Haiti

Well, we dominated this weekend. We ran a lot of errands, did a little shopping, and tried a new restaurant (the Center Street Nook. AMAZING). We spent all day Saturday at a Make-A-Wish volunteer orientation to be certified "wish granters" and David went to the Toby Mac/Skillet concert on Saturday night. Sunday was a fabulous Palm Sunday at church, we got a long walk in before it rained, Duke won and we had a celebratory dinner at Dune Dog.

And we got our applications in to go on a mission trip to Haiti in May. This would be my first out-of-country mission trip and I am really excited about it. We'd be working in Saint-Marc (which is northwest of Port-Au-Prince) and we'd be part of the first group from our church to go to Haiti post-earthquake. Fortunately, this area of the country was not impacted by the actual quake buthas acquired many refugees, which means that their schools and orphanages are over-capacity.

We're excited about the possibility of even going and will likely be raising support to finance the trip, so if you or anyone you know has a heart for the people of Haiti and wants to give towards our trip, please let me know and I'll get the info to you!

March of Dimes

On May 8th, David and I will be joining my friend Melanie in the March for Babies walk in Ft. Lauderdale. I'm, admittedly, mostly excited about the walking part but I know that March of Dimes makes an impact on the families of premature babies daily. If you would like to join us in supporting their cause, there is more information below and an opportunity to donate on the sidebar to the left.

Every day, thousands of babies are born too soon, too small and often very sick. We`re walking because we want to do something about this.

The money we raise will support March of Dimes research and programs that help moms have full-term pregnancies and babies begin healthy lives. And it will be used to bring comfort and information to families with a baby in newborn intensive care.

I know that you all have busy schedules, and that money is hard to come up with these days, but any amount, be it small or big is a great help! So I encourage you to join me and help this cause. You can either donate to help my team reach it`s goal, join us to walk on May 8th, or do both!

Watch the video below for more information about the Walk for Babies.

My Blog Stinks.

Apparently my blog stinks. This is true. I've been busy though!

First of all, this "100 books in 2010" thing is killing me. KILLING me. I spend all of my spare time reading instead of blogging...or talking to David....or my parents...or volunteering...or sleeping...or anything, really. It's disturbing. If you look over to the right though, you'll see that I've read 17 books so far this year, and I'll admit, I'm pretty proud of myself. I should be at 22 (11 weeks so far this year) but I started at the end of January, so I have some catching up to do. I also discovered that I can get books on CD and listen to them in my car (to everyone that I usually call while I'm driving around town - you're welcome!) to get through the list faster. I enjoy reading and always thought I did it more/better than most of America but 100 is going to be a challenge.

Ever since "My Sister's Keeper" I've been pretty obsessed with Jodi Picoult so I've read a lot of her stuff but it's getting old and I want more of a challenge, so I'm trying to get into things with more meaning* and the classics (Fail. I checked out The Jungle but read 4 pages and am planning to return it today). I have a bazillion books on hold at the library right now and four came in today, so I have a lot to read before they're all due back on April 20.

*by "more meaning," I mean stuff that Oprah likes. She's deep, right?

Besides reading, I've been working a lot. I'm babysitting these little monsters every morning before and after they go to school, and waking up at 6am makes my 9:00 days at Disney seem silly. It also means I have to go bed at like, 8 which makes me no fun at all.

So I know it's lame but in case anyone is wondering, here's an update on what's been going on:

We went to Jacksonville last weekend for a Peace Corps interview - have I officially "outed" that yet here? If not, yes, we applied to the Peace Corps. It seemed a little crazy at first - only tree huggers do that, right? But we really want to serve overseas and we really don't want to raise support. Plus, the Peace Corps will eventually pay for me to go back to school and I feel better about being with them overseas than I do with some of the rednecks I've talked to who head up mission organizations. It could be a really long time before we hear anything (and it may never work out), but we're excited about the possibility.

And, we had a great time in Jacksonville! Who knew it was such a great city? My mom put us up in a sweet suite (hardy har har) at the Crowne Plaza - we had a huge tempurpedic bed, a little sitting area and a great view of the city/river. We also ate dinner at a delicious little restaurant in their 5 points - Mossfire Grill. If you're ever in the area, you have to go try their salsa!

We also bought 8 (7 too many) cupcakes from Sivada's in Jacksonville. This was after my car got a flat tire on my way home and we spent an hour waiting in the lovely waiting room at Tire Kingdom. In suits. Don't worry, we ate barbeque, "lemonade" (sugar+water) and red velvet cake at a super ghetto restaurant too, because calories don't count when you have a flat tire.

In other news, I had pink eye last week. Who gets pink eye?! I woke up with my eyelids stuck together every morning, which is a delicious way to start the day. They're still a little gooey sometimes but for the most part, I think that is past me.

Finally, last weekend we went to the Everglades to go on an airboat tour. It's just one of those touristy things you have to do, and it was David's Christmas present to me but we haven't had a chance to get down there yet. It was beautiful out on Saturday so we took a lot of pictures and saw a lot of strange animals at their funky little tourist-trap zoo. Who keeps a racoon and wolves in a cage? Apparently the everglades tour people. They also had cougars and panthers and snakes and alligators (duh).

We finished off the day with an impromptu visit with my friend Melanie and her boyfriend, Jose. They're fabulous and they let us go to Maggie Moo's so we could get our chocolate better batter fix. Have you had that? AMAZING.

Speaking of amazing, I'd like to give Kansas a shout out for ruining my bracket. Thanks for nothing.

It's a small world, afterall...