Aunt Becca's fiance, Lee, has a good friend, Dan, who has a P-51D World War II aircraft. Today, he flew it into the local airport to let us see it, especially Granddaddy, a HUGE buff of World War II. The HUGE surprise was that Rebecca had planned for Granddaddy to take a BACKSEAT RIDE with Dan in the plane!! It was a great time and a fun experience to see a beautiful aircraft and see a dream come true for Granddaddy!! Here are a couple of photos.......

In January, I ran the Walt DIsney World Half Marathon with teh Run For Our Sons fundraising and support organization. I ran and trained alongside my very dear friend, Kim, whose son Barett has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. We had a team of six and taised over $10,000!!!! I trained with Kim lat year, but she asked me to do the training and race with her this year. It was an awesome experience that also turned into a two night girl weekend with Kim and her two sisters. I have to mention the emotional element to this experience. I am so appreciative of my friendship with Kim and her family. Our children are the same ages and genders, and we all homeschool. The girls take piano together, and when we have Garrett and Barett together, they are often accused of being twins!!! I admire Kim and her husband for the courage and faith they have in this medically frustrating journey they travel with Barett on earth. As I trained, whenever I would feel tired or lazy, I would think about the boys with Duchenne (almost all Duchenne sufferers are male) and thinking of them not walking usually past age 12, I could keep on running for them for days. As we would run the half marathon, I would see some of the Duchenne boys along the way in their RUn For Our SOns lime green shirts, waving signs to encourage US from their wheelchairs. I was in tears several times. It was very hubling. I would run constantly as long as I am alive, could this bring an end to this monster of a disease.
The run was COLD!!! Yes, in Orlando, FL, as we ran it rained, sleeted and SNOWED!!!! Then the day after the run, Kim and her sisters and our other two local teammates went home and I stayed for Addie and Ainslee to fly over and meet me for four days at Disney. Nina (my mom), met us and we had a BLAST!!! It was very cold, but we made the best of it, and because of the cold and no HOT Addie felt wonderful and had lots of energy. As always, we cherished time with my mom. We had a dreamy time!!!

In the past two weeks, we have enjoyed watching Addie experience her first 4-H Livestock shows as an exhibitor. She showed two lambs and also competed in the photography contest with three of her photographs. The parish (county to those not in Louisiana) show was two weeks ago, and the district show is this weekend. At the parish show, her cousin Christopher showed one of her lambs since that lamb was a little jumpier than the other and we were concerned about It knocking Addie down and hurting her still-healing arm. At the parish show, Addie's lightest lamb was th eonly on in its class, and the heavier one placed, but not too high. Today, though, the light one was once again only on in its class, but the heavier one got second out of five. We were all so excited. Addie chose not to show in the showmanship classes (where exhibitor is judged on how he or she shows the animal) as she was not yet comfortable handling the lambs without them wearing halters.....not cool to wear halter in showmanship, and with Addie not being able to work her lambs much because of the arm injury, she was not ready for that. SO below are photos of Addie and Christopher with the lambs, Addie with her award-winning photography, and one of Addie and two of her biggest fans.....Granddaddy and Daddy-O. ENjoy!!!