Yeah- call me a failure...

Those goals were very little achieved. urgh. However excuses there may be, going to pick myself up now and get back on the wagon.

Some of the goals I'd set for myself:

1. Weight loss- well I'd been doing real well until we hit the summer season and thus lots of travelling. Yeah, completely fell off the wagon there. But the kids are all heading to school next week- yes- ALL three of them! KT, MD, and AC will all be in the same school for one year. I know everyone keeps telling me to enjoy it, as soon they'll be gone. I keep wondering though if I'm just getting old or the visual loss is really starting to get to me. I find myself worn out more and more these days when I've not done nearly as much with people. Not liking that one bit. :P

2. Spending more time with God- This is one area that I did succeed in. I began reading more and more, not entirely with my Bible, but with other books that I'd been wanting to read. I've given up the notion that I have to start one and can't start another one until I finish it. I'm finding that I'm reading one on my Ipod touch, one on the puter, and one a hard copy and then my Bible. So I'm actually making progress in all of them, just not all 4 of them at the same time. :)

3. Spending more time with my hubby- trying to make time for us. We've taken several times to go out and have a dinner and so forth. It's really been good to do so and thinking we may have a set up with a friend here that we might be able to try to do something like this once a month. We'll see.


The course of our year- it's been a pretty busy one this year. KT took part in travel basketball and we were all over central IN last winter and early spring.



(photo of KT bringing the ball down the court, dribbling the basketball with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and focusing on where she's about to head)

Of course Rei was faithfully at my side and watched in on all the action too. :)


(photo of Rei watching the game, laying in the bleachers with chin on the bleacher in front of her, intently watching what is going on)

We started the year off in February with a HUGE snow storm bringing us nearly several feet of snow and 5 inches of ice. Mike and I did what we could to help friends and neighbors chip themselves out of their homes and to be able to safely get out of down their driveways. February was also MD's birthday- which she is totally into horses right now, so we were creative with a horse theme for her party.



(photo of the island decorated and with the cake that has horses on it, a brown horse pinata with a black mane, and a vase of flowers)



(MD about to blow out the candles of her cake)

At the end of February, both girls chopped off their very long hair that they'd been growing out to donate to Locks for Love. Both of them went with really cute bob cuts! :)



(close up head shot of KT with hair short just longer than the ears.)



(close up head shot of MD with her bob cut- just below the ears)

With the warm up of the weather in March, the sillies began to set in and AC had fun with a roll of toilet paper- in fact he decided to be a mummy. Here he is wrapped up and having a blast!



We also saw several 4 legged friends in March too. First Honey came to visit and we loved seeing her again. Of course she remembered me and had fun playing with Rei too. She was cute too, watching the gerbils running around in their tank too.



(A really good picture of Honey and Dan together- Honey sitting in front of him gazing up at him.)



(Photo of Katie looking into the gerbil tank and Honey to her right side, nose to the glass looking in with intense curiosity)

Laney and Pippa also came by for a visit too. It was good to see the girls and see how much they've grown. Unfortunately we haven't been able to get together this summer at all, so we'll see if we get to visit some during the school year for some training sessions and play dates too. Here are all three dogs in front of Mike/



In April-MD and AC took swim lessons to work on teaching them how to swim. MD learned to swim so that she can float and not sink if she finds herself in deep water. AC is unable to swim on his own yet, but knows what to do now if he gets into trouble to help himself.



(MD looks into the water as she's about to dive for the plastic ring that her instructor threw into the water.)



(AC holds the pool wall with a smile on his face and ready for the next thing)

May saw us busy, busy, busy with Pup Putt (www.pupputt.org) as we worked with the school in setting up the mini golf course and Mike built another poker table for the silent auction.



(photo of dark colored oak wood with topper on the game table)

We even had Ice Road Truckers terminal manager, Lane Keater here for for the first few days of the week too. It was an amazing week with the kids and event raising approximately $16,000 over the course of the week.

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Mike came out one evening too and had fun with the kids and putted through the course as well.



The month of May in Indiana also means racing here in the Indianapolis area. We took the kids to the Motor sports open house, where we met and got to see inside several of the NHRA team garages. The kids enjoyed seeing all of the funny cars and drag racing cars as well as meeting several of the drivers.



(a photo of all three kids kneeling in front of a stack of tires)



(one of John Force's trailers and cars)



(a photo of John Force and his younger daughter signing autographs)

We also went to Schumacher Racing's garage and there was a body of a car hung on the wall:


Mike also took KT to the Indy 500 this year for the first time. She's been excited to go for several years now. KT has always LOVED Indy car racing and so the excitement for her was almost unbearable for her! The weather was great and they got to see the amazing finish and crash in the homestretch on the final lap of the race.

