Report on the weekend

I am going to be a big old show-off in this post.  But what a weekend I had.  I was able to forget totally how depressed I've been.  For those of you who want to listen to me show off, here goes:

First, I don't know much about golf, but the "cottage" I stayed in was right on the golf course:

Friday night was a demonstration by a bird rescue group called Hawk Quest.  It was supposed to be outdoors, but it was raining so we went into a corridor of the golf club.  Each bird had a handler.  Most of the birds that are in this rescue group get there by getting hit by a car or being orphaned.  Some are able to be rehabbed and then released and some can never live in the wild so they live their lives in this rescue facility.  For instance, the bald eagle that they brought was blind in one eye and would not be able to hunt in the wild.  Here are some photos -- this was SO interesting.

The handlers lined up with their birds.

The eagle and his handler:

Me and the eagle:

One of the owls with his handler:

I forget what kind of owl this is, but isn't he different?

The handler is able to do a little maneuver that makes the owl flap his wings:

This is a screech owl -- weighs 4 ounces:

This is a spectacled owl:

After the demonstration of the birds, we had a great dinner in the golf club.

On Saturday I went up to the Bartlits' house around 5PM and after signing in I looked at all the dogs up for adoption.  Came close to adopting one, but most of them were puppies and I am just not ready for a puppy.  But I got to play with them.

The setup for this function is absolutely huge and holds about 500 people.

Then they had a live auction to raise money for the Dumb Friends League (we learned later that they raised over a million dollars -- great news!!)  During the auction someone recognized Larry The Cable Guy in the audience.  So Fred got up and started revving the audience up to get out their checkbooks and he said something like "Git 'R Done -- right, Larry?"  So Larry the Cable Guy, who was in the back of the tent, grabbed the microphone from one of the auctioneers and and said he would donate his voice to the auction.  He said that for the highest bidder he would call that bidder's child and use his "Mater" voice from the movie CARS to wish that child happy birthday.  I couldn't tell what that bidding got up to but I know it was quite large.  Here's Larry the Cable Guy pointing to the audience and telling them to "Git 'R Done and get out the checkbooks."

And here's Larry the Cable Guy with my boss's grandson (sorry for the quality, the lighting wasn't the greatest):

Fred and Jana enjoying the entertainment:

The entertainer was Diana Ross:

After the concert I was given the opportunity to go back stage and meet Ms. Ross and get my picture taken with her.  It was done by a professional photographer and I won't have that photo for a few weeks.  That was so special.  She is a very tiny lady -- I had to look down to talk to her.

So as you can tell, I HAD A STUPENDOUS TIME!!