Relay For Life

This is our second year doing Relay for Life. The girls and I have joined with Jodi and her team to walk. It starts at about 6pm at the High School Stadium and goes until about 9am the following morning. Several months before the walk we get registered and raise $100 each to pledge for our walk. The night is pack with fun. There are several different teams that pitch their tents around the stadium along with everything they will need for the night. BBQ, fire pits, canopies, chairs and lots of food. Each team decorates their tents to go along with the theme, the best team wins. The main rule is to have someone from the team on the track at all times during the night. Once it is dark there is a wonderful ceremony in honor of those who are battling cancer, have lost the fight and those who care for them. Around the track are bags with little lights in them and a persons name on the bag to honor them. The stadium light are turned off and everyone walks around the track after the honor ceremony. It is very humbling and very reverent. This year it really hit Jolene what all the bags meant, she was surprised how many names she knows. We talked about all the others we know who's names were not on the bags.
Throughout the night there are games booths, food booths, hot chocolate, and lots of music! When we got home in the morning Jolene laid on the couch and fell asleep for most of the day

~Relay For Life 2010~

My neighbor does Relay For Life every year. I tired to get a team together at church but it didn't work out. I have always wanted to do this I have many people in my life who have fight and won and fought and lost the battle with cancer. I was honored when I was asked to be on her team! The girls and I were so excited. We headed down to the stadium, set up our tent, chairs, brought our food to contribute and waited for the night to begin. The whole night was amazing! To see so many people there, so many on the track walking, so many visiting, so many helping, so much going on to raise money to help with the fight against cancer. The girls had a great time too. We spend most of the day making dozens of cookies, wrapping them for the girls to sell. They loaded up the wagon and pulled it everywhere yelling cookies for sale and ended up selling most of them. They felt so proud that they had contributed to the cause. When we weren't walking we were playing games, eating, dancing, playing volleyball, or just hanging out. It was a chilly cloudy night which brought and amazing storm early in the morning. We watched it roll in knowing we were going to get hit hard. Sure enough just before the sun came up the sky opened and we poured on!! Many of us took cover in the bathroom until the worst of it pasted then we hurried and loaded up and headed home. Once we got in the house it started to rain and hail. Pour Jolene was beyond tired, she was asleep before she even laid down.