Monday 11/7/11 Cincinnati Trip!

Back we go! We left this morning for a return engagement at P&G! We are so lucky! Cars to and fro, a beautiful hotel overlooking the Ohio river, in fact, a suite! And such great weather, 65 degrees! Molly and I had a blast walking around the downtown area. We picked her up some Arbys and sat at Fountain Place, a lovely outdoor plaza with a fountain and little tables. Great people watching(marred only by the broadcast of the State Attorney general of PA with the Sandusky scandal) We wanted to go to the Taft museum  but it was closed, we did go to the Cathedral, and a couple of other cool buildings. We did a little downtown shopping...first stop was Macy's, I had a brainstorm and talked a Lancome gal into doing a "makeover" on Miss Molly! She did a great job on Molly's face and Mol was thrilled. And I bought shoes! 2 Pairs! We dropped our treasures at the hotel and scooted over to P&G for a quick rehearsal. They are introducing us at the dinner and wanted to make sure we were comfortable with where to stand,etc. It was so much fun to see our friends, Jim O'Connel, Janet Fletcher, Mark...they greeted us like long lost friends. A bit disconcerting was the fact that there were pictures of us from the Austin Shoot plastered about! and they called us the guests of honour! With rehearsal over, Molly and I headed to the hotel to relax and beautify...which took me a lot longer than it took Miss Molly! The dress I had spotted for her in the JCPenney catalogue is a perfect fit and she gets loads of compliments on it. Yay!! I wore a new dress too, and I also decided to wear the new shoes we picked out in Macy's. Yay! Made it through the whole night in my high heels, including up and down the dais.  When we arrive at the party it is cocktails for 1/2 hour. Molly buzzes around greeting all her pals from last spring, and many folks she met in Greece. They are all thrilled to see her. I enjoy chatting with folks as well. At dinner, we are at the head table, with Tim Shriver, Mark,VP at P&G, President of Mattel, Congresswoman Na from Korea who is heading the winter games in 2013...then Molly and I! Wow! We were introduced after dinner, after they showed the commercial and did lots of other great talking. Molly and I then went to the stage and Molly answered some questions and I gave a little speech. It seemed well received. We were the last people to leave the party, and stayed late chatting with Michelle Kwan,Bart Connor and Sam Perkins, board members who were at the party. Cool beans, they are like old friends now!

our suite

in front of the Taft Museum

Molly's personal make-up gal!

shoe shopping!

Cathedral of Saint Peter in Chains

Molly and Jim O'Connell in the P&G lobby

all dressed up...

our great table!

Sam Perkins, NBA great

Bart Connor is a really nice guy!

Sunday=Funday Nov 6th,2011

Mass at 9:30, Danny serving and I am too! Blessing all over this family :)
In the afternoon we pick up Leah and head down to Greenhills to be patrons of the theatre. The lower school is performing HONK,jr. a retelling of the Ugly Duckling story. We get our seats right in the front row, and when the play begins it feels like a private show just for us! The show was darling! Top of the day with family dinner and some UNO and we have Sunday=Funday Thank you very much!

Football and raking- must be Saturday!

The kids are happy that Dad breaks a couple of eggs first thing in the morning! Taylor ham out of the freezer bringing a taste of Jersey to our weekend. TKD for Danny and workout for the girlies. And raking! And football! Speaking of football we called Iowa to heckle them before the game, then MI blows it and the Hawkeyes win...Oh no!
 Molly went to a movie with her friends which she quite enjoyed. A lovely Saturday!

Friday 11/4/11 /what did I do??

Holy Crow! All my many loyal readers(large snicker here!) must be wondering where I've been...I am very behind on posts. Well I'll do my best to reconstruct my oh so fabulous life! This morning Danny and Leah came skipping down the stairs for breakfast, after a sleepover. Leah is so cute and fun, and Danny loves big brothering her. We read a bunch of stories at breakfast and played some games. Then before we new it, it was time for Danny to hit Tae kwan do and Leah to head to school.  Later I headed to JCPenney to shop for our Cinci trip. Stuck GOLD! The dress I saw in the circular is perfect for Molly, and I grab a couple of other treasures. I head home when my little darlings are safely at BBall. Tidy, launder,and veg...AAhh, Friday I love you!

