Merry Xmas

Merry Christmas from Minnie, Dave & Tami!

Yes We Can

Dave and I are so proud to have voted for Barack Obama, this nation's first African American President. We look forward to supporting him and watching/participating as the nation slowly recovers from the past 8 terrible years.

We are also proud that Prop 4 did not pass. It is extremely unfortunate that Prop 8 did pass, but we will continue the fight for equality. Equal rights have never been won over night. Eventually, though, gay marriage will be legal in this state, and also country.

This has been an historic evening for us. We are tearful, cheerful, and in awe of what our country has achieved and at the same time in shock and saddened by the discriminatory thinking of many our home state. Our confusion stems from this question: Why do you care? Legalizing gay marriage doesn't affect anyone at all, other than those who wish to marry the one they love but can't. Discrimination is always wrong. And it will always be overcome in the end. That's the true promise of this country.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for." We will never give up faith that one day people will not be discriminated against for any reason.

This straight couple supports gay marriage rights. It's wrong to take away someone's civil right to enter into a civil marriage.

Boot Camp Challenge

Now we want to run the Boot Camp Challenge!

http://www.bootcampchallenge.com/

During the Mud Run, the marines were very nice and supportive. During the Boot Camp Challenge, they are also "encouraging" (notice the quotes) in true marine style! Sweet!! Looks like fun, huh?

a-thon-ers

Dave and I recently ran the world famous Mud Run at Camp Pendleton!

http://www.camppendletonraces.com/asymca.html

Kiva.org

About a year ago, Dave and I loaned $25 to a woman in Azerbaijan so she could get her retail store off the ground. We did it through a website: www.kiva.org
Our profile/lending page can be seen here:

http://www.kiva.org/lender/schlaws

The reason I'm 'blogging' about it is because we recently had our loan fully repaid! I wasn't sure if that was going to happen - you never know these days. Now I have 100% faith in this website, and I encourage you to take a look at the people you can lend to, just to see if it's something you'd be interested in! I love that I can give my money directly to a person in another country to help them out, rather than donating to some organization that supposedly spreads the money around to those who need it. The coolest thing is that you can read the background story of each person requesting a loan, and in doing so, can find someone who really pulls at your heartstrings and loan to them!

To continue the story, we took our repaid $25 and loaned it to a 22 year-old woman in Peru so she can expand her general store. So cool!

Portland

This is me presenting my poster in Portland last week. Before and During. I won the "Best Coordinated With Their Poster" award! Now I can say that I presented an award winning poster on my CV. Sweet! Portland was colder than I thought it would be. I met a TON of people, and now I'm glad to be home with my two bears!

Minnie and Me

Tami is away at her CNS conference and its just Minnie and Me. Minnie sure does miss Tami. We have been slouching around the house and watching movies until Tami comes home!

Stroller training for Minnie

Tami and David feel that Minnie is not pampered enough. So we are starting to stroller train her. (Just kidding, we are not that nutty of dog people... yet.)

Lego Timer!

Check out the Lego egg timer Tami bought for me! Doesn't it rock?

Tami works and Minnie lounges

Typical night.

Welcome the the Schlaws' Blog

Hello everyone! We (80% David, 19% Tami, 1% Minnie) have decided to make a Schlaws blog. What does Schlaws mean? Well, if you take Tami's last name Schlichter and David's last name Haws, and smash them together you get Schlaws. Will we continue to blog? Who knows!