Sad Note

As many of you know, Josh plays hockey with some friends for a club they call the "Enken Bears". I just got an e-mail from Josh that Dan (who is one of the guys Josh knows best, one of our friend Bean's good friends) lost his dad this week. This is bad enough, but Josh also loved playing when "Coach" was there. Dan's dad played fairly regularly (he even had an "ask coach" section on the Enken Bears web site!) and Josh is pretty in shock by this whole thing. "Coach" wasn't very old, I'd guess maybe his early 50s? I guess he had surgery and was at home after the surgery when it happened. Please keep Dan and his family, and the hockey guys for that matter, in your prayers in the coming weeks.

One More Quick AHS Note

Ok, now we're up to $820 with 2 new donations. We're in 5th on the ticker! I did some quick math from last year and if everyone gave what they gave us last year, we will come up just short of our goal. I'll up my own donation to cover that, no problem, but like I said, I'd love to BEAT that goal! Any chance we could make $2500??? Let's see what we can do! You guys are awesome! Thank you so much for supporting the animals! Your money goes to help abused animals find good homes, helps control the pet population, and helps people find furry family members! I'll have more stats soon...Your donation is tax deductible!

Just Thought This Was Cute

I took some pictures for Josh today since he's been working such crazy hours (he was at work from 7 a.m. to after 10 p.m. yesterday...Sunday... and he left the house at 5 a.m. today!) he doesn't get to see Riley much, but I liked this picture so I thought I'd share it with everyone...it's one of the few times Roo is using her left hand to "color"~she almost always does the right-handed thing. I know it doesn't really make a huge difference, but being left-handed myself I tend to cheer for the left:)

If You See a Cute One - buy it!

I posted a while back about Hip Grips, reuseable coffee sleeves for your coffee cup. I have not been able to find them in stores down here and I sent my mom looking while she's in Nisswa today, but if she doesn't find them, if you see them in a store call me! I want one. This is the one I bought for my Aunt, the photo is from their web site. I don't want this one, since I already bought it for my aunt, but there are a ton of cute Grips on the site!

Monday AHS Update

We had a good week last week! We're up to about $735, you guys are awesome! We're still a long way from $2000, but if we have a few more good weeks like that we're golden! Special Thank You to those of you who have increased your donation in memory of Nala, it's so generous of you and it's such a nice way to remember our puppy! And a very special Thank You too for those of you who are in the $100 Club! You are awesome and we couldn't make our goal without you! Every dollar counts, so please consider even a $10 donation. To pledge online: click here.

I have an incentive for the month of March. For every donation I receive in March, I'll put your name in a drawing for 2 Friday passes to Country Jam in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in July. So far, Pat Green, Little Big Town and Big and Rich will be there Friday and more acts are TBD. You can upgrade them to weekend passes and see Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, etc. if you're interested. Check out the web site above for more acts and details.

Side Note: If you're looking for more ways to make charitable contributions this year, the KS95 Radio-thon for Children's Cancer Research is this Thursday through Saturday. This is a special cause for me because it involves places that Tori was treated for her cancer. I know I ask a lot of you guys, and thank you for always being so generous with your time and money. I really do appreciate it!!!

Dooms Day: Conversion Begins

Many of you have heard me complain about this "conversion" for a while now. Josh and Darin work for the same company and they are converting from one computer system to another system company-wide and the process has been never-ending (we're talking years of delays and schedule changes). Well, this weekend is FINALLY the big conversion! 

I'm excited that it's underway, but Josh tells me that it may be months (ahhhh, the eternal optimist) before things are running smoothly and he may be working crazy hours...like tomorrow he has to go to work (on a Sunday) at like 7 a.m. and he doesn't know when he will be home. Darin had to spend the night downtown! So if I'm looking for someone to do stuff with, it's probably because I've forgotten what my hubby looks like:) Thanks to our friends who took us out tonight for what may be our last "date" in months! We had a great time;)

Two Birds with one Donation!

I know I do updates for the AHS Walk on Mondays, so I won't tell you where I am with donations until then, but Josh, Riley and I attended a kick-off breakfast this morning and got to see some of the prizes that will be given away this year and get info on why they need your donations. They are really excited about this online donation process this year and I thought I would encourage those of you who are interested to check it out. I didn't do it last year because it was the first year for online pledges and they were working out some bugs, but that is all good and they had huge success last year!

They also made a point that got me even more excited to use this tool. Making your donation online GREATLY reduces the number of resources, including paper products, needed to process each donation. So giving your green is green too! Also, more of your money can go directly to helping the animals! Remember, if you want to learn more about the walk, the AHS web site is always linked on the right side of my page, or you can click here. More to come on how your donations help the puppies, kitties ("meow-meow's" as Riley calls them), birdies, bunnies, etc!