On Memorial Day, we took the kids to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum as they had a once in a lifetime exhibit of 75 of the 100 years of the Indy 500. They actually took several of the early 1900 cars out and drove them around the track before the race and while we were there, we got to see them bring several back in into the museum itself.



(a photo of a line of cars from the early 1900's)



(a line of cars from the 1980's and foward)

June began our crazy summer of travels and running. KT started the first week of June by a weekend of going to Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. She went with a group from school and also good friend Ms. N from basketball too as they were roomies all weekend. She came back having enjoyed the entire weekend.



(a photo of one of the simulator rides that spins you around but not in the same direction more than once)



(a space shuttle made completely out of kinect pieces)

We ended June with Mike serving on the first Indy West Awakening team, which is an amazing spiritual weekend for teens, age 15 to 18. Learn more about that here:
http://www.indywestawakening.org/

The kids, Rei, and I spent the Saturday of Father's Day weekend with Grandma and Grandpa and Dan as Mike was particpating in the Awakening weekend and I was soon to leave for Ft. Mitchell, KY for my first AADB (American Association of the Deaf Blind) conference.

The weather was good and thus the kids donned their swimsuits and the kiddie pool was brought over along with all squirt guns in possession for a massive water gun fight.



(photo of the kids and grandpa dipping water guns into buckets and the kiddie pool to "load up" with water)

Rei joins in by getting in the pool and splashiing on her own too!


(Rei standing in the kiddie pool and looking out at everyone playing- water dripping from her belly.)

All three kids- water guns in hand and aiming for Grandpa:


After several hours of water play, we ate a hearty dinner and the kids all crashed on the couch to watch some tv together. All slept well that night! :)

The next morning, on Father's Day, I took off with two Support Service Providers to the AADB conference for a week. We arrived that afternoon and Clara and Kim both went to the SSP training as I hung out for a bit and got some stuff unpacked.

We had the opening Ceremony that first night. On Monday night, Clara and I got to talk to the Teen Program group about guide dogs and we both felt that this was the highlight of our week, to see the kids reactions and amazement of what these dogs do for us. Since we both have some vision, we took the harnesses off the dogs and Clara led the kids around in the hallway that was cleared out for us to give the kids a feel of what it was like to hold the harness handle. I held the dogs as the we opened it up to the kids to ask any questions they had.



(a photo of Kacie and Rei on the left- Kacie in a blue shirt and khaki pants, Clara and her yellow lab/golden cross from leader dogs on the right. Clara is wearing a dark shirt and a floral skirt. Both dogs are laying at their feet.)

The kids enjoyed the dogs so much that they asked for a group picture and all of them pulled out their cameras! Here's the group shot of all of us!




I also got to meet several long time online friends that I've known for several years now, but have never had the opportunity to meet in person. It was an amazing experience and even a relief to be somewhere where everyone absolutely "got it" in terms of my vision and hearing.

Coming home- rather heading back to Indiana and straight up north to a friends house for the weekend and then to Mike's family reunion proved to be quite difficult for me. While it is no fault of our friend and her family of 3 young children, it was not deaf blind friendly. I found myself tired, stressed to the max, and becoming short tempered. The drive home was not a pleasant one, as I'd reached my breaking point and wasn't hearing well, seeing well, and was frustrated with things not working as I was trying to get them to work. I was flat out in overload and the more tired/stressed I get, the more my vision/hearing diminishes and fluctuates. So once we got home after the reunion and a couple of days of good nights sleep in my own bed did absolute wonders for me. :)

Voting as a deaf blind person

Yeah, it's been a little longer than I promised, however I do have a good excuse. ;) Unfortunately the sickies went through our house and ugh, I don't think I've been that sick in a LOOOOONG time! Too gross to talk about, so we'll just leave it at it was BAD.

I've been thinking a lot lately about having Rei and being a person that is deaf blind and some of the things that I used to take for granted, that these days are starting to become a challenge for me. This all kind of started as a note was posted on my GDF list with an inquiry of how DB people vote and such, as a situation occurred in NY where a person asked for a braille ballot and the election board of that precinct falter and simply replied saying- well, no one has ever asked that before.

As it turns out, it was explained by someone from the NFB that in NY they have a law in effect that states their ballots must be a "full-face" ballot, which means ALL of the candidates and categories to vote for, must all be on one page/screen. Thus this combined with the law in printing regulations for paper size, there is just no physical way for the ballot to be printed in braille and meet all of the legal regulations. So in my advocacy experiences, I suggested that the person start with their legislative representative and that some work was needed there to see about getting the law changed in order to make braille ballots an option.

So then after the correspondences and the election that was quickly coming up, I began to wonder what my options are here in IN for voting as I continue to lose my vision. So I began to read the Indiana Code- which you can look up on the IN gov website and I contacted a fellow Partners grad who is very involved in working for accessible voting as well. We worked together last year with an email campaign and asking for people to voice and support that all satellite voting locations need to be accessible as well as during early voting and not just on election day itself.

