Thankful Thursday--United Way Edition

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! If you have Olympic coverage recorded for the women's all-around, stop reading immediately. I would hate to ruin a thing for you.

I am amazed I didn't have a heart attack tonight! You would think two of my very own children were competing the way my heart was beating out of my chest! I want to do a HUGE shout-out to Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson (because they read this blog daily!) for bringing home the gold and silver! What exciting stuff! I'm such a proud mama bear right now. Is it just me, or do any of you ever experience a tinge of schadenfreude when an athlete from another country has a mishap? The guilt I feel! Watching gymnastics when I was younger always made me crave being an Olympian. In my mind, I could be up there competing and probably would be the following year. I think it was nice of my parents not to inform me that Amazon women wouldn't do well in gymnastics. Never mind the fact that I couldn't even do a straight somersault. Plus, I'm way too shy to ever wear tight little leotards. (Is that what they're called for gymnasts?) When the winter Olympics rolled around, I was all about being an ice skater. If only there had been an event for individuals skating while clinging to the walls for dear life. Enough of this. On to the gold medal winners in my little world.

On Wednesday, 25 people from our local United Way came out to Galloping Grace to donate their time and energy in helping Max whip the ranch into shape. Was I there to greet them? Sadly, no. I had to take the kids to testing at school and then head to jury duty orientation. Did they need me? Not in the slightest!

Max said these people were incredible! He was flabbergasted at how much work they got done. (I am flabbergasted that he remember to take so many pictures!) Do you see the man operating the saw and jamming on his 1990's ear phones? That's Randy. He has been beyond generous with his time and money! Randy, thank you so much for supporting Galloping Grace like you have! Thanks for bringing out 25 of your super terrific friends as well! These sweet people not only worked for quite a few hours, but they brought out their own lunches. That is such a relief to me! It's too bad I can't tell you this nice looking lady's name. I could ask Max, but he's sound asleep while I type about the event he experienced. I hope he's having sweet dreams and getting lots of important rest. I'll be sure to be real quiet when I finally join him in bed. These volunteers even scooped poop--and cheerfully! Max said they were so great doing whatever he asked. Max told me they loaded the back of his pick-up and a huge trailer with trash! Usually when he makes a dump run, it costs about $8. Today when he took the load created by the United Way volunteers, it cost $85. While I'm being thankful, thanks to Gary, Darren, and Chris for helping Max take all the scrap wood, trash, shingles, etc. to the dump! He really appreciated your help.

United Way friends--you are incredible! Thanks for all you do serving the public on a daily basis, and thanks especially for what you did at Galloping Grace! Please come back when you can relax and ride horses. (Oh, and scoop some more poop!) :)

One more thing--I thought I'd include a picture I took today of Hank since I'm feeling a little guilty (not at all) I teased you with the impostor golden retriever on Tuesday's post.

Happy Friday. (And in case you're wondering, no jury duty on Friday for the whole group! Yippee!)