"Just a bunch of kids talking about sports!"

Phenomenal! Our trip to Green Hills School in Ann Arbor for our Special Olympics speech was GREAT!! The setting was an all school assembly. The kids were attentive and interested through the whole thing, great student body. We opened with the video "It's a Wonderful Winning World" which is a music video that wraps up the summer games in Athens. If you haven't seen it, youtube it, and you will cry and dance! Then we moved into our presentation. Molly spoke first and did a good job, going too fast, but the best she could. She hands off to me, I hand back to her, she handed off to Danny, who came back to me...and we closed with the commercial.  We then opened up the floor to questions, assuring the students there are no wrong questions...Molly held the mic and called on kids like Oprah herself! Charlotte and I also answered some questions. For our first time out with this we were so pleased. Jerry put alot of work into it, and Molly put alot of practice in and I did alot of planning: my hope is that this presentation, with a couple of tweeks, will serve us for a couple of years.
Several students came up afterwards to get more info on how to get involved! One girl came up and said, "Molly, I just wanted to tell you that you are soo pretty!"  How cute! Two girls invited Mol to come back to the school tonight to attend the district volleyball game, and of course she talked Good Sport Super Dad into it. They went back around 5:30 and cheered on the Green Hills team as they rolled to an easy win. The pep squad was tossing out t-shirts at half-time, and a girl ran right up to Mol and soft tossed her a shirt. It was intercepted by a girl in front of Molly and the tosser said..HEY! The girl turned around,saw it was Molly behind her and said, Oh sorry, and gave her the shirt! She put it on and cheered her heart out. A teacher came up to Jerry at the game and said that her daughter is an SO volunteer. Jerry said that that was great, and that Molly had spoken at the school today. The teacher said ,Oh I know, I was there and it was great! Jerry said we were pleased with how well the students seemed to receive the presentation, and she said "well it started out as kids watching a presentation and it ended up a bunch of kids just sitting around talking about sports!" THE GOAL! achieved right there, kids related to people with ID as people!  The end!

our friend Jacquelyn Stokes is a student at Green Hills

intro

my turn!

Danny did an excellent job!

rapt audience

standing O for Molly!

Going to Bed Early!

Okay so last night I went to blog and I realized it was already 12:04am today!! What is wrong with me??? I get up at 6:25 daily, and average about 5 hours sleep. I didn't blog because it would have posted today anyway...but tidied up in the family room, went out to the kitchen and did dishes, headed upstairs, heard snoring, came back down, went to sleep on the couch, but first read a bit...it was 1:45 when I turned out the light. RIDICULOUS!
So tonight I'm blogging early and going to bed! Seriously...I am  ignoring the kitchen and beating the snorer to the bedroom...
Sweet Dreams :}

Halloween!

Halloween started off well, with a smiling Charlotte heading off to school in her spider web pants and orang "I'm the Good Witch " shirt.
Now that is a happy morning!
We experienced some weather related technology difficulties with school this am, but no problem, we went low tech...spelling words,piano,book report. All good!
Highlight of school was our first Home Ec class, taught by Karol Christianson.
She helped us get the machine out of the box after 18 months, wind the bobbin et al, and sew! Danny did a great job, and after learning how to run the machine made a pillow. Wow!

working on our new machine

my teacher Karol

My finished pillow project

And if that wasn't enough, it's HALLOWEEN! Danny heads to the Larsens to Trick or Treat with his friend Brianna and her sister Michaela.  My crew sucks down the pumpkin chilli I made (yes Susan, it was Great!!) Then we head to Fairway Trails. We plop ourselves at Karen and Eric's, and I even get a chair. We get about 150 kids through, and as usual the neighborhood is hopping. This year they even had a firetruck parked and passing out candy! And the weather, after a brief sprinkle, cooperated.