Congratulations to Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus, Hendrick Motorsports, & Lowe’s on their 4th championship in a row!

From Marty Smith (ESPN) on Twitter:

Just asked Johnson to be honest with me about where he stacks up among the greatest ever: “This puts us up there. No doubt.”

Hendrick teammates Mark Martin & Jeff Gordon finished the season in 2nd & 3rd, respectively.

Dale Earnhardt Jr finished the season 25th.  This season has been a bumpy season for Junior & team.  Lance McGrew was finally named the official crew chief (removing the interim designation) a while back.  I really think Lance, Junior, & the 88 team can do great things together.  I’m very optimistic about 2010!

Brad Keselowski’s last race with JR Motorsports was Saturday.  He will be joining Penske Racing & driving the #12 in the Sprint Cup series next year.  Good luck, Brad!  Kelly Bires will be joining JRM next year.  I’m very excited to see how he does for JRM.

Today is the first Arkansas Razorback football game of the season.  The Razorbacks are taking on the Missouri State Bears at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.  Go Hogs Go!

Some Exciting Former Hog News:

• Former Hog baseball player Craig Gentry has been called up from AA Frisco to the majors – the Texas Rangers.  Northwest Arkansas has been fortunate enough to keep up with Craig’s progress through the Rangers organization because Frisco plays the Northwest Arkansas Naturals.  Good luck, Craig!

Brad Keselowski has helped Dale Earnhardt Jr make JR Motorsports a weekly contender in the NASCAR Nationwide series.  Brad has 5 wins in the NW series and got his first Cup series win in April at Talladega.  Penske Racing announced Tuesday that Brad will join them beginning in 2010 and will drive the #12 Penske Dodge in the Sprint Cup series.  Congratulations Brad on this great opportunity!  Just remember that Rick Hendrick & Hendrick Motorsports isn’t out of reach!

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals have 3 games left (with only 1 win needed) and they will have clinched a Texas League playoff spot for the 2nd straight season (in only 2 seasons in existence in NWA).  Good luck Naturals against the Tulsa Drillers this weekend!

I’m doing a horrible job of posting updates lately.  I have tons of photos to post & share.  I just don’t seem to be finding the time to do it.  I will get to them soon.  In the meantime, here’s a quick update of some of the things running through my head.

The house buying process is moving along.  The inspection was yesterday.  It went as expected (& hoped) and now I’m waiting on the appraisal to come back to know which item(s) I may need to fix before I can actually close.  After the appraisal results, I’ll basically be waiting on repairs and the bank to finish up their process.  My real estate agent said yesterday that closing by the end of the month is still very possible.  I hope so!  I’m ready to have the keys in hand and be able to start painting and flooring.  (I’m sorry to say I’m not going to be able to move in right away because it needs some polishing but it shouldn’t take too terribly long, hopefully, to get some fresh paint on the main level’s walls and carpeting cleaned & repaired.)  I’m also ready to cook my first meal in the kitchen!

Congratulations to Brad Keselowski & JR Motorsports on their 3rd win of the 2009 NASCAR season this past Saturday at Michigan!

I got my Razorback football season tickets in the mail over the weekend.  First Fayetteville game is Sat Sept 19 against Georgia.  I’m still waiting on my tickets to the Southwest Classic (Arkansas vs Texas A&M) in Dallas at the new Cowboys Stadium.  I can’t wait for football season!

Until next time…

The NASCAR race last Sunday was in Talladega, Alabama.  Talladega is a track that always has a lot of action.  Sunday’s race did not disappoint in this area.  Although, I’m pretty sure Carl Edwards & some unexpectant fans may be now wishing they saw a little less action.  Here is a replay of the last 4 race laps and the aftermath/celebration.

Carl decided to pull a Ricky Bobby and run to the start/finish line after his car was left unable to do so after its wild ride.

Congratulations to Brad Keselowski on his 1st NASCAR Sprint Cup series win (in just 5 tries).

Dale Earnhardt Jr finished second.  Based on his excitement in Victory Lane with Brad, I think he was very happy with 2nd and ecstatic to see Brad win the race.

Finally, my condolenses go out to the family & friends of David Poole (longtime NASCAR journalist).  I always enjoyed reading the articles he wrote for the Charlotte Observer.  One of my favorite articles I’ve read about Dale Earnhardt Sr was one he wrote about Sr’s lucky penny.

I feel busy lately.  I’m not really sure why.  I don’t have a big social life, in the respect that I have somewhere to go & people to see every night (or even most nights).  I still feel busy, though.  I think it is that I know I have several thing big things I’m attending throughout Winter and Spring.

I’m heading to a birthday party for a good friend this afternoon who turned 30 on Friday.  Happy Birthday, Megan!

For Christmas, I signed Shelby up to take a sewing class.  Because I haven’t sewn since junior high, I decided to sign up & go too.  Our first class was supposed to be last Thursday but snow put a wrinkle in those plans.  The class should start this Thursday and then be every Thursday evening for the next 6 weeks.  I’m pretty excited about it.  I’m not sure that I’m interested in learning how to sew clothing.  I’d love to know how to make curtains and quilts, though.

Next weekend, I’m heading to Tulsa for a little girls’ weekend.  My sister Lindsey, Hayley, Kelly, & I are heading to Tulsa to see Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, & Darius Rucker in concert.  I’ve seen Dierks twice before but have the opinion that one can never see Dierks too much.    I haven’t ever seen Brad or Darius and am really excited about both of them.  Although, I do need to listen to Darius’ country CD a few times this week because I’m afraid he won’t really be playing anything Hootie.  (Although, he might surprise me.)

Kelly & I are thinking of taking a road trip somewhere south in late February (assuming the weather cooperates with us).  Right now, we’re actually considering heading down to San Antonio for a few days.  We’re still in the early stages of figuring out where and when but it has me excited nonetheless.

April will find me in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, specifically Texas Motor Speedway, for NASCAR.  We’ll be taking our annual trip to the Sprint Cup series race on April 5th.  After the trip to TMS Penni & I had in November, it definitely won’t be as interesting.  I keep telling Shelby that I’m counting down to her 18th birthday when she will be old enough for pit passes.  I will get to see Brad Keselowski in the Cup race, though, which I’m excited about.

As of right now, I’m heading to Charlotte, NC for the Coca-Cola 600 in late May.  I don’t have plane tickets or race tickets but I’m pretty sure everything is headed in this direction.  Penni loves going to this race, and I decided this would be a good non-Texas NASCAR race to attend in 2009.  It looks like we are going to have several friends attending with us so that will be cool.  If anyone else wants to go, let us know.  The more, the merrier!  It’ll be cool to meet some new people and enjoy a lot of NASCAR at the same time.