Sunday, June 2, 2013

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2003, Mattie was 15 months old. I think this photo is priceless! It was taken at the beach house we rented in the Outer Banks. As you can see Mattie decided to have some quiet time on the couch with a book. Mattie selected his favorite book, Goodnight Moon. We read that book together SO often, that at one time I knew the exact words on each page. I am quite sure Mattie did as well!!!

Quote of the day: If there's a thing I've learned in my life it's to not be afraid of the responsibility that comes with caring for other people. What we do for love: those things endure. Even if the people you do them for don't. ~ Cassandra Clare


We want to thank our readers for checking in with us this week and it is my hope that you enjoyed our photos of Emerald Isle, NC as well as the photos from our 2013 Foundation Walk. I know I enjoyed sharing them with you and seeing them on the blog. Our trip to Emerald Isle was an adventure and now that we are home in DC tonight, we are both in a funk. It was a seven hour drive home and coming back from vacation is never easy. Compounding that, the start of summer is simply depressing to me, so as Peter returns to work tomorrow, I will try to focus upon how to deal with my daily Foundation work at home and feeling isolated from what others around me are doing while their children are home from school.  

I snapped some photos of the art work displayed within our Emerald Isle condo. Some of the pieces made me laugh and others I thought were simply whimsical. This painting is entitled, "Shrimp cocktail." I thought it was adorable and it was displayed in the kitchen.

Now this one I leave up to you. I thought this teapot frog was just adorable, but then again I LOVE tea. Peter did not share my same fascination. This teapot frog happened to be a lamp in the master bedroom.

The master bathroom in the condo was gigantic. But the beauty of it was all its natural light. Rarely did I ever have to turn on the electric lights by day in there. Hanging over the bathtub was this beautiful fish glass chime. It absolutely sparkled when the sun shone through it!

On the walls of the master bathroom were these cute paintings. The second one has a caption that states, "I hope we don't look like tourists!" There were other lovely pieces as well, but these four were noteworthy to me.
 

Last night as we walked the beach, we had this wonderful pelican flyover. I haven't mentioned their presence, but they were all around us this week. I happen to love pelicans. Pelicans prefer warmer beaches so much so that we never saw one while visiting the Bethany, DE shores.

As we walked along the beach, we watched the water, bird traffic, and I also checked out the houses we passed. This one in particular I deemed as my favorite beach house
of the week! If you can't guess why...... it is because of its sun themed wood work at the top!

Before leaving the beach last night, I snapped this last photo!

Peter and I woke up early this morning to finish packing up the condo. The condo was located on the third floor, so carrying everything down three flights of stairs was entertaining. We took this goodbye photo from our deck and were on the road by 9:15am.

This was the view from the causeway as we drove from Emerald Isle onto the mainland. The inlets are simply beautiful and to think only Friday we were kayaking through them!

If you happen to be wondering why Emerald Isle
is called "EMERALD," just look at this photo! It got its name from the lush greenery that is everywhere on this barrier island.


I don't know how it is possible but for the past seven days we have seen nothing but glorious sunshine, clear blue skies, and NO rain. Don't you know as we were an hour out of DC, the greyness in the sky ensued and it also rained. DC never disappoints. We stopped at a restaurant today in NC to break up our trip. The hostess asked us where we were from, and we told her DC. She smiled and told us she visited DC last summer and she found it overwhelming. She said it is hard to go from having so much space and land around you, to a big city. Having experienced NC this week, I totally get her point. DC is an adjustment but the one lovely thing to see when we got home was our garden. Our friend Maria took beautiful care of our green friends and it was lovely to come home to our plants thriving and growing.

I would like to end tonight's posting with some photos of our Raffle which took place at the Foundation Walk. The raffle was a huge success and Peter and I want to truly thank Carolyn, our friend and raffle chair, for assisting us with this large but fruitful endeavor! We featured 12 amazing raffle baskets this year. Each basket at minimum is worth $500.

In this photo you can see our friend Ann with the bullhorn in hand announcing winners. Next to Ann is Carolyn (with the pink flowered headband, which was designed by her daughter who sells her headbands at our walk!). Carolyn was holding one of the raffle ticket boxes and our 12 year old friend Annie was randomly picking the winning ticket for one of the prizes out of the box.

Here is a photo of our lucky Lego Raffle Basket winner!

In this photo our volunteers, Isabel (who is a rising 10th grader and has been instrumental at helping Mattie Miracle with her Girl Scout Troop) and Abbie (Ann's daughter) were handing over the Furry Friends Raffle Basket to the winner!

Here are the proud winners of the Money Tree Raffle Basket.... Marisa and Colton. Marisa just graduated from NYU and when she was in high school she helped me with Mattie when he was home between hospital visits. Each year, no matter where Marisa is, she coordinates and runs our bake sale at the Foundation Walk. This year's Bake Sale
was our most profitable one yet!

I was thrilled that several  moms and children from the CFNC preschool came to the Walk. Our faithful readers may recall that this preschool raised $600 for Mattie Miracle. These moms had a great time doing zumba with us, participating in all our activities, and I am so pleased that one of them won our Spa Raffle Basket!!!

This photo makes me smile. Our friend Dawnee wanted to win the t-shirt quilt raffle basket. She was determined and I think she was stunned when she actually won! Now many of her children's t-shirts will be getting transformed into a cozy keepsake quilt!