Thanks for a job well done!

I think many of us will agree that being without electricity really stinks (and it's not just the smell from the warm refrigerators.) Many people in the greater Houston area are still without power - 12 days after Ike.

Since I do have electricity, I want to take the time to say a great big THANK YOU to all of the people involved in restoring our power. The photo above was sent to me by Gerri S. This is her godson, Jeremy, who lives in Florida and works for Florida Power & Light. He has been somewhere in the Houston area for the past 10 days doing repair work. He is away from his family, sleeping in a tent (for a while at least) and I really can't vouch for quality of the food he's been getting. If you would like to tell Jeremy thank you please leave a comment.

I received this email yesterday and wanted to share it with everyone because it lists those companies who are working long hours far from home to restore our electricity.

Over the years, CenterPoint Energy crews have restored power to hundreds of thousands of customers across the country who have been left in the dark following severe weather. Now, the company must call on its colleagues in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, which left 2.1 million customers without power, the largest outage in CenterPoint Energy's more than 130-year history.

Line mechanics, tree trimmers and additional personnel from nearly 50 different companies are in Houston to aid in the recovery effort. More than 30 states (including Texas, Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) as well Canada have sent workers to help.

Special thanks to our partners:
Alabama Power
Allegheny Power
Asplundh (FP&L)
Asplundh (PepCo)
Baltimore Gas & Electric
Bison
Bluegrass Central Construction
BSJ Power Service
C.W. Wright Construction
City Utilities/Empire
CPS Energy San Antonio
Dillard Electric
Diversified Service
Duke Energy
Elliott
First Energy Company
Florida Power & Light
Georgia Power
Haynes Utility
High Desert Communications
J.F. Electric
J.W. Didado Electric
JBL Electric
Kansas City Power & Light Co.
L.E. Meyers
M.J. Electric
Mid America/Alliant
Midwest Energy
Midwest Power
Missouri Public Service
Musgrove Construction
Par Electric
Pike
Powerline Consultants
Progress Carolina
Progress Florida
Quanta Utility Services
Riggs Distler
Sheldon Electric
Southern Company
SPE
Tampa Electric
Team Fishel
Thiro USA
Utilicon
WE Energies
Willey Construction
Xcel Energy
Xcel/Colorado

Diabetes Walk

Last week the girls came home talking about the diabetes lessons they learned in school. They also were excited about the school's Walk for Diabetes on Friday. Both girls asked Bryan and I to take their "Walk for Diabetes" fundraiser to work with us. They have learned from cookie dough sales and Girl Scout cookie order forms that "work" is the magic place where people fill in the blanks. To be quite honest, I had absolutely no intention of bringing yet another "money" form to work to put in the break room, but Brenna was so excited last week and asked me every day whether I'd brought it to work yet. So I caved and set up an online donation site for both girls. I hoped for a few $5 and $10 donations so the girls would have something to feel proud about.

Within thirty minutes of sending out an email to some family and friends, the online site had already picked up $100. I reset the goal amount three times, and each time I was overwhelmed by our friends and family's generosity. Even more touching were the emails that flooded my inbox telling of this person or that who has diabetes. I printed all of those emails to bring home for the girls to read. (That was the first night Brenna started running a high fever, so Cameron read them all.)

Thursday night we transferred all of the online donations to the entry form and printed the gift history list. Combined with offline checks, we turned in $450!! Actually, when we returned from the walk there were two more donations - $500!


THANK YOU to everyone who either gave money or sent us an email with information.


Friday arrived and Brenna was still home sick, but Cameron proudly walked for everyone!

She walked for:

Uncle Mike,

in memory of Great-Grandma,

in memory of Great-Aunt Maxine,

Ellie, a 9-yr old girl in Florida,

Julia, an 8-yr old girl in Maryland,

Debbi,

Eleanore Stauble,

Bobby Peebler,

Julia Dunn,

in memory of Frank Arthur Oakley, and

in memory of Karen B.'s mommy.

The entire third grade, about 100 students, marched around the outside of the school waving ribbons, pom-poms, carrying signs, cheering, and chanting. I was very impressed with the two PE teachers who organized this event, from the curriculum to the actual event. What fun! I heard children chanting "Walk for the cure!" and "Exercise an hour a day and don't forget to be fit!"

As a result of everyone's generous support, Cameron was the top girl fund-raiser at school and will be receiving 4 tickets to Galveston's new Schlitterbaun waterpark. So once again, THANK YOU.