November 24, 2011: Happy Thanksgiving!

Heaveno!

Happy Thanksgiving to ya!  This holiday, I am most thankful for my amazing family.  Our three kids continue to inspire us on a daily basis.



We are chilling out watching a NEW Charlie Brown special!  Ah... The Peanuts gang... feels so... nostalgic.



We had a nice Thanksgiving Day at home.  Ang and Ali have been prepping and cooking all week, so today, we were in full gear preparing for the big meal.  Ang's parents joined us for dinner.  Ali and I made place settings, set the table, and stayed out of the kitchen as much as possible as mommy was a woman on a mission!



I had the honor of slicing the turkey, and thanks to some great new advice from Alton Brown on the food network, I am no longer intimidated!  He demonstrated a super easy way to dismantle the turkey in seconds.  It was awesome!  I felt super empowered!  It was amazing.  His advice was sooooo simple; it's funny how you can look at something for years and years and only see one way to do it, then someone comes along, and in about 30 seconds, completely dismantles what you thought possible.  Great metaphor for living and growth!





P.S.  Notice the FOUR dessert items... there were only 4 adults and Ali at the table!

In the PUCK arena, I got some really great news worthy of thanksgiving yesterday.  In June, Ang, Lonni & Jay Mooreland, and I met to officially organize PUCK & draw up a strategic plan.  In contrast to my pie in the sky notions of raising millions in 6 months, we came up with some realistic fundraising goals for the first three years.  It was June, and we were 6 months in to the year already, and had raised $26,000 year to date.  We decided to pick $50,000 for the year.  We had no plan as to HOW to do it, except that we would just stay in action.

Yesterday I found out we've raised $50, 091.00!

That's 50k that goes straight to Dr. Tolar and Dr. Wagner at the U of Minnesota.  We love the fact that we know exactly where every dollar goes.  In addition, we don't take any salaries for our work in PUCK, so we don't burn any money raised on us.

Now to the important part...

There is no way we would have hit that number without YOU.  The vast majority of that money raised was raised online.  THANK YOU for all that YOU did to make that goal a reality.  We are so grateful to still have you in our lives.  We had no idea that over a year after Bella's death, and over two and half years since we started this blog, close to a thousand people a day would be reaching out over the internet and connecting with us.  We are so grateful for this.  Thank you for keeping our paths crossed.

What are you thankful for this year?

God night.