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.