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!

Celebrating in Style

Bill and I always have two opportunities to celebrate our wedding anniversary--the date of our elopement and the date of our religious ceremony.  We went out for dinner at one of our favorite spots on the river last night--Beaches.  The owner's girlfriend stopped by our table for awhile to talk to us.  When she found out it was our anniversary, she had our server give us the royal treatment.  I was looking for an opportunity to get our picture taken.  Not quite what I imagined when I took my camera to the restaurant but it is a fun picture to commemorate our 28th year as husband and wife. 

The Crew

While Tom is deployed, he works with this crew exclusively.  I thought it was such a cool photo that I had to scrapbook it.  They look great!  I love that technology gives us an opportunity to keep in touch and see images of what is going on in their lives.

Some Bunnies in the Family

Darren surprised me with sending a picture of Mandy and Mallory with new rabbits that they bought at the Monroe County Fair this year.  Their names are Pookie and Shimmer.  So happy they have bunnies.  We miss our Ranger.  I just wish I lived close enough to go snuggle them.

Flying to Sunriver

We were supposed to be on vacation to Kalispell, MT this weekend but family health circumstances had us cancel that trip.  Chuck had been planning to spend the weekend with Beverly so that we could go on vacation but didn't feel like we could leave with what has been going on.  So we have decided to have more of a staycation and spend the weekend with him.

Today's expedition was a trip out to Sunriver to have lunch.  It was a great day to take some photos of the mountain peaks along the way.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Mt. Hood

Mt. Jefferson

A fire at Mt. Jefferson

Three Finger Jack

Mt. Washington

Sisters

Mt. Bachelor

Mt. Adams

Mt. Rainier

We landed at Sunriver to find that there were a lot of firefighters there.  They were using the airport as a staging area for the firefighting efforts.  While we had seen a fire at Mt. Jefferson on the way there, the fire that they were supporting was in Chemult--further south relatively close to Crater Lake.  I was fascinated by all the helicopter activity going on there. 

After lunch at the Sunriver Lodge, we walked over to the shopping village and checked that out before heading home.  We enjoyed our excursion to the east side of the mountains for a little while today and then headed back to spend time with Beverly and take her some Thai food to give her a break from institutional food.  All in all a very nice day.