I posed the question to him asking if braille ballots were even available here in IN. He responded that in Marion County that they were available but had to be requested in advance. He offered to contact my county election board and work on getting the process started for my county. I then began to wonder what I will indeed do as reading the voting screen becomes more difficult.

In the primaries, I had a hard time reading the screen not so much for the size, but because the background of the screen was a light grey and the text was a dark grey- not providing much contrast at all. So I began to research what the voting machines were for my county and found that our county has the Microvote Infinity machine in which has a screen that can be taken off and set onto the lap of a person in a wheelchair and has the ability to have a separate box plugged in to provide an audio reading of the ballot for the person, where a headphone jack is used to plug in a set of headphones. So my thought was since I'm using a set of Phonak Naida's with an ICOM, that I could possibly plug in to this- as I can do with any sort of device that accepts a headphone plug and be able to listen to the audio version.

So I'm thinking I've done my homework and I should be good to go. Election day comes and AC and I walk/ride about 3/4's of a mile to our polling place and we walk in. We were greeted as I have been each time very warmly and courteously and I sign in on the sheet and one of the judges comes up and asks, will you need assistance with voting, we can read the ballot to you and press the buttons for you if you need it. Now this is where it gets a little sticky. Indiana law states that the person with disabilities may designate someone to assist them in voting by doing this. However, the HAVA law that took effect a few years ago states that polling places must be accessible and where people can vote privately and independently if they choose to.

Since I had tried to be prepared I asked if they had an accessible machine. One of the registration ladies piped up "YES, we do!", but the other judge looked at her and was like well I don't think what we have will be able to help her. The accessible machine we have is for a person in a wheelchair. I then asked if they had a machine that would either enlarge the font or have audio capability. Then everyone began to stutter and scramble- several talking at once trying to determine if they did, the first judge that had offered to help me went to the back of the room and started digging through a Rubbermaid tub. Quickly he comes back and hands me an 8"x10" scratched up plastic magnifying sheet and says here's what we have, will this work for you? I looked at it and replied that I'd give it a try and see.

So I was fortunately able to still read most of the screen however I did have some difficulty, but I was able to make my way through it and cast my vote. I thanked them for their help and came on home a little frustrated and disappointed at what had taken place. I gave my friend a call and he and I both agree that it's more a training issue, that the polling place volunteers didn't know how to use the equipment that they had.

So that brings me to where do I go from here? I placed a call to my state representative and he quickly called me back and promised to look into it as well as ask about the braille ballot for me. He contacted the election board and called me back saying that they thought they had covered this in the volunteer training, however apparently some of the people didn't completely understand it. They would be sure to cover it more thoroughly in the next training and thank you for making them aware of this. As for the braille ballot- the person was on a committee where they were working with other counties on how to handle this and getting ballots printed ahead of time, however they weren't sure how that was going to work out. My rep called back and also suggested going to early voting at the county courthouse where the employees would definitely know the accessibility features of the machines, however that is 20 minutes away in order to get there. However he did say that he agreed that all of the polling places should be accessible though and that they'd work on it for the next election.

While it was an answer, I hope it was an earnest one. I find myself wondering how much longer will I be able to go and cast a vote on my own. While I know there is the absentee ballot process, there is something to be said for being able to independently go and vote. I really liked the comparison that my friend gave me when I mentioned some disagreement I had encountered from a sighted person about pursuing this. He said- tell the sighted person to give you their car keys. That he was sure the person had friends that would be more than willing to take them to the all the places they needed to go and that they'd be able to get there and the job be done, and then see what they had to say and if they were willing to hand over the car keys. It's about being able to be independent and even self dignity of holding on to the things in life that are slowly being taken away with the loss of vision.

I try hard to focus on the things I can still do and trust me, we have a jam packed and busy life with three kids and all of the activities we are involved in. I just find myself retreating at times and asking myself- how much longer will I be able to do this? Is this the last time I'll be able to do xyz? I read of others like myself who have lost pretty much most of the use of their central vision due to blurriness and cataracts - which I was told at my last appt that I do indeed have the very starts of them, and I find myself trying from time to time to do things by feel instead. I have a hard time with being still and I pray that I am able to find some sort of activities that I will enjoy as much as I enjoy in sewing and scrap booking.

For now, I have been very, very blessed that my family has rallied around me and are learning ASL with me. Mike and I are finding that we are using it more and more in our day to day interactions as I am just not picking things up verbally much anymore and unable to pick up the visual cues to understand the sounds as well with the loss of peripheral field. The signing is much simpler and it has helped with understanding each other and providing relief in my struggle to catch what is going on. It has helped me in the frustration of being able to communicate with my family and the kids are also picking it up as well and using it too when they can.

