Day Off

Day Off

My parents are here for a visit this weekend. Matt and I were in desperate need of a break and they provided us with one today. We both slept in and had a night off from taking care of a sick Oliver. We took off this morning and went to visit some of the European embassies. We visited the UK, Germany, Spain and Sweden. We ate some wonderful food and enjoyed a beautiful day of walking in the sunshine. I loved the stop at Starbucks. We came home for a few hours this afternoon and then headed back out for dinner. What a wonderful day off!

My nieces sold lemonade today at their yard sale. All of the proceeds went to "A Hundred for a Home" and they were able to raise over $41.00!! They had beautiful signage and passed out cards with each glass of lemonade. They wanted to raise awareness for MPS and support for their cousins. My nephew helped with all of the cards and signs. Here is a photo of the girls and their lemonade. I am so proud of all of them!!

Comments

Jan said…

What a wonderful thing your nieces and nephew did!

May 10, 2009 at 9:50 PM

Welcome to Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland.""Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.