This year's Relay was so different from last year's in so many ways. Last year we were all so fresh in our grief over losing Keagen. We didn't even start planning for Relay until a month or so beforehand, but our team was large and full of love. That hasn't changed.
This year we started fundraising a lot earlier and through a lot of different methods. We continued our fundraising right through Relay night as we sold Jimmy's To Go beef sandwiches and ran a bounce house for the kiddos. We set up early in the morning on Friday and were all gathering around 5 o'clock to start the festivities. It was so hot and sticky, but we enjoyed walking around and looking at all of the booths and Heidi Jean especially enjoyed the bounce house. She must have bounced for 4 hours on-and-off and was still talking about it as we walked to the truck for her and Daddy to go home at 9pm.
Unfortunately this year's Relay was cut short by thunderstorms. By 9:30 the lightening was starting to fill the sky and by 10pm nearly everyone was loading up their tents and heading for home. Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe it after all of the work that we put in to get ready for Relay. I really missed that 3am quiet time when you're just walking with your loved ones, thinking about the ones that aren't there, enjoying the night and the quiet and the experience.
The silver lining was that I did get to go to the closing ceremonies this year, since I slept! We were so proud of our team as we won the Most Improved Team award for nearly doubling our fundraising from last year. And so proud of the Reedsburg Relay for raising over $99,000 to fight cancer.
Here's Heidi and Kaileigh trying out the bounce house after set-up:
Jayme introducing Laura who served as the honorary chair and gave a speech about her experience as a cancer mom:
Heidi and Ethan riding on the Merry-go-round
More bounce house, Daddy "pushing" Heidi so she fell down
Seth trying to tame one of the lounge chairs
Heidi actually brave enough to ride the train all by herself. She didn't smile though or release her death-grip on the steering wheel.
She's under all that hair somewhere!
On to Relay 2011, I guess. Bigger and better things await!
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