My goal is to eventually take up learning braille as well, so this is where I do wish to pursue the availability of at least being able to request a braille ballot in the future. We'll see what comes of it and so forth.

So yeah- for the time being I'll still vote at the polls, however I reluctantly realize that my time is drawing near, much sooner than I care to admit, where I am probably going to have to retreat to the ranks of others who vote via absentee ballot in order to perform my duty as a citizen to vote.

All I can say for the Deaf Blind out there that keep moving along- keep at it, one day at a time, one situation at at a time. To the sighted- be understanding and ready to hand over those car keys for to walk a mile in different shoes. ;) Night and hugs to you all!

New goals...

Our bible study small group is trying to take on life in a new level, setting SMART goals and we paired off to be accountability partners with another group member.

As I got to thinking about my goals and what I wanted to achieve out of this, several things came to mind:

1. Personal growth in learning the bible and prayer journal ling at least 3 times a week and try to read from the bible every day.

2. Blog here at least 3 times a week. Even if it's just a short note.

3. Kick start the journey that Rei and I are beginning to our 2nd Mini Marathon with walking 2-3 miles 3 times a week and cross training on the wii fit on the off days.

4. I have several financial goals as well- including getting ourselves debt free except the mortgage payment within the next year. We are close- just have to keep at it!

5. Some other little things I wrote down for relationships with my family that I wanted to do as well.

So feel free to give me a shout out if you see I'm slacking on my messages here!


Rei and I are doing well. We've been busy here with kids, school, parent teacher conferences, the birth of a good friend's new baby boy, and a surprise birthday party for another good friend.

The girls have amazed us this year in their growth at school. KT is now reading at a collegiate level and is the top in her High Ability class for reading, at a Lexile of 1357. While it's a good problem, it's a little scary in trying to find materials she's able to read and still be appropriate content wise and still challenge her. Much to my surprise, her teacher says she's a powerhouse all around and is above average even in her class on the math and language skills too. She definitely didn't get that from me. LOL! Her teacher tells us that it's very rare to have a student of her abilities, where she's strong in both the Math and the Languages. Usually the boys get the math, the girls get the language stuff, but she's doing very well in all areas.

MD also had an awesome conference in that she is above average in her class and grade peers in her math scores and has excelled/mastered all of her skills she's to master at this point in the school year. We were surprised when she came home a couple of weeks ago and saying that she's jumped from a Guided Reading level of H to level L. Her teacher explained that the end of the year goal for first grade is to be at level I, so she's doing well there too.

We shared with her teacher too that we were amazed in the changes we've seen in MD's work ethics and abilities, as she's really taken off and is beginning to strive to achieve better, instead of laying low and only doing what she has to in order to get by, which is what seems to be what she's always done in the past. We can see her becoming confident in her ability to do well and striving to reach for more and this really makes us HAPPY! :)

AC on the other hand is downright scaring us in day to day activities. This kid has essentially taught himself how to read and is picking up from both of his sisters every day and trying to keep up with them on all levels. He's jumping on the computer and practicing all the math problems and spelling homework he can get to that MD has worked on and understands and loves it. He finds himself bored if I don't work to challenge him on various things. We are also working on ASL letters and basic signs that we can remember in our day to day activities. We shall see if he goes to school with his sisters or not next fall. If he continues as we foresee, we see him being in the High Ability class starting K next fall- which in turn would mean he'd be at a different school for K & 1st grade. Only time will tell...

Well, it's late and here's to a Blessed weekend to all of you readers! More to come soon!

Helloooooo out there,

Wow, It's been all summer without saying much. Haven't really kept up with much of my online stuff since our schedules have been pretty much on the go and life with three kids is busier than ever.

We found ourselves doing a balancing act through the summer and now on into the fall as well. Soon after this weekend we'll get a a bit of a repreive as one sport season ends.

Through the summer we had KT in recreational gymnastics on Mondays. Tuesdays was the family night of taking American Sign Sign Language class, taken with Dad, Sue, Sue's parents, my Aunt, Katie's teacher from last year, and our good friend Karen. Wednesday and Fridays, MD was at gymnastics and Thursdays, Mike volunteered at church with the IT dept. Saturday evenings is church and then we have our small group bible study on Sunday evenings.

