Tuesday December 7

Up and at'em! Ready to take on Tuesday. Jer heads off to the office, but it is my day to work with Charlotte in the cafeteria today, so I don't get a whole lot accomplished. But thats okay, theres always tomorrow! I do get a bit of shopping done too, our adopt-a-family gifts are due this weekend, so I needed to finish it up. The girls head out to the BHS girls BBall game(they lost) and had a great time.  Other than that, nothing too thrilling.

It's Monday again, December 6th

Well this was a really rough day. Charlotte had a lot of trouble adjusting to the school week, and ended up staying home. It was very stressful and hard for both of us. However, we press on, hoping of a better day tomorrow. Thanks to my sister for the shoulder...I love you.

Sunday 12/5 A day of Rest?

Aaah, no 6am alarm, that's awesome! We made it to church at 11:30, but that was okay.  Jeff was there and he sat with us. The sermon was about trusting the Lord. OKAY GOD, I hear you! I'm working on it big time! After a nice big breakfast, it's Molly off to her concert, Charlotte off to her youth volunteer activity, Danny's buddy to our house, me off to the concert, and on we go! Molly and I got home around 7pm. and got ready for the week ahead.

Good bye to Texas and Hello Crazy Weekend!

Off to the airport, and we get there really early thanks to our driver! Molly and I get through security with nary a body scan, and we hit Austin coffee to start our day off right!
Plane ride is smooth and as soon as we land and Jer and the gang pick us up, we head straight to Lansing for Molly's Meet and Greet. The 3 athletes from Michigan, David, Sabra and Molly are having lunch together and finding out more details about the trip next summer.  The excitement builds! We get alot of information and have alot to work on over the next couple of weeks..lots of planning for me!

As soon as the meeting ends we zoom home and Molly basically has to hop right into her choir outfit and go right over to her concert site.  We head over shortly after that.  Karen, Eric and Inez are there also, thanks for coming guys! The concert is spectacular, and Molly knocked our socks off! We are pretty proud. But tired! I am so happy to get home and get into my own bed.

Friday 12/3 Elgin High School

Theresa our driver picked us up at 6:45am again, and we're off to another busy Special Olympics day! By close of business, 6pm, we are whipped.  We sneak in a trip to Cavenders Boot City, the place the locals shop! Molly buys herself a pair of awesome cowboy boots! She also bought a pair for Charlotte, and a tshirt for Danny, and oh yeah, a cool cowboy hat too! I'll put on a photo. This is us at the Iron Cactus on sixth street in Austin! The enchiladas were amazing!  Molly was snoozing by 9:30pm and I wasn't far behind(after figuring out how to get two pairs of boots..etc. into our luggage!

Texas State-Bobcat Stadium

We were driven out to the stadium by Theresa, the same nice gal who picked us up at the airport at 6:45. We met Shauna(2D productions), Chris, Tosca(photographer), Jeff(art director), Jody and Carrie(make-up team) and many more. Craziest person was wrangler Sally, from 'Jersey, whose job it was to communicate between the director and the photographer and the folks in the shots. She was a silly,fun,enthusiastic person who made the day so enjoyable.

 Though it was chilly and windy in the am, by afternoon it was sunny and 70!  Food was amazing and we had a 6 person UNO game for about an hour at lunchtime, which Molly loved. Highlights included a fake torch, ten gallons of hairspray and "papaya" the secret Australian lip gloss formula!  We met alot of great Moms and athletes from Special Olympics Texas, including a gal who will be a coach over in Greece for a kayak team (kayaking-- who knew?!). We headed back to Austin through rush hour traffic and got back at 6:30.  Whew! Long day! On the club floor was happy hour and we set Molly up in the room with a diet coke, and assorted snacks and ESPN and I went to the gym. We needed a mental/physical break from each other.  When I got back we showered and ordered room service! Had a table wheeled into the room, you know, just like home every night. We just had no juice to go out. The Arizona vs Arizona State game just tied up, but Molly is quietly  sleep breathing...so cute.  I payed to log on to the Internet (well not me personally, but the company) so I knew I needed to get my $ worth and blog to my many,many followers--Hi Jer :)
Tomorrow is another 6:45 am call, so I'd better go to bed. Sadly for my waistline I brought a giant  chocolate chip cookie back from the shoot, and I have coffee and my book....!

Wednesday December 1- Traveling again!

Well Molly and I are on the road again, for another first...a trip to Texas.  We were invited to participate in another Special Olympics event, apparently Molly charmed lots of people in LA, and they wanted her back, this time in Austin!  We left the house early, with flurries flying and landed in Austin to 56 and rising.  Our hotel is right downtown, the Omni, a tall tower in the center of the action, rising 20 stories, with a roof top pool and glass elevator.  After checking in, we were taken by the bellhop to the club floor(only accessible by key) and to our beautiful room with floor to ceiling glass windows. We can see the University of Texas football stadium!  We decided to hit the gym for a workout, ESPN was on the big scree TV and Molly took the elliptical right in front of it...I chose a treadmill with a little built in TV, and tuned it to...you guessed it, HGTV!  Life is good!  Afterwards we changed and went to the rooftop pool and swam and went in the hotub, it was so cool up there.

We showered, changed and set out to explore Austin. We walked down to the capitol building and took a short tour, saw the statue of Davy Crockett and learned a little history. By now we were starving..so we went to a cool little spot called Hickory Street Bar and Grill.  We ate fried pickle spears with ranch dressing, homemade breaded onion rings, and Molly had a chicken fajita salad(too spicy after a while) and I had a wrap with hummus,lettuce,tomato,etc. It was very good.   We took a city bus up Congress to the University of Texas bookstore and bought Molly a  Longhorns T-shirt. Then we enjoyed a walk across the beautiful campus, checking out all the students and buildings. We got tickets for the mens BBall game against Lamar ( not a sell-out...no surprise!). One thing I noticed was how nice the fans are there. They had a big sign up on the screen about the behaviour expectations, and the first thing on the list was respect. I think U of M could learn from them.  Our upper seats were a great spot from which to watch the team warm-ups, then we moed down to about the 10th row, right next to the band, so we could do the cheers. Horns Up! The dance team was excellent, but what I liked is that they wore hot pants and chaps, you know your in Texas! The game was great, the Longhorns won, and then we walked about 1/2 mile back to the Omni. So all told a great day, lots of exercise for sure, and some fun for Molly and I. Early rise tomorrow, so good night!