Hasta La Vista Cancer

Relay For Life was this Saturday. And let me just say, it was a memorable experience. Memorable for so many different reasons. Not all of it was what I expected, and I'm not going to complain about the not so good things. ( I vented all that out to Diana- thanks for listening girl!) However, I'm glad that I put forth the time and effort to do this. Cancer is just way too common and it's about time that a cure is found. So this was one way I could honor my brother and the courage and strength he's shown through his battle with cancer. Plus I got to help with the efforts in raising money to help end this thing! I'm proud to say that our team went above and beyond our goal in fundraising. Thanks to everyone who helped with the yard sale and who donated straight to our cause.
The day started off around 12:00 when me and my sister-in-laws, Monica and Melinda, went and set up our camp site. Our team name was the T-Minators. So we put up a life size Arnold/Terminator and put a sign up that said T-Minators, Hasta La Vista Cancer. Unfortunately, a huge wind storm blew threw right at the beginning of the relay and ripped our sign. So, the whole night it looked like we had this random lifesize Terminator cutout.

Matt's sisters also helped me make these capes for everyone. This totally separated us from everyone else there. We looked awesome!

Here's my inspiring brother and his equally inspiring wife. I love you guys!

A lot of teams continued with their fundraising efforts and had games, activities, and food to sale at their camp site. Miss Maya got a beautiful butterfly painted on her face.

Luke (my brother-in-law) took Luke and Isaac around the track to see what there was. They came back with a bunch of candy and cotton candy. About an hour later, Isaac announced that he was going back for seconds on his cotton-candy. Ummm, I don't think so kid!

That's right this is Bishop Hyer, but for some reason that just didn't seem right to call him that that night. He was the little devil on your shoulder telling you to go get into mischief. He even got my own husband in trouble for gonging the bell too many times. He and his wife decided that our team was in charge of gonging this bell that was there, every hour on the hour. (I'm pretty sure the bell wasn't meant to be rung at the relay and that it was for football games). So the kids, and an occasional adult would gong the bell every hour and then run. Well, we were a little frustrated with some things about the relay, so Bishop and Diana told Matt to go take out his frustration on the bell. Of course you don't have to tell Matt twice to do something like that. So at 3:00 in the morning Matt ran over to the bell and just went to town on that thing. That was the last time the bell was rung. :( Immediately, some guy came bee-lining it over to us and yelled at us for waking up his babies. Seriously? Come on, it's an all night relay, not bed time! Oh, well, it was a good way to go out.

Around 2 AM a huge rain storm came through. First it rained, then it started to hail. Eye-yi-yi!! Everyone ran for cover and then listened to some guy announce over the P.A. that we were in the middle of a rain storm. (Oh, we are?) Then he continued to tell us that because we were in the middle of an open field, if the thunder and lightening got any closer they would have to cancel. So our team was about ready to call it quits. Thankfully, (I guess only thankfully to some people though) the rain stopped and we were able to come out of our tents and continue with the relay. A lot of teams did bail though during the storm. After that there were just a handful of people walking on the track. T convinced us all that it would be really awesome if we stayed, so we stuck it out and stayed the rest of the night. I'd have to say that's probably the part of the relay that I'll remember the most. Getting soaking wet, running a mile at 3:30 AM to get warmed up, playing "Would You Rather" with the 5 remaining die hards on our team, freezing in the wee morning hours, having my legs feel like they were going to fall off after my two boys fell asleep on my lap, laughing til my cheeks hurt about how one of Mark's (T's bro. -in- law) mission companions put on his socks, and being able to say I stuck it out-rain or shine! Thanks T-Minators, I had a good time! I'm glad we did it!