Sorry for being AWOL for so long, but as you can imagine, things have been a little hectic over the past month.

In case you missed it, we won! Here’s Mark’s victory speech:

It still hasn’t fully sunk in yet, but I’m so proud of Mark and our entire campaign team.

Anyway, in completely unrelated news, my dad, Sherry and the girls got a new dog on Friday. Her name is Lola. L-O-L-A, Lola… la la la la Lola.

I haven’t met the new pup yet, but she looks pretty darn cute.

That’s it for now. I’ll try to get back to a normal posting routine… eventually.

Well, it’s been a month since Zack last posted on ibzp.net, but as you can imagine, he’s been a little busy. This election season has been inspiring, maddening, overwhelming, unending… and after all of that, today’s finally the day. No matter the outcome, I am so proud of Zack and the success he has had as Mark Schauer’s Communications Director. He has worked so hard and given so much of his time to this election process. 

Thankfully everything will be settling down after this week, and we’re going to have a lot of things to look forward to in the coming months.

Zack and I are attended my cousin Mary’s wedding on November 15th. The following Friday, I will finally be confirmed in the Catholic church with Zack as my sponsor. And then we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving with our families and preparing to go to Naples for a long weekend with my family. After a long election process for Zack, and a busy Fall quarter at school for me, that trip cannot come quickly enough. I’m really looking forward to the up and coming holiday season. 

It’ll be 2009 before we know it! And we know something very exciting is just around the corner!

So cut Zacky some slack. He’ll be back to ibzp.net once he’s been able to catch his breath… and catch up on guitar hero.

This is still one of my all-time favorite Stefy pictures. I took it on her birthday the first year we were dating – what a knockout.

Happy b-day, Stefery!

These be strange times we’re living in:

Washington Mutual, the giant lender that came to symbolize the excesses of the mortgage boom, was seized by federal regulators on Thursday night, in what is by far the largest bank failure in American history.

Regulators simultaneously brokered an emergency sale of virtually all of Washington Mutual, the nation’s largest savings and loan to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion, averting another potentially huge taxpayer bill for the rescue of a failing institution.

“He can’t run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sara Palin. Where is she?”

“What are you going to do if you’re elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We’ve got a guy like that now!”

Yes, I’m still alive. Sorry I haven’t written in over a week.

Just to play catch-up… my birthday was great (thanks to all the well-wishers), I made spur of the moment trip to visit Stef in Chicago last weekend (lots of fun), and I already managed to beat Guitar Hero III last night.

That’s all I have time for right now. I’ll just leave you with our second ad of the campaign season, which I still think is pretty awesome: