relay for life

This year, my friend Stephanie talked my mom and I into doing a team for relay for life. I thought this would be a great opportunity to do some service. My mom has talked a lot about wanting to do it and so we made it happen... we were hoping to get my aunt's involved but it didn't work out. We ended up with a very small group but were very determined to do it! Our team name was the Pink Ladies. I wanted to make our camp very fun and PINK. We had pink balloons, flowers, pink sign...and more ( I didn't get any pictures.) Friday morning we headed out to the Blue Socks Diamond, in Smithfield. We set up camp, had opening ceremonies and then we started our adventure for the next 24 hrs. Each team is asked to have someone from their team on the track at all times during the event. Because cancer never sleeps.

Stella was such a trooper! She even walked little of a lap with us!

Someone had a photo booth to help raise money. We walked past it a couple times I finally got Dale join Rachael and I. Doesn't he look awesome with pink hair?!?!

Jared& Stephanie did a little train ride for their fundraiser.. such a cute idea. The Latimer kids and Stella took a ride. Ali was a big help to Stella.

We did so great! We all walked laps together for the first while and then started taking turns. Toward the evening time was when I starting feeling really tired... I was glad to have Dale show up and give me an extra boost and bring us some food. Alyse showed up a little later in the night to help us out.. it was a blast being with the sisters ( minus Kat...miss you) they had music playing most of the night which helped out. We even tried running a couple times.. I seemed to get my extra burst of energy from 10 til about 2 and then I crashed.. I fell asleep for a couple hours and then started back up again at 6:oo am. At the end as a team we probably walked about 83 miles.. we were very tired, and had maybe got a little to much sun but you couldn't help forgetting yourself and thinking of the people that had been effected by cancer...and I really couldn't stop thinking of my Grandma Ward and what a fighter she was.

My grandma was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in August 2004. It had spread through a lot of her body, skull, bones and liver. I admire my grandma so much, through it all she would laugh and had a constant smile on her face. She kept a gratitude journal. She was so grateful for the small things...even if it was getting out of bed for the day.


She died April of 2005. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of her. We had the opportunity to have her live with us a couple days a week when she worked in the Logan Temple...I loved late night talks about the boys I was dating. Friday's I didn't work or have school so, I would do "shopping day" with her... I looked forward to this day sooo much!! We loved to tease her about the romance novels she read ALL the time (the best part is she felt like she needed to hide them cause they were bad... and not for kids), I will always remember her laugh it was so contagious. She was a great grammy and I miss her soooo much!

Toward closing ceremonies everyone who purchased a balloon gathered on the field
and let them go...