September 21st, 2010

Wow - been quite a while since the last update. To be honest, most 'family' updates and pictures can now be found on Facebook. You can access my Facebook page via this LINK.

Feel free to send me a friend request.

Thanks.

-John & Jennifer
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March 28th, 2009

In a galaxy far, far away, a baby boy was born 6 years ago. The Jedi Council named him Michael, and the Force was strong with him. In the years that followed his birth, young Michael has been learning the powers of the Jedi. Now the galaxy is in turmoil because the Sith have learned of the boy and seek him.


Click Image To Enlarge

To overcome this threat, Michael will need the help of others - so a call is being sent out for brave ones to come and learn the ways of the Force. You have been chosen to join forces with Michael and the Jedi order to stop the evil Sith! The Jedi training will be disguised as a birthday party so the Sith will hopefully not learn of our plans.

Please watch for an official communiqué from the Jedi council with more information about this event.

-John & Jennifer
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December 21st, 2008

Holy Cow, we've been Elfed! Happy Holidays, Everyone!
Send your own ElfYourself eCards



-John & Jennifer
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July 26th, 2008

Well, as I reported a few months back, this site was attacked by an outside force which caused some serious issues at the time; the most notably being the corruption of all of the family pictures. Unfortunately, due to the attack, I was forced to remove all of the pictures from the site -- but today I'm happy to say that the pictures (all new) are back online.

All of the picture albums can be accessed from the menu to the left - or by clicking HERE.

At this time, I've uploaded over 240 family pictures including snap shots from our recent Baumann Family Reunion trip to Chattanooga, TN, last year's Disney Cruise, numerous birthday party pics and more. In the near future, I'll be restoring all of the Home Improvement pictures as well as new pictures focusing on Jennifer's Scrapbooking hobby.

That's it for now -- enjoy the pictures!

-John & Jennifer
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June 1st, 2008

Today marks the 4th anniversary of the Cygnus-X1.Net site. It's somewhat hard to believe at how quickly these past four years have gone by and how much the site has evolved over that period. It went from a small site which housed some pictures of my family and a mini-personal blog and grew into an enormous resource for Star Trek and Rush fans alike. So, here we are: 4 years, 1.5 million visitors and 7 million page views later and still going strong.

As many of you know, this past year was among the most difficult for the site as well. It suffered not one, but two massive attacks back in April which infected each and every page of the site with MalWare. Subsequently, many visitors to the site during that period were also attacked with the MalWare infection. I spent days restoring the site and plugging the hole which caused the security breach in the first place. During that time, I seriously considered shutting down the site permanently. The attack was that discouraging to me.

But through the kindness and encouragement of many visitors and fellow webmasters, I stayed the course, got the site up and running and now I'm happy that we're entering our 5th year of service. There's still some fall-out from the attack, most notably the lack of family pictures on the site. But I am working that issue and hope to have it resolved shortly.

In the mean time, I want to thank each and every one of you for your support over the past 4 years. I'm glad you've all found something worthwhile in this little corner of the internet. Thank you all and on to Year #5

-John
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April 21st, 2008

Greetings everyone. I wanted to take a moment out to inform you of a situation which arose last week. On or about April 13th, this site was viciously attacked with MalWare. Every HTML and PHP page on Cygnus-X1.Net was infected. After the infection occurred, many visitors to the site were also infected with this MalWare. Shortly thereafter, Google blacklisted Cygnus-X1.Net which effectively cut off over half of the visitors to the site. Over the next day, I feverishly worked to restore the site, cleaning every page and file of the infection - no small task I assure you. I then spent time identifying how this attack occurred in the first place to insure it wouldn't happen again. As it turns out, a security flaw in my installation of Coppermine Photo Gallery allowed the attackers to perform this act. I updated my copy of Coppermine to the latest version available and, shortly thereafter, the site was attacked again, albeit not as successfully as the first time. That attack was also permitted by continued security flaws in Coppermine which has now led me to remove that script altogether.

