Relay for Life

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my family and I walked in the Relay for Life Friday night.  Cancer often times makes you feel helpless, like you can't do anything, but through this you realize that you can help out.  In case you aren't familiar with Relay, your team raises money which is then donated and used for cancer research, prevention programs, detection/treatment programs, and more.  If you're curious to see just where your money goes, click here.

This year the theme was Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  Each team was supposed to pick a color that represents a cancer and decorate their campsite in that color.  We chose teal, which stands for ovarian cancer since that's what Mom had. 

Here is a picture of the shirts we had made. You can't really tell here but the writing is teal:

Front view

Back of the shirt

And our lovely campsite:

I love sparkle!!

Our team was ready to do this!!

Resting up before the walk started

Listening to the Opening Ceremony

Opening Ceremony

Emma thought this cement area was her stage

They had a balloon rainbow to go with the theme and Emma thought it was fabulous!! She had a good time dancing under it and trying to catch it as it blew in the wind.

Dancing baby

Busting a move

Hahaha, she's a silly girl

 I kept an eye on the weather all week and all week it said 50% chance of storms. Not. Good.  Who the heck wants to walk around a track in a thunderstorm?! I'm sure there's a few crazies out there that wouldn't mind, but me, I don't want the lightning shooting me as Aiden would say! Thankfully the weather was beautiful and the rain held off until we had just gotten in the car to leave. I think we had a lot of angels looking out for all of us that night!

It was a beautiful night for a long walk!

Emma was such a good girl.  We decided to keep her with us, since she is still very attached.  She had a lot of fun walking the track, playing in the chairs, watching the giant bubbles being blown, and dancing...lots of dancing.  I was worried how she would do at bedtime and though she wasn't happy at first, she went to bed and slept the entire night, even being next to a bunch of loud mouthed lovely ladies.

Big girl

Em trying to get on the cooler, which was her stage for dancing

Aiden spent the night at Aunt Kelly's because we knew that he would not be a good sleeper like Emma (Boy do I wish he could take some tips from her on that!!).  She brought him and their kids over for a visit before it got too late and they had a lot of fun too! 

Hanging out at our campsite

Peek-a-boo!

Me and my little man

Hunter and Aiden

 In case you aren't sure how this goes, you don't have to walk the entire night by yourself, even though my back and hips felt like I did!  You just have to have at least one person from your team out on the track at all times.  That way some people could sleep while others are walking.  I wish I could do that but I think I'm too nosy for that! I wasn't able to sleep at all, so you can imagine how tired I was the next day! I chose to snack instead of sleep. :-)  I figure, hey with all this walking I'm doing, I need to eat to keep the energy up! That's a good reason, right? No?

Patrick & I on one of our breaks

He thinks he's funny and I didn't even see him do that until I looked back through pictures.

Me and my favorite girls, Aimee & Kelly

 The most touching moment of the walk for me is the lighting of the Luminaria.  These are bags that people purchase and they have "In Memory of" or "In Honor of" whoever you want to put on there.  They line these bags up around the track and when it gets dark they have everyone stop walking and have a little ceremony to light them.  It always brings tears to my eyes when it comes to this point because this allows you to sit and think about those we love and have lost or those still fighting the fight.  I always think to myself, "I wish Mom could see this, she would really love it," but you know what, I think she can see it.  I think she's there with us every step of the way.

For Patrick's Mom

For my Stepdad

For my mom

Another one for Mom

We moved their bags together because that's the way it should be.

 

Now, lit up

Part of the track

Mom & Kevin's

And again

I just like this one.

What relay is all about.

 I wish I had gotten better pictures of those, but nothing shows it better than to see it in person.  If you've never participated in a Relay for Life, you should try and look for one, even if it's just to go see this part, it is amazing.

I am so proud of my family/team. Together we raised just about $2000.00 for this cause.  Wow! What an awesome feeling to know that we're doing it, we're standing up to cancer!!