Light the Night Walk

I have just registered for the Light the Night Walk in Nashua, NH. If you would like to join the team, make a donation, or forward it on to your friends and family, click here.

This is something I can do in honor of Deana. Please do what you can.

The walk is on September 26, 2009
Walk Distance: 3 miles
Check In: 5:00 PM
Opening Ceremony: 6:00 PM
Walk Start Time: 6:30 PM

There is another one scheduled on the Boston Common on October, 15, 2009. More details on that one soon.

On an other note, I registered for donating platelets today. I will hear back from them in a couple of days to determine if I'm a good donor.

Our Dear Sweet Deana will be in our hearts forever.

We posed for this photo back in March this year. Many of our friends were making the same with their families. We all printed our family photos with Deana's family and sent them to her hospital room at MD Anderson in Texas to let her know that we all are keeping them close to our hearts while she fights the battle with Burkitt's Lymphoma. The idea started with a from of the project Flat Stanely.

She lost her battle with the cancer yesterday. I am deep in sorrow that she has left this earth but gladdened that she will live within us forever. Deana touched so many people with her giving, loving and courageous spirit. That spirit lives on.

Jack, Deana's husband, wrote a very touching post on their Caringbridge site. Here is an excerpt from it:

1. Have blood or platelets? Donate them. There is no greater gift you can give another human, but a chance at life.
2. Hug your family. Do it often and for no reason at all. You will all feel better.
3. Family and friends are everything. Without them one is lonely. With them at your side, ALL things are possible.
4. Never, ever quit. No matter what, rise to the occasion. It's what makes life worth living.

God bless you all,
Jack and in spirit, Deana

Summer Fun

I don't think these photos require captions. They speak for themselves.

Roma and I made the local newspaper.

You can see us in one of the feature photos in the Nashua Telegraph. The article mentions that someone signed up for bone marrow donation that day. I had just signed up for that a couple of weeks ago. I have a very good friend that I've never met in real life. She is on an adoption support bulletin board. We were meant to meet a couple of times except the timing always hit when one of us was busy building our family. She is now fighting for her life from Burkitt's Lymphoma. A photo tribute to Deana was recently posted on Facebook. Please send positive thoughts and prayers for Deana. And go donate blood, platelets and sign up for the bone marrow registry.

Another Beach Day

Low tide. Can you see how far out people are and it's still not deep? When we had arrived at the beach, that mound of sand was the edge of the water.

Let's dig and fill a pool.

Roma made friends with the neighbors. She's in their "pool" while Anna and Anthony are snacking.

Brunch at Laurie-Beth and Chris's

Laurie-Beth and Chris blame us for their happiness. Laurie-Beth was our live-in dog sitter when we traveled to China to bring home our precious Roma. Chris came by to take LB to dinner for her birthday. The rest is history.

Chocolate time.

The ladybug book is a popular one.

This photo is a little on the blurry side, but it was the only one showing our meal. We had ostrich with spinach.

Laurie-Beth and the teacher's pet.

I like reading Amelia's book about the ladybugs.

Little Amelia was fun to play with.

Her drink is pear juice in a Starbucks cup just like the big kids.

We went to get some culture

We went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. We were able to get a library pass that really saved on admission. It was supossed to be rainy all day. It cleared up and got very warm. Maybe we were glad to be inside the air conditioning with the outside humidity rising.

Notice the backside of her head is the only thing I can photograph nowadays. Soon enough, I hope she'll be a ham for the camera.

Davis Farmland

We went to Davis Farmland in Sterling, MA today with Tyler. It was a ton of fun for the kids. Check out the pics here.

Note to Deb, I don't know if you got my comment before. You don't have to belong to facebook to view the photos. Click away!

A Beach day with Maggie and Emily

Today, we had an impromptu play date with Emily and Maggie. Roma had been talking about Emily for the past week or so. I looked at our schedule and realized that we had this Monday free. All day Sunday I kept thinking to myself that I needed to call Maggie to see if she were free to get together. I woke up Monday and realized I never got around to calling. Drat and double drat. So, I booted up my computer to check the blogs, the BB, email and whatnot. Lo and behold, Maggie had sent an email late Sunday night to see if we wanted to get together. What karma! Great minds think alike. What other cliche can I add here?


We went to the local reservoir beach in Maggie's town.

A day in the life in Summer

We had such a great day today. You'll have to go to Facebook for the photos and the captions (sorry Leigh, maybe one of these days you'll join FB).

Happy Fourth of July!

Author's note: I remembered that Roma wore the exact same outfit on another 4th of July. This was two years ago. She was swimming in the outfit then and I'll have to admit that this year is probably the last one for this particualr outfit.

Aunti LoLo helping Roma through the obstacle course. Once we hit the part where we were to pretend to be knights with armor and swords to fight some evil doer, Roma decided she didn't like the obstacle course. She reminded me of it for the next hour. And I kept reassuring her that we won't go back there again.

The fire fighters had a pretend house on fire that all the kids could practice their hosemanship.

See the "burning house"? Roma had fun with the other kids getting sprayed from the water in the wind. I even got some spritzing while taking these photos.

This photo is kind of blurry, because I asked a stranger that happened to be standing in the right place to shoot one of us gals. Hey, beggars can't be too choosy, right?

Mommy, I really like cotton candy!

Mommom and Pepere relaxing with the desserting grandchild. Hey Leigh, I'm with you with the reflector in a pic!
Now, this is dessert! Roma was so looking for the cotton candy table and made sure I knew that this was her dessert.
Roma told me the this wasn't dessert. She only licked all the frosting off and left the rest for mommy. Yum!
They had a bubble station which definitly piqued Roma's interest for quite awhile.
Bouncy houses are fun!

I was at a stop light and thought to try to take a pic of my sleeping beauty minutes after leaving the park.

Happy July 3!

From a typo in a flyer that I got from our local library (it said Friday the 4th), I thought the children's fair would be today (Friday the 3rd). I got Roma all excited to go to the fair. It was the first thing she mentioned upon waking this morning. I soon found out that the fair is tomorrow (the 4th). So, I had to find something to entertain the princess. I think I succeeded

Boo Boo bunny needs a bath

BooBoo Bunny is actually a lamb. She has a plastic cube tucked into her belly that you put in the freezer for any boo boos that may occur. Roma decided that BooBoo Bunny needed a bath. And the fact that I bought Snuggle fabric softener thinking it was laundry detergent added to the fun. Only because Roma called it the Teddy Bear Soap when we picked it up at BJ's. Don't you know that all Teddy Bears and any stuffed friend needs Teddy Bear soap? (I actually put real soap in the sink for the bath, rather than the fabric softener but let her think it was the teddy bear soap.)

Roma had a blast playing in the water in the sink. The rug below was drenched. When the sun came out for maybe 10 minutes, I thought to put the rug outside to dry. It's time to laugh now because not 15 minutes later the sky opened and poured down. I'm posting this a couple of days of rain later. I think that rug's future is the dump now.

We had a beach day among many days of rain

This was a few days ago which was a great respite from all this rain.