I always enjoy my weekends, but this one was good. On Friday I went to a fund raiser for AYS. One of our volunteers had arranged a Fund Raiser at a bar, where you pay one price to get in and 75% of the money you pay goes to AYS. You get free drinks for 2 hours and lasted from 10pm until midnight. We had 60+ people show up and AYS made about $980! Most of the money will go to buy books for our older kids who will be attending private high school and one who is in college. It was great to see the different people who came. There was a nice mix of Asian and Caucasians there. I thought it was great so many young people wanted to help out and have a good time doing that. I did not get home until about 2am.

I woke at 8am Saturday and went to AYS. It was a good day there. I played with the little kids and we watch some funny videos on the computer. When it was time to go, around 3pm, I walked one of the 6^th grade kids home since it was on my way to the Korean festival. Each year, there is a very large Korean Festival that is not too far from AYS. In the paper it said that Illinois is home to the third largest Korean population in the country so I can see why this Korean festival, which is held both Saturday and Sunday, is so popular. The entertainment was fun and the food was very good. I watch the opening ceremony. It started with a four performers who sang the Korean National anthem and then the American National anthem. There were the opening speeches by the politicians and event organizers in both Korean and English. A group of 6 young students performed using drums and other musical instruments which was great. There was a flute performance with a small orchestra of 10 people that was quite amazing. When the opening ceremonies were done, a group cut up a very large cake and people from the audience came up to take BIG pieces of this cake. I did not understand the meaning, but there was one woman that had such a HUGE piece of cake. She must have really loved cake.

I left there around 6:30 and then went to my neighbors who were having an 8^th grade celebration for his daughter. I relaxed and enjoyed talking with some other neighbors there until about 9:30.

Weekends like this are good for me J today is Sunday and time to clean.  

Last weekend we had the wonderful volunteer from NAAAP come to help at AYS. They do this each month and the kids just love when they come to help them and play.

Please see the pictures at: http://www.naaapchicago.org/EventRecap.do?id=4610