So this summer ended up in two trips to Chicago for our family, as Rei and I went up in June, KT spent the week at Camp Allendale and had a blast in spite of a serious viral bug going through and taking out 30% of the campers and staff there. Then in July, Rei and I were thoroughly blessed to serve on the Indy West Great Banquet Womens Weekend #18 team as a speaker. The Lord worked in such amazing ways that weekend and at the end of the weekend there were 5 ladies that were baptized and 13 all together that either came to Christ or re-dedicated themselves to him. :)

August saw Mike making a trip up to Ms. Pearl's, as he was roped in by Yours Truly to set up and fix a lot of computer issues for her. She was working on two VERY old systems and through generous donations, we were able to set her up with an updated system and get her in really good working shape, both for her and the moms that she serves. He spent the entire weekend working on puter stuff while there. So it was good. :)

August was also busy with school starting up- MD starting 1st grade and going school all week. KT moved into Mrs. Chadd's 4/5 High Ability class. Another project over the summer and ongoing is we have been working with Mrs. Chadd and the Laney project. See below for more details on that! AC started up with Flag football, which he turned out to be quite a fast runner for his team. He's good at it- he does it all the time! LOL! MD is also doing her gymnastics on the pre-team. When she moves up the next level- she'll then start competing. KT has started with travel basketball, which she's improving by leaps and bounds, though we are committed every other Sunday afternoon pretty much solely to basketball.

The Laney Project:
Last year- the Pup Putt Project was a HUGE success and you can read more here:

WTHR Pup Putt Article

Laney came out of the Pup Putt project in hopes to train her as a therapy dog for the school. So this summer, we started meeting on a weekly basis, holding training sessios for both Laney and Pippa, her littermate whom the Wassens purchased to train as service dog for them. So we were busy working with the dogs and have been working on a continual basis in different things to train Laney to be the dog she's expected to be.

There has been a couple of articles and a story about Laney, which are here:

Indy Star News article

Laney came into our lives through Mrs. Chadd this summer as we met each week to begin training Laney as a Therapy dog for the school. We've worked with both Laney and Pippa, Laney's littermate that the Wassens brought home to be a service dog for Mr. Wassen. There has been an article and a news story about the amazing impact that Laney has made so far.

Indy star article:

Fox 50 News story:

Since school has started we've Rei and I have visited KT's class to help with Laney, MD has continued on in her gymnastics, and KT in Basketball. AC is having his last football game this weekend. I've been involved in a moving bible study by Kay Warren called Dangerous Surrender. Mike and I have been taking the second level of ASL class with family too, as we continue to try to learn together.

The kids are excited as we embark onto October and fall and the decorations we do for Halloween.

Time to call it a night, as it took me a couple of hours to type this post as we watched the movie, Road to Perdition and was pretty good. :)

Hugs to all and will try not to be such a stranger in the near future.

Dog Chat from Rei- Mission Trip to Chicago South side

Mom started packing and putting stuff together, getting my food and stuffing all this stuff into a bag so I knew we were about to head somewhere. She said something about going to the south side of Chicago to a very rough neighborhood to help out Ms. Pearl, of the the Roseland "Good News" Daycare. She said that Ms. Pearl is an amazing woman that provides free childcare for teen moms in the poverty stricken area to finish school and try to make something better of themselves. Mom and I had went up to Ms. Pearl's back in December, but it was just a day trip and we stayed there in the daycare all day and helped with stuff inside, but mom said this time we'd be staying overnight for a couple of days and get to make some new friends, help with the daycare, do some chores for Ms. Pearl, and help feed the homeless throughout the weekend.

So we got up early Friday morning and Mr. Ed, our trip leader came by and picked us up in the church mini-bus and we met up with the other people going on the trip with us. We all loaded up tons of bags and boxes of clothes that Mom said were going up to be given to the homeless in the area. So once the stuff was loaded up, everyone split up between the mini bus and the 15 passenger van that the group was going in. Mom and I rode in the bus so I could lay in the aisle and have a little more room to spread out since all the seats were taken with all the stuff in the back seats. We took off and made our way up north from Indianapolis to the Merrilville area and made a pit stop to eat some lunch and stretch our legs and more importantly so I could go break!

Everyone loaded up again and it was about another hour before we pulled into the neighborhood and got out. Ms. Pearl was loading up her daycare kids with another church group that had been there for the week and doing VBS for them, to head to the park. We were standing and waiting as everyone unloaded and hear the sirens of police cars and shouting as we were greeted by the norm of this area, and it was explained to Mom that someone had jumped in someone Else's car and taken off with it.

Everyone took their bags and bedding to their sleeping areas and Ms. Pearl warned us that no one was to be in the building besides us and to be mindful and not to hesitate to tell someone to get out. She was going to the park to take the daycare kids as on the third Friday of the summer months and with the end of VBS week, they always go to the park and cook hot dogs and have chips to feed the homeless. We all then worked on getting all the clothing out and set in the yard and then we put up the tent in the yard for the "street fair" we'd be having on Saturday morning.

Mom tied me down with some water in the shade as it was doggone hot out there and the guys that stayed behind started working on the deadbolt lock for Ms. Pearl's garage, since people keep breaking in and stealing things. The gals that that stayed behind and Mom started going through all the clothes and sorting them by sizes. After they spent a couple of hours sorting, Mr. Ed came and rounded up the group and we all loaded up in the van and went to the park too. We were to go walk around and play with the kids and give testimony to the people there. Ms. Pearl told everyone that the homeless all congregate in the park during the day with their children since it's shaded, there is the water pad to cool people off, and the kids can play and be near by.

Mom and I got out and we went and walked over to the area where the other group was passing out hot dogs and chips to the homeless and people that came up and we kind of kept our distance as Mom was worried for some reason about people being afraid of me. Ms Pearl had told Mom that in that area, that all dogs are mean fighting dogs and that the people are afraid of big dogs like me. So we walked up to some of our friends we came with and there were several little girls with them and talking. Mom asked if I could come up and sit down with them and the little girl said yes, but she was very afraid. Mom put me on the other side of her from the little girl and the girl asked what my name was. She asked Mom if she was going to tell me to bite her over and over again. Mom was patient and told her no, that I was a good girl and began to rub my belly. I rolled over on my side and the little girl started to try to pet me. Mom kept telling her that I was a good girl and wouldn't bite. After about 20 minutes,the little girl was petting me and had become comfortable with me and wasn't so afraid anymore.

The other people watched Mom and I very closely and kept their distance from us, so Mom and I went over and sat down on a bench with one of the other church group ladies who was holding a daycare baby that had fallen asleep. Then when the groups began to gather up and the food was all gone, Mom and I went over and stood with the rest of the group. JD, who is Ms. Pearl's grandson, he came running over and asked if he could visit with me as soon as he saw us since he loves me from when Mom and I visited before. Mom told him that he could pet me and then the other kids saw this and became curious about me. They came over and after some re-assurance that I wouldn't bite and seeing that JD was loving all over me and I wasn't being mean, the other kids began to pet me too, which I was all over it, rolling over on my back so they could rub my belly! Mom's friends laughed and Ms. Janice commented that I can make a friend anywhere I go!

Before long it was time to leave and head back to the daycare so we all loaded back up in the van and went back to Ms. Pearl's place. After we got back, Mom checked to see if there was anything she could help with and since everything was pretty much done and ready for Saturday, everyone was pretty much taking it easy and sitting around the yard. JD had come back with us and asked if he and I could play, so Mom went and got out my Kong and took off my harness. OH BOY! Was I a happy pup! JD and I played for nearly 2 hours as Mom watched us. He'd throw my Kong and I'd run and get it and come running back and lay down in the shade in front of Mom. If she hadn't have told him the command to "drop it" I'd have had it made! I knew though that since Mom was sitting there, I had to be a good girl, so I'd drop the Kong so JD could grab it and throw it again. He even went inside and got my bowl and filled it up with fresh water for me too. Boy we had so much fun playing together!

Ms. Pearl soon fried up a bunch of fish for everyone and goodness, no one shared any with me! Too bad us guide dogs have to be such good dogs and leave the people food alone. Mom was sitting in a circle of people and everyone had such yummy smelling food, and yeah I was watching for someone to drop something, but no one did. Boo! After dinner, it had cooled off and the weather was really nice, so Mom and everyone else went outside and sat and talked about various things until the mosquito's came out and started to bite. So then everyone went inside and started to get settled in for bed. Mom and I slept on a double air mattress with all the other ladies in the downstairs room to the daycare.

Everyone got up early on Saturday morning and began to set up all the stuff for the street fair. Ms Pearl had probably 10 large boxes of clothing and Mom's group had brought up a bunch of clothing in bags and boxes along with some baby gear to give to the homeless. Mom and all the people set up 8 big tables of clothing and stuff to give to the homeless and there was a ton of toys too. It was amazing, as many of the people we saw at the park came and so did many in the neighborhood, who were unemployed and the ladies of the women's shelter came by and Mom and the others were happy to see the smiles on their faces as they left with nice clothes to wear for them and their children. Was was even more amazing is that in 2 hours nearly everything was gone.

Everything had been set up outside the fenced yard to keep most of the people from coming into the daycare itself and to minimize the possibility of things being stolen. Mom stayed inside the fence so people wouldn't be afraid of me and helped with sorting out the clothes held back for reserve by size as did Mr. Ed and several of the other guys who were re-roofing the back porch that had lost all it's shingles in the latest storm. The street fair lasted from 9am to 1pm and then everyone helped with cleaning up the remains of things and then worked about the daycare with several repairs that were needed. They cleaned the gutters of the 3 story building and trimmed tree limbs that were overhanging the neighbor's house. Mr. Ed finished the roof and they put a dead-bolt lock on Ms. Pearl's garage since people kept breaking in and taking things. Mom and I actually went and laid down for a bit because Mom had a headache from the heat that day. When she woke up, Ms. Pearl had suggested the group eat dinner and then go to downtown Chicago to Navy Pier and walk around.

