Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover Home Edition was on my flight back sitting in First Class and I was put in the First Class line for Security Check-in 3 people behind him, and his "family" and I stood there going I know that face, but who in the heck is he, I was tired of course having to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get a 9 am flight out of LAX. It was when we were airborne and I went back to talk to one of the girls we were flying with when she made mention of it and we were brainstorming and figured it out. I was respectful and did not ask if I could go up to see if he would let me take a picture. His wife/significant other is beautiful.

As soon as we landed and were at the gate I was hot on the phone to DH telling him to get to Baggage claim if he wasn't there already to try to grab a picture of him on his cell phone but not be obvious about it, he missed him. But that was my major highlight.

We got to go to Downtown Disney had dinner at Tortilla Jo's Wednesday night, went to Huntington Beach and ate at Dukes and lucked out on the street festival going on Tuesday night. Walked up the pier a little bit until I started hurting a lot.

I enjoyed finally meeting the other teams and getting to know some of them and knowing we are all working for the same goal decreasing the number of children in Foster Care by 50% by 2020. Also by reunifying Children of Disproportionate Races quicker and more often or keeping them out of care period.

We now start the first cycle of our PDSA cycles Plan Do Study Act and have our first priority identified, our first family identified and now the data collection starts and we see what works what doesn't and how could we have done it differently, more efficiently etc.

I am excited for my part and our youth representative's part of the PDSA to begin because it is going to be exciting. I will be mentoring and working side by side with the Birth Parents on how the system works, what is expected of them and be someone they can come to and vent to if needed or to ask questions of and to help them follow through on service plans. We feel if a neutral person that was not involved in the removal of their children guides them , and someone who has been involved in the system in the past they will be more responsive. I will also be a person who can assist with transportation issues for services they may need and cant be provided through normal channels I could go on and on about what I will be doing. We are going to model it after a similar program out of another state called Parent's as Partners and we are going to model a similar program for our youth and he will be a mentor to a teen and ask them what they want how are they feeling and also explain the process of Foster Care and court dates etc. since he has been there in the system he can be a real mentor to them.

I am really excited about everything and I am even more excited about our next "Learning Session" it is going to be in either Chicago or St. Louis in September.

Here is to The Casey Family Programs and the 12 teams to Reunifying Children and Decreasing the children in Foster Care by 50% by 2020 !

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~ Christine ~
Grammie to Trinity Lorayne Jean Keens Born June 9, 2011 Loving my awesome guitar picking 100% Country Boy boyfriend Kenny !
RIP Daddy~ 01/24/1930-06/01/2007 I miss you !
Dont Think you Can .. know you can ~ Jeff Hardy

Good luck with all of the exciting projects you are involved in!
And I'm glad that you got to see a celebrity too!

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Square dancing is friendship set to music!

How exciting for you ! What a great cause you are working on. Kudos to you !

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Live, Love, Laugh

Ty Pennington *sigh*... He is one hot handyman!

Your business trip sounded like it was productive and so much fun too.