brothers lose to France. After the match, we met our Atlanta friends Mike and Kitsie Cain for dinner and discussed tennis, baseball, and golf.

The Davis Cup was great and was fan friendly. This made us look forward to the French, Wimbledon, and US Open.