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Article about the Strike Group my dad works in. Look at the picture….you might see a familiar face!
(Picture is taken from the Norfolk Flagship. http://www.flagshipnews.com/ All rights belong to the US Navy.)
Enjoy the picture! He clearly didn’t know someone was taking a photo of him! Ha! Right now my dad is living in a tent in Haiti, helping coordinate relief efforts among the military. Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti, and please consider donating whatever you can to help the Haitian people through these devastating times. Though the earthquake happened almost a month ago, aid will be needed for years!
If you don’t feel comfortable giving, consider downloading the Hope for Haiti Now album from iTunes. Justin Timberlake has an amazing version of Hallelujah on it.
Once Nebraska lost the Big 12 Championship game to Texas by a last second field goal, we were excited to see them come to San Diego for the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl. I have grown up on Nebraska Football, watching the dominant Tom Osborne teams of the 1990s and was excited to see them play twice in the same year. Angela and I were in attendance for the Virginia Tech-Nebraska game in September in which the Hokies paid the devil back for delivering us Michael Vick with a last minute win over the Huskers. I have been impressed that Nebraska hired Bo Pelini to take over their program, as Callahan was the worst hire in modern college sp
orts history and nearly ran the program into complete mediocrity. I mean, who installs the West Coast offense in Lincoln?! The Huskers came into the game a bit disappointed and cheated from their game against Texas and were set to play the Arizona Wildcats who were coming into the game off of an upset of USC. With the game across the street, we were excited to possibly tailgate and meet some fans . We ordered Nebraska T-shirts and game-faces and made the perfect tailgate food in runzas. If you have never been to Nebraska, a runza is meat and cabbage wrapped in dough. Simple goodness. I made a few then we hit the tailgates. It was raining (odd in SoCal)
so was not as picturesque as normal, but there was a buzz in the air for an exciting game. We bought good seats from MWR, bought drinks (Margarita in a cup, really?) and watched a packed stadium enjoy pre-game festivities. The game itself was a beat-down by the Huskers, winning going away 33-0, and we had a good time trying to stay warm. Sitting near a guy in a chicken suit was annoying but we moved when all the Arizona Fans gave up on their team. We got some sleep and got ready to drive to Vegas for New Years!
And a Happy New Year! 
Once again we failed at sending out most of our Christmas Cards, but we still wanted to share what we had with you! May 2010 find you filled with happiness and joy, and may God continue to bless you throughout the year!
Merry Christmas from the Burley’s! My mom made this card through a Hallmark site, so I thought I would share it with everyone. I think I might make one too!
Growing up as a Navy Brat, I have experienced many family day cruises, and have pretty much gotten sea sick on all of them, with or without Dramamine. But, when I was in college, my dad was on the USS Kearsarge, another amphibious assault ship, a
nd I had the opportunity to go on a tiger cruise with him. A tiger cruise is an overnight cruise, whereas a family cruise is just for the day. It seemed as though everyone but me was getting sick on the Kearsarge’s tiger cruise, so I felt pretty confident that I would be okay this year on the Makin Island’s family day cruise. (The Makin Island and the Kearsarge are the same type of ship, so I thought I would be fine.) I took some Dramamine and was excited to embark on a day cruise with James and my Dad to enjoy the beautiful San Diego skyline and Pacific Ocean. The day began with an amazing sunrise over Cowles Mountain to the East, and an intriguing sail under the Coronado Bridge. It really did seem like we weren’t going to make it under the bridge, but of course it is just an optical illusion. We were outside enjoying the warm San Diego sun, the salty air, the seals, and the downtown sky line, and I was feeling fabulous. 
We had barely passed the cliffs of Point Loma when I started to feel horrible. Even on those big decks, you really feel the waves and the movement, and I wanted nothing more but to lay down and for the rocking to stop. Thankfully James has a state room with just one roommate, so I was able to spend a lot of time in his ra
ck asleep. Even though I was sick, it was still a lot of fun, and I enjoyed not having to go to work for a day. My dad had been on the ship all week, since he went on the tiger cruise with James, and I think he enjoyed being on a ship without actually having to do any work. And he was given his own stateroom, so I’m sure he enjoyed the entire cruise! The activities for the day included fly bys of helicopters, navy security patrols, and LCACs. There were other demonstrations, but I missed them due to my lack of sea legs. It was interesting being in James’ workspace though, because it seems like a movie with the blue lights. It seems so secretive and mysterious, especially when everyone in his division was playing video games on the computers. In their defense, they couldn’t do any real work when the workspace wasn’t secure, but it was entertaining nonetheless. To see more pictures of my Dad and my epic sea cruise on the Makin Island, check out our flickr site by clicking on the photos to the left.
I am completely in love with these shoes!!
Pumpkins remind me of the fall leaves in Blacksburg. I was never much of a pumpkin eater until I went to college, and now I can’t get enough of it. When I found this amazing pumpkin muffin pan at Crate and Barrel, I had to buy it. This pan makes 3-D pumpkins that you put together with frosting (cream cheese of course!) And to make the pumpkins even better, we found pumpkin muffin mix at Trader Joes. Mmmm….the taste of fall has never been cuter!