Mom let me snooze on the air mattress while she got a quick shower and then we went upstairs and oh man, Ms. Pearl had made some finger licking good ribs. Mom and everyone else was eating like uncivilized dogs, using their hand and chowing down on them ribs and they call us dogs messy. Several people asked Mom if I could have the bones, but noooooo, Mom wouldn't let me have just one. I gave the people all around Mom the saddest puppy dog eyes I could muster, but they still didn't give me any.

After dinner, everyone loaded up in the van and Ms. Pearl drove us to Navy Pier and we hung out for a couple of hours and Mom and I walked up and down the Pier. There were lots of people and things to do. There were all kinds of boat rides, food to eat and shops. Mom said there were some amusement rides up on the upper level, but we didn't go up there. Mom was looking for some gelato, but she couldn't find what she was looking for, so she and Ms. Sherry got a waffle cone from the Ben & Jerry's stand. Mom took some pictures too of the Chicago skyline, the light house, and one of me with some flowers too. The group met back up and walked through the indoor corridor and through the stain glass exhibit which Mom said was just beautiful. We all loaded back up in the van and headed back to Ms. Pearl's place for our last night in south Chicago.

It was an interesting ride home, as Ms. Pearl drove along Michigan Avenue and we got to see the parks along the lake front and the Taste of Chicago was in town. There was also a Dance Summer event happening with a lot of people and loud music too. I just hunkered down between mom's legs though so I wouldn't be stepped on as people were all tight together in the van. Then as we got close to Ms. Pearl's place, we had to turn around and go down a different street since all the power lines had come down for some reason and was laying across the road. Then we saw another strange sight since there was this big fire because some people had set fire to a log or something, right on the sidewalk! Mom couldn't believe it because it wasn't even 10 feet away from the house, but they were burning something right on the sidewalk and the fire was shooting up 2-3 feet in the air too. Crazy humans!

After we got back to the daycare, everyone started getting ready for bed right away since we had to leave the daycare to head to Ms. Pearl's church at 5:30 to fix breakfast for the homeless. Mom decided to put some more air in our air mattress since she was hitting the floor the first night. So she pulled out the 10+ year old air pump to do this. You'd think that Mom would have realized something was wrong when she got a bit of a zap when she took a hold of the handle and pressed the on button to make sure it was plugged in. She continued on though and hooked it up to her air mattress and hit the button again. Holy Smokes, I don't think Mom has ever moved that fast! Sparks went flying into the air and Mom kept hitting the floor where they'd landed. Ms. Emily that was right beside Mom let out a yelp too and I didn't know what was going on! All I know is that Mom told Ms. Emily to unplug that sparking contraption and went and threw it in the trash saying something about the wire was broke and she nearly caught Ms. Pearl's daycare on fire with it and that her heart was beating faster than anything! Of course I had to get my nose in to make sure Mom was OK and sniffed her fingers and hands all over and gave her quite a scolding look for all this!

Sunday morning, Ms. Emily's alarm clock didn't go off on her cell phone, so Mom and Ms. Emily woke up late. They had both laid their clothes and stuff out the night before, so they both were able to get ready in amazing time. Mr. Ed offered to take me out to break and since I had drank so much water the day before in the heat, I was more than ready to do my business quickly even though it wasn't Mom on the end of the leash telling me to get busy.

So everyone as all gussied up and pretty and we all loaded up again and headed the several blocks to Ms. Pearl's church. Everyone pitched in to carry stuff inside and I guided Mom down the stairs and into the church ever so carefully since there were all these uneven spots on the floor. Most of the ladies immediately went to work in the kitchen to start preparing the pancakes, sausage patties, and stuff to feed nearly 90 homeless people and our group too. Mom and I went into the dining hall area with the others and Mom put me at a down-stay in front of a podium. Since it was well lit, she was helping set up the tables and chairs and before long, she realized that the podium had been moved and she couldn't find me. Mom started calling for me in a frantic voice, which I don't know why as I was right behind her. Mr. Ed started laughing at Mom and told her to turn around. She did and saw that I'd been right behind her as she'd been walking around looking for me. I don't know why she didn't think I'd stay with her!

Once the room was all set up, Mom and a few other people sat down at a table in the corner. I took the opportunity to snooze at Mom's feet and the homeless began to come in and sit down at the tables. Mom said she was going to stay put so she wouldn't cause an alarm amongst the people and I had an itch and so I stood up and shook. Mom just looked to see what the reaction would be and of course everyone in the room heard my harness rattle. One gentleman came running over and sat down next to us and he asked if he could visit with me. He missed his dog terribly, as he was now homeless, but was working hard to stay sober and to be an example to the others. He talked with Mom and Mr. Ed for a good while, while rubbing my ears and you could just tell as he became more relaxed and a big smile spread across his face.