I want to apologize to any visitors who were impacted by this attack. It pained me to think that some of you may have contracted a virus or trojan as a direct result of browsing my site. Because of that, I seriously considered throwing in the towel and taking down the site permanently. I would rather throw away 4 years of work then provide an outlet for infecting other computers. Fortunately, with the assistance of my service provider, the help of Geek Squad, and the support of many visitors, most notably David Bradley, I've decided to keep Cygnus-X1.Net going. The site is absolutely clean of any viruses, trojans and/or MalWares and I will no longer install any scripts that may allow for such an attack in the future.

Again, my sincerest apologies to all of you who were impacted by this unfortunate event. Look for updates, news and other additions to the site to resume immediately.

Thanks for your support, everyone.

-John
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February 15th, 2008

Wow. Has it really been that long since the last update? Life certainly does get in the way sometimes, doesn't it? Well, the days, months and years seem to be flying by. Rebecca (7), Michael (almost 5) and Emma (2 going on 19) are all doing well and growing like weeds. We have literally thousands of new pictures of the three of them so I promise to have a nice sampling online soon.

Jennifer's still feverishly trying to keep up with the lives of our kids through her scrapbooking hobby. She has multiple books going simulataneously which has captured all of the major events over the past year or so, including our Disney Cruise last year, all the major holidays and birthdays and more. I'll be scanning some of her scrapbook pages for inclusion on the site here as well.

We're looking forward to an exciting 2008 with trips to Tennesee for the next Baumann Family Reunion and possibly, maybe, Florida (if the kids behave...ha!). We'll see.

In site related news, only because I know all of you crave this information, we're approaching our 4th anniversary this June. Already well in excess of 1 million visitors and 7 million page loads, the site just keeps rolling along. And yes yes, I'll get more updates here as I do on the Rush and Star Trek sections. Priorities, people. Remember that :)

Until next time...

-John & Jennifer
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June 1st, 2007

Well, I have to apologize again for the lack of updates to this section of the site. It's been a very busy 2007 thus far. Jennifer and I celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary back in April. To honor the occassion, we decided to take the kids to Florida for a Disney Cruise. The kids loved being on the "Mickey Boat" and Rebecca was thrilled to meet so many Princesses. Later in April, we celebrated Michael's 4th birthday. I'll be uploading pictures from our Disney Cruise and Michael birthday soon.

On a final note, today, June 1st, marks the 3rd anniversary of this website. After 3 years, the site has received over 860,000 visitors and over 4 million page views...far more than I would have ever expected when I launched the site back in 2004. Thanks to all who have visited the site and made it a success. Look for more updates - and pictures - soon.

-John & Jennifer

January 3rd, 2007

As promised, I just uploaded over 100 new pictures of the kids taken during various trips and adventures in the later part of 2006. Many more to come as 2007 unfolds. Have a Happy and Safe New Year, Everyone!

-John & Jennifer

December 24th, 2006

First, apologies for the lack of updates over the past few months. Time seems to fly when you're chasing after 3 kids. Jennfer, Rebecca, Michael, Emma and myself want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and a safe, happy and prosperous New Year. As my own personal New Year's resolution, I plan on having far more regular updates to the family section of our website, and will be uploading hundreds of new pictures to the site before 2006 is out.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

-John & Jennifer

June 1st, 2006

The site is 2 years old today and you know what that means...time for some stats! Ok, so where to begin?

First off, in 2-years time, this site has received over 325,000 visitors. Those visitors have viewed nearly 1.7 million pages and have spent nearly 41,000 hours online (That's over 4.5 years of online time). We're now averaging about 1,000 visitors each day with roughly 7,000 pages viewed daily. Or as I like to put it, there's "Always someone online at Cygnus-X1.Net".

Ok, I'll stop with the stats. So, summer is upon us here in sunny New Jersey even though the caledar says its still Spring. Emma has begun to crawl recently which means we have 3 mobile kids. Heaven help us. We're looking forward to Emma's first birthday party sometime in August. As has always been the case with our kid's birthday parties, the weather will be clear - and hot. Count on 100 degrees easy. Fun for all! See you all soon-

-John & Jennifer

May 4th, 2006

The new pictures are now online. There are currently 300 pictures online for your viewing pleasure with many more on the way. As mentioned below, you can now rate and comment on any picture you like and the interface to view the pictures has been greatly improved.

