Pictures

Virgin Island photos are up. Check them out here.

Cute Leigh picture:

Chuck:

Before (growing it out for the trip):

After:

Girls just wanna have fun (night of karaoke):

Last night dinner:

Mr Ham

I got an email from a friend saying that her dad was diagnosed with Leukemia this past week, he was admitted immediately to the hospital and is now undergoing chemo. This is a portion of the email that she sent me when she found out:

My dad and mom went home early this week - do you remember me talking about the bruises on my dad's arms? When dad was here he was getting these crazy bruises all over his arms.... I told him it wasn't normal - by the end of the week his arms were almost covered in them.... SO he went to the doctor Tuesday, she immediately admitted him in the the Hospital. His white blood count, which should be between 4.5-10.8 was .5, his red blood count which should be 14-16 was 9.2 and his platelet count which should be 150,000-450,000 was 13. So basically now they are not letting him leave the hospital. They did a bone marrow biopsy.... it was extremely painful.... the test results should took a few days to get back. The doctors who did the tests and who was examining dad was very blunt with them and pretty much did not have one good thing to say. We got the official results and my dad has APL - Acute promyelocytic Leukemia. He starts Chemo tomorrow (Saturday).

Her mom is keeping a blog, trying to keep everyone updated on his progress during this whole thing. They are a great Christian family and I know they could really use your prayers. If you get a chance, check out their blog here. If you don't have a second to read the few entries they have made thus far, if you could be so kind as to send up a quick prayer for Mr Ham (his first name is Dennis). Thanks!!

Free Rice

I think I have posted this site before, but I just received a reminder from one of the girls in my small group about it and wanted to mention it again.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

For every word definition you get right, 10 grains of rice are dedicated to children around the world.

"I didn't know most of the words - so I just searched for them on dictionary.com... It is associated with the UN - so it seems legit ;) - Becky"

Check it out, try it out, tell a friend, SPREAD THE FOOD AND SPREAD THE LOVE!!

Baby Remy

Alicia will be walking for Tuberous Sclerosis this summer and could really use OUR help. Check out her walking pager here and if you feel so inclined - DONATE :). Check out Remy's story here, read it, tell a friend, pray for their family, pray about giving to the cause, etc. Thanks!!

Tyra Banks Show

So I got this email from my mom while I was gone last week. One of her great friends shot her this email and then my mom forwarded it on to me:

Kate got a call from the Tyra Banks show. One of her walking partners from this summer's walk, Josh, submitted her name for a woman who makes a difference in their community. They called her, did several on phone interviews and chose her as one of the ladies. Well, it gets more interesting, they asked that her mom accompany her!!!!. So after more calls, we leave on Sat and come back Tues. They tape on Tues. I am sure it will not be on for awhile but I will be sure to tell you when.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers that we have safe travels and Kate has a ball, mom too!! It still seems surreal... It will be so cool cause this will give Kate an even bigger chance to get the word out about sexual violence.

New York with Kate.....oh la la.

Kate had walked from Miami, FL to Boston, MA last summer to raise awareness about the issue of Sexual Violence. You can check our their blog here (it was her and two other students from CMU that took on this endeavour). I am soooo happy for her and that her cause is being heard!! WAY TO GO!! (She is BEING THE CHANGE!)

Utility Art

So as I am sure you remember from my Lens Life shots, I LOVE the art that people were painting on the utility boxes around San Diego. Luckily, Oceanside has caught on and now YOU CAN DO IT!!

Attention all San Diego Artists.
The City of Oceanside has a Utility Box Beautification program.
If you are interested in painting one of these city boxes, please click HERE to download the PDF that explains to process.

We're Back!!

After a nice, long, relaxing vacation in the Virgin Islands Ryan and I are back to life in San Diego. We flew in last night, got home about 2am this morning and were up by about 6:30am getting back into the swing of things (must have had something to do with the 4 hour time difference why we woke up so early). I am trying to get all of pictures posted, etc and I will have a few posts about the trip itself. Just thought I'd say a quick THANKS to all of you out there that were praying for a safe and awesome trip, it was both :).