Maddie's Recital

Maddie had her first recital on Saturday. She performed Old MacDonald on the piano. We were all very impressed with her pressence. She was the youngest in her group and her teacher couldn't believe how well she did.

Here's the star of the show

Gay Pride Weekend

This weekend was Phoenix Gay Pride. Kathy and I went on both Saturday and Sunday to help with the HRC booth. Saturday started off with the parade. This was this first year HRC had a float in the parade.

This is the float when we were working on it the night before. It had more balloons on Saturday morning but it looked great. We also had poster board that stated facts about HRC and what they have done for the LGBT community. Such as HRC is lobbying congress to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, HRC supports a fully inclusive ENDA (Employee Non-discrimination Act). HRC has 750,000 thousand members and 8,000 in Arizona. People watching the parade were very supportive and clapped and cheered for us as we went by. We have some ideas for next year to jazz up our float. Many of the other ones had music, were throwing out candy and giving out mardi gras beads. We were able to had out the bumper sticks but then we ran out in like 45 mins.

After the parade we worked at the booth and talked to people about HRC. Sometimes it is surprising how much the gay community doesn't know about their own community and groups that fight for their rights. The weekend was a success in educating and also in signing people up for membership. When we left late Sunday afternoon we were up to about 85 memberships. Which means that is just 85 more people that are going to continue to get information about what is happening on a federal level with LGBT rights.


On Sunday we got to see some live music which was great. One of the performers that we really liked was Jennifer Vazquez, she had a great sound to her and had great songs, she is based out of California. The food is also very good at Pride. It is the only time of year that I get to eat my Indian Fry bread burritos! Yummy!

Phoenix is one of the first prides of the year and there were a lot of out-of-state people that were their and some even said that we have a really good pride festival compared to where they are from. Even though we had a great time at pride we were definately missing the kids as they did not attend the festival. Now it is time to relax and enjoy the family time.