In other news, Michael's 3rd Birthday party was a success. The weather was great, though the Horseshoe Tournament, which was played under protest, didn't quite work out for the home team. Ah, but we'll have our revenge come the summer when we co-celebrate Rebecca's 6th birthday along with Emma's 1st.

See you all soon.

-John & Jennifer

April 25, 2006

Greetings everyone. So, it's been a while since I've made an update to this section of the site. Thought it was about time I do so, too. Within the next week or so, I'll be uploading literally hundreds of new family pictures and pictures of our recent home renovations. I'm also installing a new Picture Image Gallery that'll be easier to navigate through and allow users to comment and vote on pictures. Be kind, now. :-)

As Michael's 3rd birthday party is fast approaching, it's now time for my customary plea regarding presents.

Ahem. For the love of Pete, NO TOYS! In fact, gifts really aren't necessary so please don't feel obliged to bring one.

Like any of you ever listen. Anyway, we're looking forward to some good weather during the party and hope to see you all there.

In other site news, we're approaching our 2-year anniversary of the launch of this humble little site. In that time, we've received over 250,000 visitors who have viewed nearly 2 million pages. Ok, so the 'Rush' and 'Star Trek' sections of the site lay claim to garnering most of that traffic, but it's still kind of cool.

As always, thanks for stopping by...look for the new pictures soon.

-John & Jennifer

February 1st, 2006

Just a quick note to tell everyone that the Baumann Family Reunion Movie has been removed from the site do to space limitations. But I'm sure you all had the chance to view it and, if not, the DVD's should be on their way to you shortly.

-John & Jennifer

January 7th, 2006

At long last, the 2005 Baumann Family Reunion video is done! DVDs are being prepared now and will be on their way to you shortly. Can't wait any longer? Not to worry. A low-resolution version is available for download right now! This is a 30MB file, so if you're on dial-up, be prepared for a 2-3 hour transfer time (depending on your connection speed). Cable Modem or DSL users should be able to download this file in 5-10 minutes. So, if you're ready, just click HERE (well, not anymore...) to watch the movie. Running time is about 50 minutes and because it's a low-resolution copy, I suggest you don't expand this video to full-screen. Keep it in a relatively small window for the best viewing option. If clicking on the link above doesn't work, try right-clicking to save the file directly to your hard drive. Because of the size of this file, I'll only have it on-line for about a month before removing it for more pictures of the kids.

Enjoy!

-John & Jennifer

December 24th, 2005

Season's Greetings Everyone! May the coming new year bring you all peace, prosperity, love and joy.



-John & Jennifer

August 21st, 2005

Well, it's been a while since the last update, but it has been a very busy summer. Rebecca celebrated her 5th birthday in July, we spent a few days in Lancaster County, PA for a "Baumann's Family Reunion" (yes, the video montage is almost done) and of course the big news is the arrival of baby Emma who came into the world on August 18th, 2005 at 11:17pm. Emma weighed in at 7.92 lbs. and measured 20.5 inches.
Both mother and baby are doing fine. Rebecca, as expected, is thrilled to finally have a baby sister and Michael is already acting like a protective big brother. More pictures of Emma, and our summer events can be found in the photo album located on the left. In other news, Rebecca begins "Big Girl School" (otherwise known as Kindergarten) in just a couple of weeks. That should be interesting to say the least. Also, we broke ground on the addition to our home several weeks back and work has been moving along quickly. Look for pictures on the progress soon. That's it for now - back to changing two sets of diapers...

-John & Jennifer

June 22nd, 2005

In Memory of Our Loving Father

Michele Patuto
August 27th, 1934 - June 20th, 2005

At 6:00am on the morning of June 20th, 2005, my father, Michele Patuto, passed away after a long battle with a rare disease known as Myelofibrosis. Though there is no cure for this dreaded disease, he fought every day to retain his life, and his dignity. While he will be missed by all who knew him, he will never be forgotten.

