Happy Autism Awareness Day

I'll admit, for most of my life I didn't know much about autism besides what I had seen in "Rainman" and other various movies or tv. Then I met AnnMarie. We became buddies in 2002 while we were both planning our weddings. She has a precious son named Mikey who is on the Autism Spectrum. In my 6 (WOW) years of having her in my life, I have learned SO many interesting facts, stories, personal experiences, and opinions of autism and its varying degrees. She has a passion for this subject like no other I have ever seen. I am continually amazed at what an amazing mother she is for not only Mickey but her daughter as well.

She has a ROCKIN' blog (you can always find it over on my side bar also, It's called, "Blog of a Mother"). I highly encourage you, even if only once, to click over there and read just a little bit of her writings. She is spending the month of April blogging mostly about Autism as April is Autism Awerness Month. If you don't visit AnnMarie check out this site: http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer
And if you don't go there, check out CNN today, they are showing all sorts of stuff on tv (even here in Denmark). After all, what better thing can you do on "Autism Awareness Day" than to become a little more aware of autism? I can't think of a thing!

AnnMarie thanks for helping those who know you (and even those who don't) understand autism better and for being such a fantastic teacher to me personally!

Cheers to Mikey today!
Isn't he the cutest thing?

"Planet in Peril"

Last night I coincidentally turned on the TV to CNN just as "Planet in Peril" was starting. I was so glad to see it was being broadcast over here already. (Our CNN is a British CNN station). I thought for sure it would be months till we got to see it over here.

Here is a link to a preview of the show that I got from AnnMarie, along with a really cool REM song :)
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/10/rem.cooper/index.html

Unfortunately it was part 2 we were watching and we are hoping to see part 1 sometime in the near future. It was really interesting and intriguing. Along with seeing some beautiful places in this world (which is what I thrive on), I was surprised at some of the stuff going on in places that I would never have imagined. I think I was most shocked to hear that Lake Chad in Africa, once the 6th largest lake in the world has shrunk 90% in the past 45 years! THAT'S HUGE! Everyone has heard, "Save the Rainforests", "Global Warming", "Pollution", "Animal Extinction" and while these are pretty touchy subjects for a lot of people on both sides of the issues, this show presented it in an educated way that was very well done. (at least in my opinion) I was impressed that they even interviewed a few people that take other sides of the issues then the shows.

The best part of the show was when they were showing some clips in Africa of women doing laundry in the lake and sweet Michael, just as cool and collected as he could be turns to me and says in his most serious voice... "At least you get a sink to do the laundry in!" Of course we missed the next 2 minutes of the show because we were laughing hysterically. :)