Friday, 5:25 p.m. E.S.T.: This will probably be my last post from Washington due to the fact that our Internet service will expire tonight and I saw no need in paying an extra day when we are leaving early tomorrow.

Today was jam packed with workshops, seminars and meetings covering a host of issues. I attended the Leadership Institute which was a 2 hour training session covering a lot of the things we need for NEMDSS. I am excited to have this knowledge now and look forward to sharing it with you all when we return. I also attended the public relations session which I found helpful as well. NDSS is currently instituting a new awareness program for our families. We will have the opportunity to share our personal stories and pictures to be added to their website in a story book type format. From those submissions, NDSS will select some of the stories to use in their "National" advertising. FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

To close out the day, I went to 2 separate sessions/workshops on the Buddy Walk program. There will be some changes regarding the BW and how we register it with NDSS, including a commitment to send a donation to NDSS. This will have no effect on us whatsoever, as we are already doing that. I was appalled to find out; however, that many affiliates don't. Only 95 of the 275 Buddy Walks last year made a financial donation to NDSS. Pretty Sad!!!!! I received a lot of praise on behalf of our group for our commitment to supporting NDSS and for the "Live Feed" that we had last year of the walk. Thanks once again to Michaela and guy Hornbuckle for that!

Michelle went to a meeting on establishing and maintaining a prenatal outreach program. She said it was very informational. Her second session consisted of the "nuts and bolts" of working with hospitals. We can definitely use that. She then came with me to the Buddy Walk sessions.

Tomorrow, we have still more sessions to attend before leaving out. I will post about them as soon as I am able to - may be when we get back to MS. Our flight departs from Reagan National Airport at 4:35 tomorrow afternoon taking us to Detroit, where we will spend the night with Michelle's grandparents. We will finally get back home Sunday night! Yeah, we are missing our kiddos!!!

Thank you to all of our NEMDSS families - especially our board members for all that you do. I can tell you, we have an awesome group. So many people representing a number of larger and older affiliates here are envious of our growth, our commitment and how much we do for the Ds community. I have heard several horror stories while I have been here regarding some of our sister groups. So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you have done and continue to do for NEMDSS, our children and the NE MS Region.