Rest in Peace

-John

June 1st, 2005

Cygnus-X1.Net is celebrating it's 1st Birthday! That's right - one year ago today, the site went online. And what a year it has been. We've had over 50,000 visitors from over 110 countries surf over to our little corner of the internet. In celebration of entering our 2nd year online, I've added a bunch of new family pictures for your viewing pleasure. First up are images from our Easter holiday where Michael decides that his Easter basket would be best served as a hat. I don't know...I just don't know... Next up are images from our trip to Las Vegas this past April (sans the kids!). Taking in the best of both worlds, Jennifer met up with a Borg at the Star Trek exhibit while I faced an even scarier image of Barry Manilow not 5 feet from me. Last, but not least, are pictures from Michael's 2nd birthday, as well as a few other random shots.

You may have also noticed the new opening intro movie when entering our website. For the uninformed, the image is a combination of a Star Trek logo and a Rush (the band) logo. The music playing in the background is from the Rush song "Cygnus-X1" (hence the name of the site). The logo itself was created for me by fellow Rush and Star Trek fan Rob Michaelson of Michaelson Design. Thanks Rob!

Special thanks also have to go out to fellow Rush fan Shannon from Panacea: Rush Art. Shannon is the artist behind the new composite images of 'Rush', 'Star Trek' and our family that load after the opening introduction. Thanks so much, Shannon!

In other news, Jennifer's pregnancy is progressing nicely. Our next bundle of joy, which has been confirmed as a girl, should be arriving sometime around Jennifer's own birthday in late August. We'll keep everyone posted as the expected date draws near.

That's it for now. Thanks for making Year 1 of Cygnus-X1.Net a success.

-John & Jennifer

April 26th, 2005

Plenty going on of late. Jennifer and I just returned from a trip to Las Vegas. No, we didn't break the bank, but we had a nice time walking down the strip in 90 degree weather (especially with Jen nearly 5 months pregnant.) And speaking of kid #3, SHE is due in late August. That's right, Rebecca's getting her wish - a baby sister. Which means, of course, that I'll be returning to Vegas in the future in an attempt to secure enough funds to pay for two future weddings.

Gasp!

Pictures of our exploits in Vegas which included front-row, center seats to Barry Manilow and a run-in with a Borg, a Klingon and a Ferengi will be on-line soon.

This weekend is Michael's 2nd Birthday party so, for those of you invited and are planning on bringing a gift (which, honestly, isn't necessary), allow me to repeat my annual war-cry.

No Toys!


Pictures from the party will also be online in the very near future.

That's all for now. See you all soon.

-John & Jennifer

March 13th, 2005

Hello again, everyone. We've been rather busy of late, mostly from the nearly continous shoveling out of snow storm after snow storm that we New Jerseyans have been experiencing this winter. Well, the calendar says that Spring is only a couple of weeks away. The piles of snow that remain in and around our property would indicate otherwise.

So, what else is new with us? Well, I think the picture below says it all:


Yes, our third little bundle of joy will be joining our family some time in mid-August...right around Jennifer's birthday by my extraordinarily warped scientific calculation (I guessed). So with three mouths to feed, dress and educate (gasp!) we are now, accordingly, accepting donations. :-)

Enjoy the Spring everyone. We'll see you all soon.

-John & Jennifer

January 13th, 2005

Happy New Years, everyone. Apologies for the lack of updates to this little informative section but, as expected, the holidays had us busy hopping around half of creation visiting with friends and family.

So, now that we have a little down time, I've been able to enhance the site a little bit, and a ton of new pictures of the kids, and work on a few more tidbits here and there as I hone my web-programming skills.

So aside from the new family pictures I loaded into the site, I've begun extensive work on the creation of a tribute section to the band 'Rush'. Of course Jennifer wants me to follow that up with a tribute section to either Barry Manilow or Clay Aikens, but I suspect the combination of Rush and Manilow on the same web site just might be a sign of the apocalypse. Not sure about that, but it seems possible. So, if you are a fan of 'Rush' or want to learn more about this musical band, check out their section to the left under the "Links" heading.

Other site news: As the clock struck midnight, ringing in the new year, the site recorded site visitor #12,005 - an impressive amount of visitors for a sight that launched just 7 months prior to the day. We've now had visitors from nearly 100 countries, have processed over 80,000 pages of data and have delivered countless gigabytes of data to end users. Aren't these stats exciting? Well, they are for me... At least someone is looking at this site :-)

Ok, I'll stop now. We hope everyone has a happy and prosperous new year. More changes are on the horizon for the site and our family - stay tuned for more.

