Saturday, April 30, 2011

Mimi & Elle


About 3 weeks ago the twins (of the family I work for/live with) turned 2. I've been working for this family since the girls were 5 months old. I've watched them go through most of their milestones....starting to crawl, first steps, first words, etc. I can't believe they are 2 years old already!

Their 2nd birthday was, without a shadow of a doubt, fancier than my wedding day will be! They broke out the sterling silver and white table cloths. The cake was beautiful, the food was perfect, and the decorations took days to prepare and set up! They had well over 50 people come to the party and it was just a really great day.

Cake Table
Food table

Me & Elle
Jessie & Mimi
Mimi and her boyfriend Finn going on their first "car date"
My VA Beach family
I have the world's best best friends.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Royal Wedding

I stumbled across a blog entry today that I wanted to share with you all. You should most definitely click on this link and read it straight from the source to see the photos and full effect the writer was going for.

http://www.millionsofmiles.com/2011/04/cost-of-royal-wedding-what-if.html

"The Cost of the Royal Wedding... What if?

Every time I've turned on the television or opened a news website for the last two months, news of the royal wedding is at the forefront. Yes- I'm eager to see a picture of the princess in her wedding gown- but the numbers I'm seeing associated with the cost of this wedding break my heart every time I hear them mentioned. Some media outlets are estimating that the total cost of the royal wedding will fall somewhere between 40 and 50 million dollars. Add on top of that the burden to British taxpayers for security and lost productivity for declaring the wedding day a national holiday and the numbers get into the BILLIONS of dollars.
What if...instead of a $434,000 dress...Every one of the 88 abandoned and severely special needs children at Sarah's Covenant Home in India got the life saving surgeries and therapies that they needed.
WHAT IF... instead of spending $800,000 on the royal flowers...... 320 houses were built for families displaced by the earthquake in Haiti.
WHAT IF... instead of the $80,000 cake ordered for the wedding......the financial burden was removed to bring 4 children home to eager and loving families...
WHAT IF... the $65,000 that will be used just to clean the streets for the royal wedding procession......was used instead to clean up these streets in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya.
WHAT IF... instead of a $600,000 luncheon hosted by Prince Charles......The remaining 144 un-sponsored children at Yezelalem Minch (Ethiopia) were sponsored for the next 12 years- or until most of them are adults- providing them with an education, nutrition and a safe place to grow up.
The point is- there are choices that we all make, myself included. The choices aren't always easy. The world tells us that we need bigger and better things and that we should find our self worth based on the amount of "stuff" that we can amass. The amount that we deal with on a daily basis may not equal the millions spent on the royal wedding, but the decision is the same: continue our lives of comfort, or make sacrifices to support the least of these."
I couldn't agree with her more. I too have found myself annoyed and burdened these past weeks as I heard about the cost of the royal wedding. But for me, my annoyance goes even further than just what better ways the money could be spent.....I can't help but notice that we Americans who have no real ties to the Royal family are consumed with this wedding. We've taken more of a collective notice to this one event than we have ever taken in world hunger, poverty, lack of education, abuse, or any of the other injustices that go on in our world every day. I hope you found this (hers not mine) blog to be inspiring and motivating. What are we doing to make a difference on a daily basis? How are we taking a stand against the injustices we see around us?

Thursday, April 28, 2011

quote

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world
and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. -E. B. White

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Easter

At the last second I was able to go home to Ohio for Easter. I love being home so I jumped at the chance to be there for Easter.
It really is all about the simple things in life like blowing bubbles with your nephew!
Mams and Clayton dying eggs.
Yep...he's cute. :)
oh yes...and so is he.
Pap-pap and Clayton taking a swing at the pinata

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tornado

A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend came to VA to visit me for the weekend. There was a dirt track race (he LOVES racing) going on in a nearby town so we were going to spend our weekend there. Friday night we headed to the track for the qualifying and heat races. I had underestimated the frigid affects of the wind and nearly froze my butt off. However, we made the most of the night and watched some decent racing.

The main event was supposed to happen the next day but due to bad weather the race ended up being delayed and moved to Sunday afternoon.

Since the race was delayed we decided to drive to Williamsburg to have dinner with my roommate Addy and her boyfriend. The heavily anticipated bad weather had yet to show its ugly head and as we drove to Williamsburg under a cloudy but rainless sky the decision to postpone seemed premature. However, we were no sooner being seated at Green Leafe restaurant when all hell broke loose.

Let me take time out for a moment to mention that I HATE storms. Like am terrified of storms. Like want to climb under a bed, curl up in a ball, and cry when it storms.

It wasn’t until our waitress mentioned that a tornado had gone through Richmond, VA that we began to worry. But even then we didn’t understand the magnitude of what we were about to encounter. We spent an extra 30-40 minutes at the restaurant waiting on the rain to clear. Finally, seeing a lapse in the downpour, we made a mad dash for the car.

Despite the late night hour (it was only like 9 p.m. but that's late for me!) it seemed like we were driving through daylight as the sky was illuminated with lightning bolt after lightning bolt. As we made the hour drive back (I cried through most of that hour drive) to our hotel, in Gloucester, the storm damage became more extreme. As we reached the city limits there were obvious power outages, downed power lines, areas of forest that were completely leveled, and emergency personnel everywhere. It wasn’t until we got back to the hotel and turned on the t.v. that we realized that a tornado had indeed hit that area as well. Thanks be to God that we spent the extra time at the restaurant waiting for the rain to clear or we would have been in the heart of the storm.

The next day as we drove around the little town we saw the magnitude of the storm. A local school had been almost completely destroyed, buses had been ripped apart by the tornado, homes were damaged, trees were leveled, etc. There were 4 confirmed deaths and dozens others were injured. My heart goes out to the families affected by the storm. I'm so very thankful that God kept us at the restaurant for long enough that we missed the most severe parts of the storm.