Relay for Life 2011

As most of you know, I try to do some kind of event each year to honor my Mother. This year I joined the KC Pink Ladies and completed the Relay for Life event. The KC Pink Ladies are a bunch of ladies from my women's ministry, Kate's Cup. We all decorated pink shirts and had a bake sale at our tent. The idea is that someone from your team is to be walking the track from 6pm - 6am. The weather was terrible, the wind broke records, tents were flying everywhere, dust/dirt everywhere - but we still had fun! We ended up closing down at midnight due to the weather conditions - so I ended up walking for about 5.5 hours. I was definitely feeling it the next day but no time to rest because I had to set up for the annual block party!

There were some very emotional moments throughout the night - I shed many tears as I listened to survivors tell their stories and to walkers tell their stories of loved ones' lost. I told my story a few times - I had my Mom with me the entire evening on the front of my shirt!

Every half hour they had a different themed lap. Some of the different themes were: the survivors lap; limbo lap; funny bunny lap; remembrance lap; lighting of the luminaries lap; dress a guy up as a lady lap; purple lap, etc. Some teams really got into it!! All in all, it was a great night of getting to know people, sharing stories, meeting survivors, remembering lost loved ones, and fighting for a cure.




The 1st lap around the track was for the survivors - very emotional!


This was the beginning of setup for our tent - we were not able to decorate everything due to the wind!!

I was upset that they spelled my Mom's name wrong - but thought my Mom might get a good laugh out of it! I must have walked by that luminary 100 times in the 5-6 hours I was there and EVERY time I was a little "bugged" by the misspelling of her name. Now that I look back at it, I probably should have just had them make another one right away - oh well:)

Once it got dark, they lit these luminaries on the bleachers that spelled Hope and we all followed a man playing "Amazing Grace" on the bag pipes. This was the most emotional part of the night for me and many others. This lap was called the "Remembrance" lap - most people walked in silence and cried...me included.

For you mom...I will keep fighting this battle for you and for our sweet Sydney...I love you