On the 11th Day of Christmas

On the 10th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me, another date night! We went back and forth about canceling our date night in New Orleans but Olivia was doing so well we did end up going through with it (and we were just a short 20 minute drive away). We went out to dinner with a group of my sorority sisters and some of their husbands. We went to the casino for a bit and then headed to Pat O'Brian's for Hurricanes with some of Mike's fraternity brothers. As we were walking back to the hotel we noticed the shadow outline of the touchdown Jesus in the French Quarter. I know that technically it's "Ascension of Jesus" statue but it will always be "Touchdown Jesus" to us, it's a Loyola thing.



In the morning we enjoyed a walk through the Quarter. This street performer was awesome, gotta love his metallic alligator.


We ended with beignets and Cafe au laits at Cafe de Monde. Yum!

On the 10th Day of Christmas

We headed to New Orleans to spend some time with more friends and family. Our trip to New Orleans didn't quite go as planned since Olivia got sick during our drive. She recovered quickly though so we were able to do some of the things we had planned. We headed over to Celebration in the Oaks in City Park. The lights were amazing.

Olivia and Peter sitting on the lap of a giant Alligator dressed up like Santa.



This picture absolutely cracks me up. It may be hard to tell what animal Peter is standing next to but it's an alligator with reindeer antlers of course! Peter couldn't be more excited to stand next to it.

Please VOTE

Team Sanfilippo, a group of parents who are committed to finding a cure for this horrible disease, is in the running for a $250,000 grant from Pepsi. For the entire month of January, people can vote for their favorite projects. The top finishers win the money. We want to use the money to fund a researcher at OSU, who is working on finding a treatment using Gene Therapy.


We need VOTES.


You can vote 3 ways - text, email and via facebook - each day.

I rarely solicit my friends and family but please consider taking a few minutes of your time each day this month to vote. Do it in honor of Olivia!

Below are the instructions for voting. I will leave these on the blog throughout the month so you can check back and vote each day. Please share this info on your blogs, facebook and twitter!

TO VOTE BY TEXT

Text the message "105582" to the number "73774" (stands for Pepsi)

TO VOTE ONLINE

Go to http://www.refresheverything.com/curesanfilippo and vote to Fund a Gene Therapy to cure Sanfilippo syndrome. You can use multiple email addresses to vote. It's my understanding that you get 10 votes per email address per day but you can only vote for a specific cause once. Once you are logged in there is a ticker at the bottom of the screen that shows how many votes you have left. After you vote please consider promoting the idea on Facebook or Twitter via the link on the top right.

TO VOTE ON FACEBOOK

Go to http://apps.facebook.com/pepsirefresh/idea/ if you are logged into facebook it will show a list of causes your friends are voting for and you will see Fund a gene therapy to cure the genetic disorder Sanfilippo syndrome by the Team Sanfilippo Foundation 501C3

Thank you for taking the time to support reseach to find a cure for Olivia. Happy Voting!

On the 9th Day of Christmas

We celebrated the 9th day of Christmas with another batch of presents to open, this time at LexStone Ranch.



Olivia loves the doll that Aunt Karen made for her!



I love that Mike got this picture of Olivia giving her new doll a hug!



Look at that concentration, love the serious unwrapping presents face.



Every time Peter opened a toy he ran around the room showing it to everybody!