Thursday night the Ronald McDonald House took a bunch of families bowling at a really cool bowling alley! There were videos at the end of each lane and it was all blacklight bowling. Eli had so much fun that he actually did some bowling. We also got to meet another 4 year old boy that we hadn’t met before named Griffin and his dad Lou. Griffin has Rhabdomyosarcoma. It seems like everyone we meet either has Neuroblastoma or Rhabdo!
Friday was a really big day for us. You’ve seen the music videos that I do with some of our pictures (most recently the Creation Museum video). Well the site I use to do those videos is Animoto.com and I’ve been in touch with the guys from Animoto ever since I discovered their site. As it turns out, they are located in lower Manhattan by Chinatown and Little Italy! They invited us down for a lunch and to hang out in their office, so we finally had the opportunity to do it and it happened to be on Eli’s birthday, which was extra cool. The icing on the cake was that a photographer from Waukee, IA had learned about Eli on Animoto and offered to come out to NY (she’s originally from here) and photograph Eli with the Animoto guys, so Donna was there as well taking pictures the entire time. Her studio is called Timeless Images Art and her work is amazing. A huge thanks to Donna for making a last minute trip to NY just for Eli and Animoto and another big thanks to the Animoto gang for throwing Eli a great birthday party, complete with gifts and Animoto attire! I’ll make an Animoto video of some of the pics later. 🙂
We got home in time for a short nap, and then we had Birthday dinner with our New York grandparents, Barbara and Stewart, whom we hadn’t seen since we got back to NYC! It wasn’t just any dinner, it was dinner at Maz Mezcal, the amazing Mexican restaurant that is owned by the greatest people. Eli and Lacey had the shrimp and rice, but I tried something different this time called the Kurt’s Bamboleo. It was thinly pound steak wrapped around cheeses and peppers and it was fantastic! At the end, they brought out a dessert with a candle and a Sombrero that Eli got to keep, it was really a lot of fun.
http://animoto.com/play/411692b7cea5fea7332fd72aadc26a53 Click “Older” for Part III…