-John (The Rush Fan) & Jennifer (The Manilow Fan)

December 9th, 2004

Wow. In the blink of an eye, two months have shot by, summer's gone, autumn's nearly gone and the holiday season is upon us. It's been busy busy busy as is usually the case this time of year. New pictures from Halloween and the fall will be up shortly, as will holiday pictures sometime in early January. In the mean time, here's a quick picture of Rebecca & Michael as they will appear on our annual Christmas card. Look for it in the mail soon.


You have no idea how hard it was to get that picture. It took a little editing wizardry on my part to make it look just right. Thank God for cutting and pasting. :-)

So - site changes. If you're a fan of Star Trek, I've made some enormous changes and additions to the Star Trek LCARS Book & Episode Database section of the site. Check it out! And now that the Star Trek section is essentially done (for now), I've begun work on the Tribute to Rush section of the site. Hope everyone enjoys the continued improvements and additions to the site.

That's about it for now. We hope everyone has a happy, healthy and safe holiday season. Oh and, hey, if anyone wants to lend a hand shoveling my driveway, you're always more than welcome to :-)

-John & Jennifer
October 4th, 2004

As promised the last time around, a bunch of new family pictures are now online. We have pictures from our two Summer Vacation locations this year - Wildwood, NJ and Lancaster County, PA. In addition to that, I've put up some more candid shots of Rebecca & Michael in the main Family Picture directory as well as added some snapshots from our recent Pumpkin picking adventure. Enjoy!

So, in other news, the baseball season is over (for us, anyway...) and the football season has begun (Go Jets!!) Both of these events signal the beginning of fall. And the reason the season is called 'fall' is no doubt linked to the number of leaves that fall on our property. If anyone is deprived of the joy of a fall clean-up, you're more than welcome to come by our place to lend a hand. I'll even throw in the rake!

Finally, our humble little piece of the web has won three website awards in the past 3 months (related to John's Star Trek section on this site.) Check them out by clicking here.

That's about it for now. Check back soon for more pictures after the holidays. Enjoy the fall everyone.

-John & Jennifer
September 13th, 2004

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but we were busy enjoying the summer months - well, trying to anyway. But now, alas, the summer is over, school has started again (Rebecca's now in pre-K - holy cow!) and the leaves are beginning to cover my lawn. If you think I had a problem with falling trees, you should see the piles of leaves that drowns our property each fall. Maybe this year, I'll buy a professional leaf blower (yea, just like I'll buy a snow blower one of these winter's...)

Anyway, check back soon. We have a lot of summer vacation and other pictures to load up on the site - just trying to find the time to do so. And Jennifer has a ton of new Scrap Book pages of which some will certainly find their way on-line.

Welcome to the fall...enjoy the colors.

-John & Jennifer
August 2nd, 2004

Pictures from Rebecca's 4th Birthday party are now online (as well as a couple of snap shots from the 4th Annual Horse Shoe Toss). Man, this is exciting stuff! Check them out under the 'Family Pictures' link.

Enjoy!

-John & Jennifer
July 21st, 2004

Greetings everyone. Well, Rebecca's 4th birthday party came and went on Saturday. Fortunately, the deluge of rain we were getting during the week before the party held off just long enough to give us a perfect day for a party. Unfortunately, no one honored my "No More Toys" plead. Accordingly, Rebecca likely has the largest Care Bear collection in the universe. And she thanks you for it.

Coinciding with the festivities was the 4th Annual Horse Shoe toss - an event previously dominated by 'The Away Team'. Frustrated, with their honor on the line, 'The Home Team' won the bragging rights this year, coming back from a 1 game to 0 deficit to win two in a row to take (keep) home the championship. Ringer!

Look for pictures from Rebecca's birthday party, as well as images of the completed landscaping wall to grace this site soon.

That's all for now. Take care.

-John & Jennifer
July 1st, 2004

Well, Cygnus-X1 is now officially one month old. And what a first month it had. Here are just some of the stats we experienced:

Number of Unique Visitors: 1,425
Number of Countries visiting the site: Over 40
Number of pages viewed: Over 32,000!
Amount of data transmitted: 1.3 Gigabytes

There are more stats, but I won't bore you with them. We also had problems during our first month. My service provider had a major hard-drive crash on June 28th, which sent the site down for over a day. Fortunately, we didn't lose any data and were back up and running, better than ever.

