Happy Birthday to Me

I got to celebrate my birthday over several days and with style this year.  My friend, Denise, and I usually celebrate our birthdays together.  Her birthday is two days after mine.  And this year she had one of her milestone birthdays.  She turned 60.  So before we went to our AORN meeting, we had dinner together at The Quay. 

Bill took Chris back to Bellingham to move him into his house on my actual birthday.  So we celebrated as a family on the night before with Thai food and I made myself a yummy chocolate and peanut butter earthquake cake as a treat. 

My actual birthday was spent going to The Difference in Lake Oswego for a personal shopping appointment.  I got pampered by getting new skin care products and make up and bought quite a few articles of clothing.  One of the outfits I bought is in the picture above.  I haven't been there in awhile and felt the need for some help with updating my wardrobe.  And start the process of looking for a dress for Tom's wedding.  The consultant that I used to work with no longer is there so I had a new gal help me out.  It was a fun couple of hours trying on new clothes.  She did ask me if I needed a fainting couch when it came time to check out.  I spent quite a bit of money but hey--it was my birthday.  I deserved it.

I was really hoping that I could take my friend, Colleen, with me to The Difference.  She is the one that introduced me to it.  And it has been several months since her family had taken her there.  But she and her husband were camping and didn't get back until later in the afternoon.  So we went out for lunch at Red Robin the next day which was fun.

All in all I had a great birthday!

The Share Games for Give More 24! Campaign

Bill's friend, Kim Hash, now works for Share--an organization in Clark County that helps the homeless.  She was the one to talk him into being part of the Blues Brothers to raise money for the Children's Center when she worked for them.  The Community Foundation of Southwest Washington organized a one day fundraising campaign for about 90 non-profit groups in the area.  The goal was to raise $500,000 for these charities in a 24 hour period. 

Kim is so creative and I don't know if it was all her idea or the idea of a group but Share had a carnival type atmosphere in their building and parking lot all day long to help promote getting donations.  They had celebrity bowling, hopscotch, HORSE, etc.  Activities for kids.  A flashmob by the Groove Nation kids. 

In relation to Bill's nomination for the Community Builder Award for the Chamber of Commerce, Bill helped out Share with his time and talents for yet another non-profit fundraising event.  Bill and Jim were asked to reprise their Blues Brothers characters for a celebrity lip sync contest.  Instead of doing Blues Brothers music though--they did their lip sync to AC DC's "Back in Black".  Bill also volunteered to be in the dunk tank.  A friend purchased the right to be the first to dunk him by donating $500.  The funny part of the story is that this friend and Bill were in line together at Rotary and Bill commented to her "Can you believe somebody (actually a different word was used but I'm going to be politically correct) actually donated $500 to dunk me?"  She was dying inside thinking  "That's me he is talking about."  She also said that she bought it with the intention of letting me be the one to actually dunk him.  She was thinking every woman deserves the right to dunk her husband at least once during their marriage.  I didn't go when Bill was in the dunk tank so I missed out on it and she got to do it.  But I thought it was pretty funny that she wanted me to be able to do it and was willing to donate money for me to do it.

The half million dollar goal wasn't quite reached.  A little over $333,000 was raised amongst all the charities.  Share raised around $13,700.  So even though the original goal wasn't reached, Clark County showed its generosity once again through this fundraising effort.  Proud of Bill and his participation and proud of Clark County residents for being so generous. 

Celebrating Community Service

Bill and I went to the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce Awards Dinner this week.  Bill was a finalist for an award so he took me along.  It was a really fun evening.  They did a baseball theme and did it big.  The award Bill was up for was the Community Builder Award for Small Business Owners.  He is on a lot of non-profit boards and helps out other non-profits as well with financial donations, donations of flights to auctions, video production, etc.  He didn't win the award.  There were lots of other deserving finalists as well.  But I am very proud of him.  And proud that he was recognized for his contributions to our community.

More Celebrations This Weekend

Today is Christopher's 22nd birthday.  It falls on Labor Day this year.  The year Chris was born, Bill wanted to have a Labor Day party so everyone could watch me go into labor.  Thankfully I had Chris well before Labor Day that year.

Happy Birthday Christopher!  Have a terrific day!