Tuesday ends with a Fantastic Dinner!

Tuesday came and went and a lot more work was done. We completely painted every door and trim in a house (if it sounds like a small task, it wasn’t!!) and cleaned up some of the other worksites. Every day we are pushing ourselves a little more, but the end of the week, we will not only see the difference we have made to the houses but see the differences in ourselves (especially since we are all sweating so much, weight is flying off—well at least we hope it is!).

Tuesday night we were invited to a dinner hosted by the Alabama Association of REALTORS®. Our hosts were:
J. Danny Cooper, Executive Vice President of the Alabama Association of REALTORS®
Carl Clark, Governmental Affairs Assistant of the Alabama Association of REALTORS®
Lee Metzger, a local REALTOR®.

The restaurant, which opened in 1938, was Wintzells Oyster House. Now, 69 years and several hurricanes and tropical storms later, the restaurant is not only still in business but one of the most popular restaurants in the historic downtown district of Mobile, Alabama. Getting to the restaurant we saw some of the most beautiful houses we have seen yet! The area is surrounded with beautiful trees, houses and businesses!

After eating some delicious meals like Fried Pickles, Fried Green Tomatoes, West Indies Salad, Seafood Gumbo, Shrimp and Oysters, we were very whole-heartedly thanked for coming to Alabama and helping rebuild the lives people who were displaced by Katrina. The told us of the importance of what we are doing and how personal of a gift we are giving and how not only they were affected, but their city, state and how they helped others. It was a very uplifting, great time. And the desserts weren’t bad either!! One last thing, the dinner was topped off by our terrific waitress, Ms. Pinky! She was entertaining, knowledgeable and a very accurate waitress!

Not only did we have a great dinner, but we were even given the chance to win some door prizes! Some won birdhouses, Kim one a cookbook (this will be funny to some!), Ramona won a REALTOR flag, and one person was lucky to win a beautiful REALTOR® blanket.

But the best part of the night came when we were all presented with an award from the Governor of Alabama, Bob Riley. Each of us volunteers was made Honorary Colonels of the State of Alabama! With the award we got a certificate with an official Governor seal and a list of what the Honorary Colonel can do.

On our way home, Todd, another volunteer who will be the 2008 Dekalb Board president, told us the story Piggly Wiggly (after seeing the store Winn Dixie) and even sang us the theme song from it! It was quite entertaining!

We arrived back at the hotel and quickly went to sleep since we had to meet in the lobby at 5:30am because we were going to be on T.V. at 6:00am! Look for that story coming later!

Lastly…there will be some pictures posted later today or tomorrow! Ramona and I both forgot our cameras, so we are just waiting for another volunteer Roger to email us the photos!