So, what should you expect for July? A major update to the Star Trek Books database. And not just more books, a whole new 'look' will be coming soon. On top of that, look for one of the most comprehensive Star Trek Episode Guides to hit Cygnus-X1 soon. Isn't this just SO exciting?

And if you haven't noticed, we have message forums now and a chat board - so please make full use of them.

So, on the family front, nothing's really new. July is upon us and, as such, so is the summer heat. Rebecca's 4th birthday party is a couple weeks away and I have begun formulating the menu for the event. You won't be disappointed.

That's all for now. Thanks for making month #1 of Cygnus-X1 a success.

-John & Jennifer

June 16th, 2004

The Cygnus-X1 Message FORUMS are here! Check out the forums under the LINKS tab. Join the Cygnus-X1 community, send messages to one another, share your views on this site, Star Trek, Rush, or anything else! Note: If you receive any type of error when accessing the forums, please hit your 'REFRESH' button - that should solve the problem. I'm working with my hosting company to isolate and correct the problem. Look for new and exciting features to this site - coming soon!

And you thought this was just a simple website with some pictures, huh? Just wait, the best is yet to come...

-John & Jennifer

June 11th, 2004

Finally Friday :-) Well, the first 11 days of this site's web-life have been rather exciting. We've had nearly 800 visitors to the site from locations that span the world (including Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Slovia, Australia, France, Spain and the UK to name a few.)

You'll notice that I've tweaked a few areas since the official launch. I'm never really satisfied with the layout of the site (translation: I get bored easily) so you'll see changes from time to time. The most notable changes since the launch are the ones made to the photo album areas (I'm using a new environment that works better and has more functionality) and the site logo. I was never happy with the original Pink and Green logo (shiver) so the new neon green look works well, don't you think?

Well, when we launched the site, Spring was here. Now, 11 days later, Spring is gone, we've had our first 95 degree day, so enter the summer of 2004.

Family-wise, nothing is really new. The kids are both simultaneously healthy - which is amazing - and we're looking forward to Rebecca's fourth birthday party, which is fast approaching. House-wise, I've almost completed the major renovations to our landscaping. More pictures on that when its done (give me a week or two).

That's about it for this update. As always, thanks for visiting...

-John & Jennifer

June 1st, 2004

Cygnus-X1.Net finally launches!

Well, after several months of working, programming, testing, re-testing, screaming, crying, yelling, laughing, hammering, drinking and pondering on and about this website, it's finally up and (for the most part) running.

So, what's it all about? Take a look around and see. For our friends and family, this is a location to see the latest happenings with our family, our house, our trees that seem to fall down all around us, and more. For others, this is a resource of Star Trek books - one of the largest collections available online as well as a modest area to learn more about the band Rush (well, that part's coming soon). And, of course, there are the pictures. Pictures of the kids, pictures of the trees that seem to always fall down (seriously), pictures on Jennifer's scrapbooking projects (which should have a dedicated site of its own considering the amount of work she puts into them) and pictures on our seemingly never-ending home improvement projects.

So, what's new? Well, since the last update - oh, wait, this is the FIRST update. Ok, so nothing's new since the last update, but expect updates in this little section from time to time, just to learn the latest happenings with us and the site.

So, Spring is upon us which means, in New Jersey at least, summer's already here. Like last year, we're seeing a plentitude of rain this season, followed by far-to-hot and humid temperatures. So much for 'spring'. Michael's first birthday came and went with a nice celebration. We're now looking forward to Rebecca's fourth birthday party in mid-July.

A NOTICE TO ALL THOSE ATTENDING HER PARTY: Please, for the love of God, no more toys!

Ok - sorry, had to get that off my chest. Seriously, gifts are truly not required. Just your presence at the party to enjoy some good food, good weather (let's hope) and a few good games of horseshoes is all we ask.

So, sit back, click away and enjoy this site. Sign our guestbook, leave us some feedback, or drop us a line. We'd always love to hear from you.

Enjoy---

-John & Jennifer




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