Walk for Love at Shriners Hospital in Springfield Mass

It's always a great day at Shriners Hospital! And yesterday was even more exciting than usual. 

Queen Taylor dazzled the crowd and I attempted to not trip over my tongue while fighting off tears as I told an enormous crowd of people our story.

But before the stage fright began, we had tons of fun goofing off with our clown friends.

And Ana...

And Storm Troopers.....

And puppies from K-9s for Kids, Inc

And a gigantic rabbit, and huge porcupine, snakes and other crazy critters at the petting zoo....

And hanging with our fellow Shriners Hospital Patient Ambassador Jacob Ellinger

This is the link to his speech http://youtu.be/M92h3TE5hj0

And LOSNA friends

It was a great morning had by all :)

Then it came time for the stage fright ;-)

My Mom caught it on video but before I even saw it, I found out it had already made it's debut on YouTube thanks to Kerry O'Connor. And as if it wasn't hard enough to fight the tears saying it, his thanks to me at the end crushed me. 

http://youtu.be/yaHaTgKvvdA

I can't even describe how happy I was to be able to be a part of yesterday's Walk for Love event and how grateful I am to be a part of the Shriners Hospitals family.

Thank you Bernadette, Lee and Karen for having faith in me to speak on behalf of the Hospital.

Thanks to the Melha Clown crew especially Fix It, Railz, Doc and Joey and LOSNA Lady Maureen for the extra attention and love you shared with us. 

And thank you Shriners for all that you do!

Long Overdue

Where do I begin? 

 April, instead of bringing showers, it brought us Shriners Maple Sugar Bowl banquets!

The first one for the football players...

and the second was for the cheerleaders and band members.

Taylor was on cloud 9. Ashtyn was pretty excited too but obviously a tad jealous.

We cured that, at least temporarily by the beginning of May when we went back to Springfield Mass for the 

Melha Shriners Circus!

 

And we had a blast!

The girls of course had to stalk the clowns ;) 

CLOWN LOVE <3 nbsp="" p="">

"Fix It"

June came along and brought with it A HOME! We finally FINALLY have a home again! In between moving and unpacking and running around like a bunch of crazy people, we snagged a few moments to go out and have fun as a family ;)

The day after we bought the house was our annual Shrine On Springfield walkathon for Shriners Hospitals. It was a much smaller group this year due to the multiple graduations that were happening that day as well as 3 different alumni "happenings" and parades but we still raised $1733 for Shriners Hospital in Springfield and we had a fun time doing it. "Fix It" even came up from Mass for our little shindig and made the girls' day ;)

Then it was back to craziness.......

July (and especially Grammy) brought us a trip to Old Orchard Beach Maine......

.....and then sent us to see TAYLOR SWIFT! 

Which was an experience I can't say I ever want to relive. The show itself was fine, good even, but getting into Gillette Stadium was stupid! Then the first 30 or so employees we dealt were so beyond idiotic and down right mind numbing....... its no wonder some people just go postal. Wow! Luckily we met a few employees who had common sense, personalities and were completely down right awesome and turned our (or at least my) anger into a fun time. Liv, Auntie Momma and Boss Man, you guys saved the day ;)

We got a little soaked....... but all in all they enjoyed their first concert.

But if I ever even think about going to a place......

that seats 60,000 people again....someone slap me please!

Then it was time for another Sugar Bowl event............. the Golf Tournament. Ashtyn got to drive a golf cart at the country club and decided that was "the best thing EVER".

And then came the crowning of the King and Queen at the pre-game banquet last Friday

followed by the Saturday parade..............

 and THE GAME!!!!

 Tayt and her buddy Dan

We then all got a little R and R when the girls spent this past week visiting our Lakes Region family. Jeremy and I got to dust off our motorcycles and finally ride them. And the girls had their days filled with all the usual Chaos and Mayhem type fun.... Making trips to see some "Tabbies", heading to Maine for another adventure in Old Orchard, feeding reindeer and visiting with Santa up at Santa's Village, camping, baking, shopping, bubbles, bicycles and having a blast. 

I don't know about you but I'm exhausted just thinking about all of this ;) 

That's all I've got for now but there's plenty more to come........

Feztival of Trees

After all sorts of ever-expected chaos, we finally made it to Concord to see the Bektash Shriners Fez-tival of Trees! Here's a little sample for your enjoyment ;)

My pick for favorite tree. You can't tell from the picture but all the balls on 

this tree are made with beach sand and sea shells. 

Its just what I want for Christmas......tropical weather ;)

 The Spinning Tree....4th of July on one part, butterflies on another.

I can't remember now if there was another themed side but these 2 were beautiful anyway ;)

 The mini trees

 Just one of the many beautiful wreathes 

OH MY GOODNESS I FOUND SANTA CLAUS!!!!

And if that weren't exciting enough Santa then blew their minds by telling them how he saw them over the summer in Vermont and gave just enough detail so they knew it was true but didn't give away where exactly he saw them. Way too cute! 

 And of course, I snap a frowning faced Tayt who not only doesn't want to leave Santa's side, she's also had more than enough of me shoving the camera in their faces this past week :(

 

 Oh the man tree. Well, I want this one too! Who wouldn't want a ton of new tools!

 I just love the purple tree

 And the itty-bitty hand knit stocking tree

 Keeping the Clown in Christmas.... LOVE IT!

 Tayt's pick for the winner! 

 "Look, its Rudolph!"

 Another awesome and favorite tree. Drier vent and bubble foil insulation palm tree!

 Rubber Duckie Tree!!!

 Tayt had to run and hug her two favorite trees Goodbye. 

Goodnight Bektash. Happy Holidays!