Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. Mattie was home between hospital treatments and his good friend gave him this incredible Lego set. Mattie worked with Peter solidly for a day to create this Victorian village. This village sits in our living room even today! At one time our whole home used to be filled with Lego bricks and structures. Now only several of Mattie's key pieces are still with us on display. The thousands of other Lego bricks we had were donated to others who could use them!



Quote of the day: Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. ~ Dr. Seuss



I got up this morning at 5:30am. NOT my time at all. Unlike Peter, I am NOT a morning person. We have flown to Los Angeles MANY times before, but never from National airport, which is much closer to where we live in DC, than Dulles Airport. This alone made the day go more smoothly because we did not have to allot over an hour of commuting time to the airport. Today's flight was like glass, VERY smooth. Almost makes you appreciate flying, which coming from me is a remarkable statement. Peter snapped some pictures while we were in the air. This is a photo of the Rockies in Colorado.

 

 

This is a picture of Monumental Valley in Arizona from the air. It was crystal clear today once we got out of DC, which made it a wonderful experience to look out the plane's window and see our Country's terrain.

 

An aerial photo of Lake Powell! Our friends Denise and Dave are traveling with us. They are here to help us at the Think Tank and exhibit hall table. When we landed in LA, we all journeyed together to the rental car agency and then drove about 40 minutes to Huntington Beach. The freeways were open and moving smoothly.... another unheard event!!! 

 

When we arrived at the Hyatt Regency, we quickly discovered how lovely and friendly everyone at this resort and spa are and what a wonderful setting this is for a conference. The front desk upgraded our room and as you can see we have a lovely view of the pool and the Pacific Ocean. It is totally hard to believe that on one coast it can be grey, depressing, and freezing, while on the other coast it is sunny and green!

 

Though we are a bit out of it, we did take a walk to the beach. The hotel has a bridge that crosses over the Pacific Coast Highway and brings you directly to the water. VERY few people were by the beach today, which made the experience very special and peaceful. It was us, a few people, and the sea birds!

 

The Hotel is very well laid out and is filled with amazing garden spaces, fountains, cozy nooks with fireplaces and couches, and basically it leaves you wanting to just unwind rather than ramp up for a conference.

 

The hotel staff can't do enough to accommodate you. I haven't experienced such service in years, which is why I am taking notice. The Hotel sits on 29 acres and literally while I was trying to figure out which direction to go to get to a restaurant, I had a hotel staff member come up to me to offer assistance. He literally escorted me to where I wanted to go. If the staff keeps this up and I may never come home!!! As my readers know, I mailed a huge box filled with Mattie Miracle items to the Hotel last week. Today the Hotel delivered the box to me so that I could re-assembled all my items in our room and will transport the assembled materials to the Exhibit Hall tomorrow. As you can see, I brought t-shirts, drawstring bags, and pens. The items you can't see are Foundation brochures, business cards, placards, chocolate, a Mattie Miracle table cover, and our retractable banner. We should be all set and I will post a picture of the table's set up tomorrow.

Our five hour think tank starts tomorrow morning at 9am. Wish us luck. It is an historic occasion, which I hope will energize the participants to invest in the long term goal of creating a psychosocial standard of care for childhood cancer patients and their families.