Before long, it was time to head up to the worship service, that would precede breakfast, so everyone moved upstairs to the sanctuary. Thankfully it was much cooler up there. Most of Mom's group tried to spread out through the sanctuary to try to intermingle with the people that came in. I laid at Mom's feet, just as I do when we go to our church and pretty much everyone didn't even know I was there. Unfortunately for Mom though, this was a smaller church and she didn't have any assitive listening devices, so she was able to make out very little of the sermon. The Chicago accent along with the deep guttural voice of the pastor was very hard for her to understand, but I was proud of Mom as she stayed awake through the sermon even though her eyes were getting quite droopy! Right before the end of the service, Mr. Johnathan tapped Mom on the shoulder and told her we had to head downstairs to finish with set up for breakfast. Mom stood up and I did my usual shake out the willies, and you could have heard a pin drop in that room. EVERYONE turned and looked at Mom and the looks of surprise and stares at Mom and I was very intense. Everyone knew I was there then!

Mom and I went on downstairs and we manned the juice station. I laid quietly at Mom's feet and she handed out cups of juice to the people coming through the line. After everyone had been through line, Mom and I want through line too and she got some breakfast for her. We tried to sit down with some people but the silence was thick and Mom kept trying to come up with something to start a conversation. She couldn't refer to the sermon since she didn't hear it and being that these were homeless people, she couldn't ask what they did for a living, where they lived, or about their kids. Before we knew it, the people around us had cleared out and we were soon sitting on our own. So when Mom was done eating, we got up and started to pick things up and clean up since the men of the church had their Sunday school in the same room. Mom and I started getting the folding chairs and carrying them over to the rack to hang up.

Mom went to get some chairs from the table along the wall and there was an older man sitting at the end of the table, just all dressed in black. Since Mom still has central vision, she could see and nearly feel his piercing eyes following us about the room, so when she needed to approach and go around him to get to the chairs she wanted, she asked him if she could go around him. The man jumped up out of his chair and grabbed the chair and practically ran across the room. Mom just shook her head and we continued on our way and could feel the searing stares as the people watched us moving about the room. We quickly ran out of time and it was time for Sunday school to start. The homeless had all left and it was church members still around helping with things. The ladies all went down the hall to join the women's Sunday school and the men stayed there and joined in on the men's Sunday school class. It was a good lesson in I Thessalonians and we were warmly received there.

As we were in Sunday school, a very strong storm came through and as one lady was giving her testimony, she talked of how she felt that God was telling her, "Be Still! Be Still!", we heard a loud crack of thunder and the power in the whole building went out and stayed out. Everyone just gasped in awe and one lady said, OK Lord, we hear you!. LOL! Once through our lesson there, we went back to the entry way and it turns out the men were longer winded than the ladies, so the ladies helped bring some food in for a dinner later on in the day. We also went on out to get to the van and found nearly the entire parking lot under water as it had rained so hard in such a short period of time. A couple of Mom's friends just took their shoes off and waded through the water. The water felt so good to me since the blacktop was hot from the sun. If Mom had let me, I'd have rolled and played in the huge puddle, but since I was working I had to be a good girl.

Mom and I hopped into the van and the men soon came out and got in to go too. We all went back to the daycare and unfortunately had to miss the main service since we had to leave to head back to Indiana. Everyone finished packing all of their things and got everything loaded up in the vans. We all gathered up at the front steps of Ms. Pearl's place and got the neighbor to take a group picture of everyone. So we all loaded up and headed back to Indiana and boy was Mom and I ever glad to be back home in our own beds and some good working AC! We had a lot of fun though and Dad will be going back to see Ms. Pearl in August, since he is going to help her set up a new computer.

Mom and KT and I will be going back in December too. When we go back, we'll be helping Ms. Pearl fill gift bags with baby goodies for Ms. Pearl to take to the 5 area hospitals to give to all the moms that are in the Labor & Delivery or Maternity wards on Christmas eve. Ms. Pearl and her friends will share the good news about Jesus and give care packages to these moms so they have some nice things for thier new babies.or to pray with them if they've experienced loss.

Mom says that she and Ms. Char have plenty of blankets, but they are still needing baby bottles, small bottles of baby shampoo, baby powder, baby lotions, onesies, and sleepers for the babies. If you have any or come across some that Mom can take to Ms. Pearl, please give Mom a buzz! So I'm really looking forward to going back and seeing Ms. Pearl and JD again!

High paws and puppy kisses,
Rei

P.S. Mom says she'll post pictures tomorrow probably, after she gets some of the pictures from a couple of other people.

The Spoon Theory- written by Christine Miserandino

I received an email from my stepmom with this link, and it is truly the best way I have seen to explain it... Sooo true and well written. I hope you enjoy and learn:

Here is the link which the following article is at. Check it out.

The Spoon Theory