Fall is my favorite time of year. I love watching the leaves change, feeling the air turn crisp, and ordering pumpkin spiced lattes at Starbucks. Unfortunately, San Diego doesn’t get that fall feeling, 
though I do feel the San Diego fall in the air. Last year, I couldn’t tell the difference, but I’ve been here long enough to feel the difference this year. It’s subtle…but there. To enjoy fall, James and I drove to the beautiful mountains of Julian, where us Southern Californians drive to experience fall. At only an hour away, Julian gives you the crisper fall air, slight leave changes, amazing apple pies, and a cute small town feel. Every year they host the Apple Festival, where you can pick your own apples, enjoy homemade cider, apple wine, apple butter, and apple pies. My personal favorite was the pumpkin apple pie.
That piece of pie alone was worth the drive! We actually made two trips to experience fall, one that included some wine tasting and enjoying the cute old mining town of Julian, and one that included apple picking and the pumpkin patch. It was a bad year for apples in southern California, so there wasn’t much picking to be done. It was still beautiful though, and we enjoyed walking through the orchards. We spotted a pumpkin patch on the drive in, so we left the orchard and went to pick out our pumpkins. It was also a bad year for pumpkins, but we were able to find a few cute ones for the apartment. At the pumpkin patch, James and I reminisced about the pumpkin patch in Christiansburg. It really is a hard one to beat, with the beautiful mountains surrounding the farm, the tractors to climb on, the rolling hills of pumpkins, the petting zoo, and of course the home made cider and kettle corn. I could almost taste the homemade cider and feel the crisp air on my cheeks. I miss Blacksburg in the Fall!
The Julian Bakery… Built in 1882… Burned in 1957… Restored in 1978
When we were freshmen in college, having the internet in our rooms was awesome. I mean, I had the internet at home for many years, but this was my internet connection. Our computers were plugged into it all the time, 24 hours with our AIM status telling everyone what we were up to or saying something witty or cute. “VTAngel06: Is at Deet’s getting ice cream with her awesome roommate! Come meet us at Deet’s and be awesome too!!” And we would spend hours on sites like Homestarrunner.com Even though we spent a lot of time on the internet, it was the pre-Facebook age, so it was different. It was before blogging and twitter. And even a bit before digital cameras. A few of our friends had them, but they were on the cutting edge. Cathy and I (my freshman roommate) were still using film cameras, with only 24 photos a roll. It was a time when we didn’t want to share everything we were doing with the entire population. When Facebook came to Virginia Tech, I resisted. If you remember, only a few colleges were invited to join Facebook at a time, and slowly, almost every college was on the site. It was only later that they opened it up to everyone, and it became an international phenomenon complete with a ton of advertisements. I joined Facebook my senior year of college for a class called “Communication, Internet, and Society,” where I was supposed to observe internet interactions and relationships. At the time, it was novel for me, and academic in nature. Now, it is completely social for me, and I get on it multiple times a day to “stalk people”. In fact, I’m not sure what I would do without Facebook! I love stalking people and seeing what everyone is doing with their lives. I love looking at people’s pictures, and looking to see why their relationship status changed. It’s a way of life for me now. And I love reading people’s blogs to see what they are up to. I guess it’s really a staple for us, because we live so far away from our friends and family. This comic made me laugh and saddened me at the same time. It is so true how attached we have become to the internet. Just the other day, we were hiking along the beautiful coast of San Diego, and I thought to myself, this is going to make a great blog. How sad! So, this is just a small version of my daily thoughts on the internet. Hope you all enjoy the comic! It is from http://xkcd.com/, “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”
Link to Original Comic
Heading south into winter from Brazil the temperatures quickly dipped. As the days grew short, I managed to grab an awesome picture of the sunset off the Argentine Coast. 
I had regained much energy by the time we entered the Strait of Magellan, the highlight of the trip for me. It took us two days to cross the Strait, though it took Magellan over two weeks. Entering from the Atlantic we saw a vast flat empty land, with some ice but mainly brown reminding me of pictures from Greenland. This was cold and boring until we reached Punta Arenas for an overnight anchorage. The current strong and we dragged anchor, but I enjoyed looking at a large city in a desolate countryside through binoculars. I really wished we had made a port call to walk around, but we had to continue. The next day was one to remember, with dramatic views of mountains, ice, glaciers, penguins, and the circle of life. 
We entered a narrow channel with freezing mist, but got to see the southern most point of South American mainland, with only patagonia and the Drake Passage on our left to separate ourselves from Antarctica. We are also able to see tiny Magellenic Penguins enjoying their penguin lives. After hours of majestic beauty, we literally could take a picture anywhere and see something good, we were joined by a pod of Orcas. It was cute at first with thoughts of Free Willy in our head, but then we saw them hunting seals, a truly terrific sight. Seals were trying to escape, but couldn’t make it… it was just like the Planet Earth series on the port side of the ship. After a frozen day we looked forward to my favorite port stop in Valparaiso, Chile.
