Fun having and Fund Raising

This Thursday, Nathan took part in his school's First Grade Concert! He told us that he was a little nervous, but once he came out on to the stage, with the rest of his class, he seemed relaxed. We were so proud of him, as he sang every word of every song. His actions were also perfect and he seemed to be having a great time! The first graders were led by their music teacher who did a fantastic job with them! The performance was a huge success, and afterward, to celebrate, we stopped at our favorite dessert place, Menchie's, for a decadent frozen yogurt, with all kinds of delicious toppings! For your enjoyment, here is a the first grader's singing Do Re Mi!

The next day, Liesel started cooking up a storm in the kitchen, baking cutie pies, fudge and brownies to name a few! She was in charge of the Bake Sale at the fund-raising dinner for our friends, the Muth family, and was busily adding to her inventory!

That evening we all headed to the church that was hosting the Spaghetti dinner fund-raising event. As I mentioned last week, Olive Garden, donated most of the food, including bread sticks and salads. The food was pretty darn good! In addition to the main meal, Liesel had two tables, and the floor beneath, stacked with cakes, cookies, and plenty of other dishes piled high with sugar and/or chocolate! By the end of the evening,  most of these dishes had been bought by people attending the dinner. But wait! There's more! Children from the two schools that the Char and Jim taught at, provided gift baskets that were all being auctioned off to raise additional funds. Other sponsors offered orchards, box tickets to some of Cleveland's professional sporting events, rounds of golf etc, to make a huge variety of packages to bid on! The event was very successful, and apparently over 400 spaghetti dinners were dished up! 

We love living in a community that rallies around those that need help. Thank you to all who came out and supported our friends!

Flights, Friends and Fund-raising

I was fortunate enough to spend a day in Chicago this week for a whirlwind trip to Google's offices. This was the first time I had set foot in this impressive city, so I took a couple of hours to savor it. I embarked on a two mile walk from the city center to the world famous Navy Pier, an entertainment precinct that juts out into Lake Michigan. After taking in the impressive skyline, and majestic boats, and the ferris wheel, I headed back downtown to meet up with a Googler. She took me to the Google Cafeteria for lunch which consisted of shrimp, pesto chicken and white pizza! Afterward, a colleague and I attended a Google Hackathon from 2-8pm before heading back to the hotel to call it a night.

On Saturday, good friends of ours that had moved down to Pittsburgh two years ago were visiting Cleveland, and chose to spend the afternoon with us. Liesel got to spend some quality time with her friend, while Nathan and Josh had fun playing with her two boys! Then a little later that evening, our friend Char, dropped off her son Josh to play while she went to visit her husband in the Assisted Living facility. Nathan and Josh were loving spending time with friends for the majority of the day. After her visit with her husband, Char and her daughter joined us for a delicious dinner made by Liesel. The cherry on top was her dessert which consisted of Cutie Pies - very similar to an eclair, filled with custard and covered with a dark chocolate topping!

On Sunday evening, Liesel attended a fund-raising meeting for our friends, the Muth family. This Friday evening, there is going to be a Spaghetti dinner held for them at $15 per head. They are expecting around 350 people to attend! In conjunction with dinner, there will be a silent auction, baskets to be raffled, as well as a bake sale which Liesel is organizing. One of the amazing things that we have learned is that large corporations in the USA have a heart! The entire spaghetti dinner, along with bread sticks, pasta sauces and salads are all being donated by a large restaurant chain, Olive Garden. Not only are they providing the food, but also any equipment necessary to prepare the food! We are looking forward to Friday and pray that enough funds will be raised for the Muth family as they continue through their difficult journey. 

Reasons we love the USA:

1. On Friday night, our local library was kicking off National Library week with a fantastic Magician's show. WOW, what a show it was! The magician, Rick Smith Jr, is nationally known artist, and has appeared on show's such as America's Got Talent, The Jay Leno Show, the Ellen Degeneres and Ripley's Believe It or Not! So definitely not your standard amateur magician!! He holds a record in the Guinness Book of Records for the person who can throw a playing card the longest distance! That said, Rick was B R I L L I A N T, and had the kids engrossed while keeping the parents entertained! At one point, he had a child hold up a stalk of celery, and then from about 10 feet away, he threw a playing card that flew straight through the vegetable, cutting it in half! The best part about the evening, was that it was FREE OF CHARGE!! 
2. Earlier this week, Liesel spotted an online coupon for a furniture store, that if you bought it for $35, they will give you a credit for $125! It just so happened that Nathan needed a new mattress this week, so we stopped in to the store on Saturday. We found a Sealy mattress that cost $200. The store gave us a 20% discount on the spot, dropping the price to $160. After Sales Tax and applying the coupon, my final bill was $45! So at the end of the day, we paid a total of $80 for a $200 mattress! Kind of makes Morkels (a South African furniture chain) look pretty stupid!
3. Spring is in the air (again!) after a cooler week. It was a gorgeous day here with temperatures in the upper-seventies (mid twenties Celsius). We started the day by going to church. Afterward we came home, changed out of our Sunday clothes into shorts and t-shirts and played some football outside! The weather was wonderful, and so tonight we are sleeping with our windows open, listening to the sounds of frogs and crickets, until they are replaced by the early bird's chirping!

Christ, the Lord, is Risen today!

Happy Easter to all my friends and family! I want to start off with something I saw in church today, and found it extremely powerful! I also shared this on Facebook earlier today.

Early this morning, the McCarthy's were all outside in their pyjamas (except for Nathan who got ready for Church extra early) in search of the Easter Bunny's stash that was hidden around the front and back yards! Josh, obviously taking after his father, started devouring the chocolate alost immediately upon finding it, where as Nathan built up quite a colorful collection of eggs, and still has most of them intact in his bedroom somewhere.

After the hunt, the rest of us got dressed and ready for church. The church was packed! It's unfortunate that some people only set foot inside the church on Christmas and Easter. At least today, they were presented with a great message! Not only did the Twitter video speak volumes, but the message was great too!

For Easter lunch, Liesel prepared a delicious roast lamb with mint jelly, my favorite! There wasn't much time to savor the meal, since we had to hit the road. Liesel and the boys were joining me on my business trp to Grand Rapids, MI, with one pit stop along the way, IKEA! After two hours of driving, we pulled into Liesel's favorite home store, checked the kids into the supervised play area, and then walked around the showroom, finding some great deals. Carry-on luggage for Nathan and Josh, a kitchen light, a summer duvet for Nathan, were just some of the purchased made today. What made this trip better was that there was a special on today that if you spent $100 or more, then your entire meal would be free! So we treated ourselves to an early dinner, that was "on the house".  After checking out, we drove another 2 hours west to Grand Rapids, and checked into te hotel for the night. Before climbing into bed, the boys went down and swam in the heated pool before relaxing in the whirlpool! Not a bad way to end the day!

All's well

It's 10pm and all's well in Cleveland, Ohio.
This weekend was a regular weekend in the McCarthy household. Nothing special to report on, and no photos to display. On weekends like these, I don't have enough material for a full blog, so unfortunately this is it for this week! Stay tuned for new adventures next week!