Walk Now for Autism Speaks, 2010

Did you know that every 20 minutes another child is diagnosed with autism? This has occurred in my family.

For those of you who don't know my grandma (yes GRANDMA) adopted a boy with autism. He is four years old. He was my cousin's son but my grandma ended up with him. She left her home in Utah and moved out to California to get him the kind of education that he needs. Since he has been there he has been doing much better.

I am walking in the fight against autism at Walk Now for Autism Speaks, joining tens of thousands of other people united by a single cause and dedicated to raising money to find a cure and build awareness for autism. The money raised at Walk Now for Autism supports Autism Speaks mission to finding the causes, effective treatments and a cure for autism through funding essential biomedical research. One in every 150 children is diagnosed with autism. Autism Speaks directs 75¢ out of every dollar raised to autism research, awareness and outreach.

If you would like to donate please visit my page or if you would like to walk with me comment on this message, email, text, call or whatever is easiest for you.

Help Haiti With Your Mobile Phone

I'm going to start this post off with a story....

I was in the store the other day and while standing in line I was listening to this couple talk about Haiti and donating/helping out etc. They were a young couple, probably in college. The boy was talking about how he wanted to go and help with everything that happened in Haiti (actually go there and volunteer) and the girl was upset with him because he had already donated money toward the cause and she thought that he had already done his part. They argued back and forth for a few minutes about the subject and finally the boy asked his girlfriend how much she had donated... She hadn't donated anything. He asked her why and she said that she wanted to but it was too hard to donate... She didn't have time to get online and use her debit/credit card or take 5 minutes to write a check and send it. The boy just looked at her disappointed and that was the end of it.

I felt really bad for the couple because they didn't see eye to eye on the subject and it was obvious that the girl just didn't care enough about other people to think about it. That got me thinking and researching the different ways you can donate. I came across this article and it seems that this is the "easiest" way to do it. Simply text "HAITI" to 90999 and your donation of $10 will be received by the Red Cross and billed to your mobile phone carrier. If you would like more details please visit the website listed.

Kitchen

While Rich was gone last week I decided to take on a few projects... They were pretty small projects like sorting his socks, replacing a few door knobs but there was one that wasn't so small. I decided to paint the kitchen. !!!! Sounds easy enough, right? Yep, it sounds easy but it was not actually easy. I had Amir with me while I did it. It took approx. seven hours, divided into two days to finish. No our kitchen is not big. But I had to keep repainting where there was a hand print and the occasional bum print. *sigh*

I had to have my brother come help me move the refrigerator and the stove so I could paint behind them. That was also hard to do with Amir around. Amir LOVES Sami and all he ever wants to do while he is here is play, play, play!

But we finally got it done and here are a few pictures:

[before]



[During..]

[After..]





The color is "Native Soil"... It looks great!!

Sami

My brother Sami FINALLY got his mission papers in last week and he got his call back a few days ago.. He is going to London, England the end of May. WOO! Everyone is really excited for him. Everyone put a guess in on where he was going, in my mom's case, where she WANTED him to go. I guessed England, english speaking. Sami made fun of me for saying it and BAM! That sure blew up in his face (muah haha!)

I'm personally extra excited because he's got so many girls that like him its insane. I'm happy he will get away from that for a while. Plus, he'll have to be on his own and make his own food... Most of the time anyway.

Cute Boys

Last week I spent some time with an old friend from school, Mandi. I haven't seen her since her baby shower! We were last in school together SEVEN years ago!!!! Where does time go? She has a little boy who is about a year younger than Amir. They were so cute together:

I was looking through some old pictures of when I was about 12 (And Mandi had to have been 10 or 11) when we were in dance together. HA! I know Mandi would totally kill me if I posted those pictures on here so I will refrain... All I will say is that they are super hilarious.

My sister goes to the same studio that we went to and they have pictures of every dancer that ever performed. So they had those pictures up on the wall. Thats right Mandi.... We are displayed for everyone to see!!! BAHAHAHAHA!!!