Sizzlin'

It got to 91 today. I can't believe we are still in Feb and getting such high temps. I sure hope it isn't a sign of what is to come!!!

Spotlight

Supporting Fisher House™ and Hero Miles
Following their volunteer efforts, San Antonio-based staff stand with a house guest in front of the Lackland Fisher House
When wounded servicemen and -women return home for treatment, they often face weeks and months of rehabilitation at a veterans or military hospital. During this time, having family members close by is essential to their recovery. Fisher House™, one of the firm’s long-standing nonprofit partners, provides military families a place to stay, free of charge, via ‘comfort houses’ located at most major military and veterans hospital campuses.
Booz Allen’s partnership with Fisher House™ offers staff a variety of ways to help. Last fall, Booz Allen volunteers in the San Antonio office cooked dinner for residents, packed boxes in preparation for an upcoming renovation of its facilities, supported the organization’s major fundraising event, and helped with holiday decorations.
“One soldier told me that he knew of Booz Allen’s work as a government consulting firm,” says San Antonio-based Associate Bethany O’Day, “but he was unaware of our commitment to relationship-building within the community. It was great to demonstrate another side of the firm to him.”
In addition to onsite volunteering, staff also can participate in the Hero Miles program. Administered by Fisher House™ for the Department of Defense, Hero Miles allows individuals to donate frequent flier miles with participating airlines—enabling families to visit their wounded heroes. Starting March 2, staff can choose to support Hero Miles by voluntarily donating their unused airline miles.
“I’m sure many staff members are like me and have unused miles that are set to expire or a small number of miles with a little-used carrier that may go unused,” says McLean-based Principal Joe Suarez, community relations director. “What better way to use those accumulated miles than to donate them to help someone in need?”
Participation in Hero Miles—a joint initiative of Community Relations, the Armed Forces Forum, and the Travel team—is easy. Visit the Community Relations iShare site for frequently asked questions and instructions for donating unused miles.
Annually, the Fisher House™ program serves more than 10,000 families, and has made available nearly 2.5 million days of lodging to family members since the program originated in 1990. Read more about the San Antonio office’s volunteer efforts with Fisher House on the Community Relations iShare site.

Sorry, here are some more pics I wanted to show from our dinner with my parents.

Only in Texas

I just want to preface this entry with this: it seems like in Texas we have every rodent and bug and just plain yucky and harmful thing. Seriously, we have well over 100 different types of snakes, with like 1oo of them being poisonous. We have scorpions and spiders and tics and lizards and bats and roaches and and and...... you get the point.
Okay, so I think this is hilarious, mind you gross and disturbing, but hilarious. So the other day I put something in the microwave to heat up. When it dinged, I opened up the door to get my food and out crawls a roach!!!!!!! I KNOW!!! I guess it is true what they say about roaches being indestructable.

Happy Anniversary!!!

My parent's anniversary was Feb 18th. It was their 35th anniversary, and they wanted to have a nice dinner with their family. We all went to a restaurant in San Antonio called the Rainforest Cafe. I have heard a lot about it, but it was sooooo much fun! It is themed after its name. They have done such a good job with the atmosphere of the place. They have a thunderstorm every 30 minutes and every 10 minures all the animals come to life. It is such a kid-friendly place to eat and have fun. While we were waiting for our food we walked around and took a million pictures. Our kids loved it. Anytime any one of you comes for a visit, we will definately have to take you there. The prices are a little high, but the food was good and the fun time with our family was definately worth it!!

Flowers, and Flowers, and More Flowers...

My mom owns a flower shop here in our small town. She stays fairly busy throughout the year, but there are definate "peak" seasons, one being Valentine's Day. She ordered her flowers quite a while ago, and just picked them up this past weekend. I think my dad said something like 70 dozen roses, and like 40 dozen carnations, then all the baby's breath(white small flowers) and the greenery to go on top of that. My mom commented and said that is actually quite a small order for a flower shop, but she is a very small shop and not a huge chain like a lot of companies. Anyway, the first two pics are of the flowers crammed into one of her coolers, just the way she picked them up. Then the next two are what she creates with them. She is actually quite talented, and I am a bit sad that I did not obtain any of her creative genes when I was born.

***Disclaimer***Sean wanted me to show all these pics and tell you all that this is what he did for me for Valentine's Day:) He is such a joker.

New Beginnings

Tonight our Young Women had their New Beginnings. I was so proud of them! They did everything themselves, start to finish. They came up with all the ideas, practiced, and the end result was fabulous!

I love so much being back in with the youth of the church! They amaze me every time I am in their presence. It really gives me comfort as a parent of future youth to know that they will have a network of friends that will be unmatched by any other.