Humpday Kindness

Ever since I saw this on Pinterest I've felt like a millionaire. 

 

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I Had a Blast in Minneapolis (even though I didn't see Prince)

Last year I attended the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in Chicago. Just as I was about to leave the final plenary session and invest in the American retail sector, I spotted my volunteer engagement girl crush Betty Stallings. I had hosted a couple of Betty's sessions at the 2010 PAVR-O (Profesional Administrators of Volunteer Resources - Ontario) Conference so I decided to say hello. Betty remembered me and more importantly she had nothing but good things to say about her PAVR-O experience. Seated beside Betty was Mary Quirk, Executive Director for the Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration (MAVA.) Betty introduced us and went on to say that MAVA was the leading association for volunteer engagement professionals in the US and PAVR-O was its counterpart in Canada. She encouraged Mary and I to connect and we did. Mary and I chatted and quickly realized that there was a lot that our two associations could learn from each other. We exchanged contact information along with a few hugs and committed to working together.

Betty, myself and Mary in Chicago last year.

Last week, I was on an Air Canada Jazz plane with PAVR-O President Erin Spink. The fate of American-Canadian relations was weighing heavily on us...we were seated in the exit row and taking our role very seriously while we each nursed a ginger ale (straight up, in case you were wondering.) I'm sure I saw Erin highlighting the safety card...

Erin takes safety very seriously.

Cheers!

We were on our way to the annual MAVA Conference to represent PAVR-O and we did double duty as workshop presenters. What began as some innocent stalking of my girl crush Betty back in Chicago had led to the meeting of Mary, some sharing of ideas and the first PAVR-O-MAVA Exchange. Later this month, Mary and her colleague Katie Bull will travel to Mississauga, Ontario to represent MAVA at the PAVR-O conference and also present two workshops of their own.

Erin and I were excited to have represented PAVR-O well. We discovered that our Minnesotan colleagues are facing a lot of the same challenges we are and we were able to talk through potential solutions to make all of our communities better.  I came away from the conference invigorated and excited to share my learning with my team at the YMCA.

Thank you MAVA for hosting an amazing conference, challenging me as a professional and inspiring me as your neighbour.



Happy 7th Birthday Kahzmir

There are a lot of celebrity blogs out there and mine is no different.  The celebs in my life include my amazing family and wonderful friends.

I recently papped my nephew Kahzmir's 7th birthday.   You may remember this "it" boy from his previous themed parties such as The Lorax and The Cat in the Hat. His party theme this year was dinosaurs. 

My love and I decided to tag team and create a 3D dinosaur birthday cake that party planner extraordinaire Minaz had found on Pinterest.  We'd only had one previous kitchen tag team match up which involved creating a Crock Pot Spinach Pesto Lasagna and based on our success, I knew we could defy time and definitely bring a dinosaur back to life. 

Minaz baked two very delicious round cakes to get us started. We cut the first cake in half and then set it up to become the body of the dinosaur.

The second cake gets cut into various limbs and appendages of the dino.  You can find templates for the cake here.

Next, you put the pieces in place and begin to sculpt your dino as my love demostrates below.

So now, you get into the fun stuff.  The key to this mission is a reliable partner in crime. Below my love Earvin (the latest celebrity to get papped on this blog who by the way is huge in the glamourous Information Technology circles of Nashville, Tennessee) is preparing the icing for our dino.  He has a great sense of colour and got the icing to the perfect shade of green.  He would say color, but this is my blog afterall.

With Earvin's perfectly pigmented and tasty icing, we began dressing and piping the cake.

And voila!  Here is the final result!  We used rice crispy squares for the spikes, chocolate rosettes for toes and claws and toasted coconut mixed with Corn Flakes for the prehistoric grass.  The grass was delicious!

Also spotted at this party were the birthday boys parents who are Social Media Consultant and Papa, Karim Kanji and Environmentalist and Mama, Minaz Asani-Kanji.

Proud grandparents Dada and Dadi also made an appearance.  They have built quite the reputation for being the first ones to wear the party hats every year.

And what dinosaur party would be complete without an actual dinosaur rubbing shoulders with the party goers most of which were under the age of 10?  Thanks Jazzy for being fierce.

Happy Birthday Kahzmir! 

You are such a smart, curious, energetic and kind boy and I am very proud of you!