My Kids' Camping Adventure

The kids have been very excited to go camping. So as a compromise, we let them eat their dinner in the tent, outside on the porch the other night. They were happier than hikers summiting Mt. Everest.

My Daughter's Heart Surgery Celebration Day

On March 17th we celebrated the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of E's open heart surgery. I couldn't believe that it has been five years since she has had surgery. Each year we have a special dinner and a special dessert to mark the day.

E has a book that we made her that describes her special heart, her surgery, her time in the hospital and why we go have tests sometimes at the hospital. So E understands what we were celebrating. In fact, she said, today is my special heart day celebration, so I get to do whatever I want. Today, that included a vanilla and chocolate ice cream cake.

My Pretty Spring

We wanted to share with you some of our pretty spring time flowers in our front flower bed. We re-did the landscaping in the front yard last year and planted some new flowers. We never expected them to take off in such a pretty way this spring. They smell lovely.

My Congenital Heart Futures Act

Dear It's My Heart Supporters,

You did it! Thanks to all your letters, emails, and visits, and the efforts of our partners in the National Congenital Heart Coalition and at the American College of Cardiology, late yesterday the Congenital Heart Futures Act was introduced in both houses of Congress! In the Senate, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois led the charge joined by Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi. In the House, the bill's lead co-sponsors were Representative Zach Space of Ohio and Representative Gus Bilirakis of Florida. We are thrilled that this groundbreaking piece of legislation has already received bipartisan support.

To learn more about the bill visit http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=309944

So what's next? Like any piece of legislation, the Congenital Heart Futures Act has to get majority support in both the House and Senate in order to be passed. Please email your Senators and Congressman today to ask them to become a co-sponsor of this legislation, which is bill S. 621 in the Senate and H.R. 1570 in the House. It just takes a minute - here's how you do it:

1) Go to http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov/ to look up your representatives and their email addresses
2) Draft your email - (Templates below)
3) Make your letter personal to you. The template has a place to add two or three sentences about why this legislation matters to you personally, and offers some samples to help get you started.
4) Send your email. Be sure to include your full mailing address as well as your email address. Don't use US mail, since thanks to the anthrax scare it now takes many weeks for mail to arrive in Congress.

That's all there is to it! Please forward this email to friends and family to request their participation.

If you are a constituent of Senators Durbin or Cochran or Representatives Space and Bilirakis, we encourage you to email or call their office and let them know how much you appreciate their leadership of this effort.

Need more information? Contact advocacy@itsmyheart.org with any questions

*************
Dear [name of representative]

I am writing as a member of the Adult Congenital Heart Association to ask for your help in making a brighter future for all those born with heart defects. Yesterday the Congenital Heart Futures Act, legislation calling for research, surveillance, and education in congenital heart disease, was introduced in the Senate by Senators Durbin and Cochran and in the House by Representatives Bilirakis and Space. I am writing to ask you to co-sponsor these bills (S. 621 and H.R. 1570)and help all those born with heart defects live longer, healthier lives.

Congenital heart disease is this country's number one birth defect and kills twice as many children as childhood cancer. Although many children now undergo successful heart repair, most will require special life-long care and face high risks of developing additional heart problems. But up until now there has been virtually no federal investment to address the research and education needs of the 1.8 million Americans now living with congenital heart disease.

We have a five year old daughter, Emily, who had her first open heart surgery to improve a congenital heart defect when she was three months old. We anxiously await the news from her cardiologist as to when she will require her second open heart surgery. We do not know what the future holds for her. Our second child was still born due to a congenital heart defect. We need your support of this bill to ensure Emily’s future.

To sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill, House Members should contact Dan Farmer with Rep. Space at (202) 225-6265 to discuss support of H.R. 1570. Senators should contact Sara Singleton with Senator Durbin at (202) 224-2152 re: S. 621.

Thank you in advance for your help in securing a future for all those living with congenital heart disease.

Sincerely,
Your Name
Full address
Email

My Strawberry Kids

Today we had an impromptu visit to the strawberry patch. Last night we had dinner with our friends the P's. We had a great time and they told us how they had visited the strawberry orchard and the strawberries were great. I usually take the kids to the orchard each year, but we usually end up going during the week and T never gets to go. He was very excited by the news of the ripe and numerous strawberries and really wanted to go today. I suggested going on Sunday, but he said (and this is a direct quote) "Sunday strawberries will be over picked. Saturday strawberries will be just right". So we dropped all of our plans and went to the orchard and picked strawberries (after making kids crafts at the Home Depot...but that is another post entirely).

The orchard was great fun. Each person had their own bucket. The orchard has small wagons to ride in for the kids as the field is about 1/4 mile walk from the parking lot. The kids had a great time. I wasn't sure how they would do as last year I was the only one who really did any strawberry picking. The kids didn't really have a good time last year.

The children did their fair share of eating too today! I looked in Z's bucket and found four strawberries: two whole and two eaten stumps! E pulled a "Blueberries for Sal": one strawberry in the bucket "plink" three in her stomach.

Then we had a nice picnic lunch at the tables out front. It was a beautiful day outside. The temperature was just right with a bit of wind to prevent it from getting too hot. This afternoon we plan to clean out the garage in preparation of our remodeling project.....more about that in the next post!

My Little Bicyclist

Today E mastered riding her bicycle WITHOUT the training wheels. We had taken them off around her 5th birthday. She has been able to ride it with a little steady hand of ours on the bike seat or handle. But today was the day where she not only learned how to peddle totally on her own, but also to start from standing still, all by herself!

You can see it on the below video!