This past weekend was the Relay for Life at one of our local high schools. We did not personally have a team but my Aunt Andrea has walked the past couple of years through her workplace and last year we went and joined her and again this year. I am hoping that next year we will be able to raise some money of our own and have a friends and family team that walks in memory of my mom.

Even though we did not have a team of our own, some of the FFE (the high school show choir that my brothers were in) moms and kids had a team that walked all night long in memory of mom. We can not tell you ladies how much this meant to our family as mom made some wonderful friendships because of FFE and enjoyed spending her weekends with all of you at shows and competitions. Throughout moms battle, these moms were amazing in their support with providing meals to our family so that we wouldn’t have to worry about cooking and could focus on caring for and spending time with our mom. You sent cards filled  with words of encouragement and we are so appreciative for all of it!

Jay and I were the first ones to arrive Saturday morning and happened to see a few of the moms that were finishing up their hour on the track and were able to  talk with them for a while. They told us that their goal as a team was to raise $1,000.00 and ended up with over $2,500.00!!! AMAZING!!! We are so thankful to those of you that contributed in any way to this tribute in memory of our mom and are so touched by your thoughtfulness.

It was a pretty yucky weekend but thankfully the rain stayed away on Saturday morning. I was so worried that we would get rained out and be unable to walk with the kids.

Joel was so excited to get out on the track and run (which last about 15 minutes and then he wanted to ride in the stroller). He was under the impression that it was a race and kept asking every 5 minutes if we were still winning

Taking his place on the start line.

Caroline was such a little trooper and walked quite a bit but if she wasn’t walking, she was being carried around by her Auntie and no one else She is a bit particular when Aunt Andrea is around if you can’t tell by the picture. She would NOT let Maw Maw hold her hand.

This was the view most of the time….

But she did let Aunt Lynney hold her for a while too. Those great aunts just spoil her to the core!

All of us together for a group shot after we finished walking our hour.

We didn’t originally plan on having shirts because we ran short on time but I ended up going out at the last minute on Friday night and picking the stuff up to make these and whipped them together Saturday morning. Not to bad, huh? On the front they read:

I Walk For My Mom , Mimi, Sister, Daughter (Depending on who was wearing them obviously)

and on the back:

Beth Rarey 3/29/1960-10/16/2009

After we finished walking, we had worked up quite the appetite so we headed to Tony’s for some lunch and it hit the spot! Joel was so happy to get to have some pepperoni pizza if you can’t tell.

And well, Caroline was just happy to eat, period.

All in all, it was a fun morning. My only complaint was that we walked from 10-11 and the walk didn’t end until noon but when we got there, they were already tearing all of the signs down that people had made and taking the luminaries off of the track that had peoples names on them so we didn’t get a chance to see the luminaries in moms name. I think that maybe next year we will try to go and walk on Friday evening instead of Saturday morning.

Related posts:

1. Holding On For Dear Life