Saturday, April 30, 2016

Saturday, April 30, 2016



Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2003. Mattie was a year old and beginning to toddle around. He loved the coffee table, because it was an excellent prop and helped him maneuver his way around while holding it. Years later I took a photo of Mattie and had him hold up this toddler photo next to him. I can't think about one of these photos without the other. They seem like a pair to me. 

This photo was taken (May 2006) about three years after the one above. Mattie always got a kick out of seeing himself as both a baby and a toddler. 

















Quote of the day: The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime. ~ Babe Ruth

It was a FULL working day for both Peter and me. I am happy to say that the raffle baskets for the Walk are NOW COMPLETE. We wrapped them today, I created raffle ticket boxes for people to place their tickets into, as well as raffle placards explaining what is in each basket. We are featuring 9 great raffle baskets this year and tickets to earn a chance at winning one of these raffle items can be found on our Walk Website: https://mmcf.dojiggy.com/ng/index.cfm/aa27806/regCatalog/products/?p=ad142620

Here is a close up of the 9 Raffle baskets. These baskets cover everything from gift cards to museums. 

1) Washington Nationals Tickets
2) Washington Capitals Tickets
3) Dining Around Town
4) Lego Collectibles
5) Lights, Camera, Drama
6) Wine of the Month
7) Money Tree
8) One of a kind t-shirt quilt
9) iPad Mini 2

Meanwhile, as I was home contending with the raffle, Peter went to Alexandria to conduct a building project with a Girl Scout troop at Mattie's school. The Girl Scouts asked to work with us because the Troop needed to build something to qualify for their Bronze Award. 


Peter began construction on 6 corn hole boards (like a bean bag toss) last weekend. We are having a tournament at the Walk and therefore needed to have the boards. However, purchasing them is quite costly. So we decided to make them from scratch. All I can say is WOW! You have to know what you are doing to take on such a project, and fortunately Peter is skilled in this area. But I can say that round 1 of building took all of last week. 

Today, Peter transported all the corn hole boards, legs, and bases he created to Alexandria, VA. To the girl scout troop leader's house. Fortunately Peter had a strategy in mind about how the girls were going to assemble the remaining parts of the table and then paint them. Having such an organized plan was crucial given the age group.... teens. I am not sure if my readers have experience working with teen girls, but they aren't an easy group to work with and Peter learned this first hand. Girls are much more emotionally complicated than boys and I have a feeling if a boy scout troop was asked to take on this project, the day would have gone differently. But Peter handled it beautifully and frankly did better than I would have under these circumstances. Even when I taught young adults in college, I had little tolerance for disinterest and goofing around. If one did not want to listen and be in my class, I would have preferred they just left rather than disrupt an entire classroom with their agenda. Teenage girls are not very different in my perspective and unless they want to do something and are motivated to do it, they most likely won't and would prefer to socialize. Which can make the completion of the assembly of six corn hole boards difficult!

Peter worked with six girls today and four other dads. 














Here is one of the girl scouts, Tori being assisted by a dad. Peter set up different work stations so groups could work on an entire corn hole board from start to completion. 

Here were the painting
stations!

The final product, so far! Next weekend they will paint and design them!