Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A Walk in the Sun


Remember that fund raiser I was telling you about a few weeks ago? The walk for Children's Hospital? Well, it has officially come and gone, and my life is a little quieter now. Ahh. It was this past Saturday, the 20th, and, really, it turned out great! The weather was a bit warmer than expected...like, you know, 20 degrees hotter than the meteorologist said it would be the night before, but who's counting? **coughcough*me*coughcough** It's funny that I never really noticed how huge a difference there is between 62 and 82 degrees...until Saturday...when I had all of us dressed in long sleeves and long pants... and we arrived at the walk location and were already sweating from just getting the stroller out of the car...before even getting the kids out of the car...and long before the walk even started. It. was. awesome, the way that stepping on a piece of glass as your walking along the beach is awesome. Yep, loved it.

Know what else was awesome? Organizers of the walk had shuttles set up to get everyone from the finish line (where you would, of course, park your car) to the start line of the race, for our general convenience. Totally awesome...that is if there had been enough of them to get everyone there before the start of the race...so everyone didn't have to stand out in the blazing sun, holding our hot, whiny children for an hour...getting hotter and stinkier by the moment...in order to eventually pack (and I do mean pack) ourselves into school buses for the 3 mile ride. Friggin. Awesome. Favorite moment? Standing in line for the 50th bus that pulled up in front of the crowd while everyone tried to push their way to the front of the line to get on (did I mention that this was a charity walk? To benefit a children's organization? I did. Ok. Just checking.) when a volunteer who had obviously never been given the power position of holding the megaphone before, loudly bellowed at all of us "Not everyone is going to get on this bus." Really? Cuz I thought we'd all just pile in and do lapsies! No? Someone take the megaphone awayyy from the woman, before she hurts herself...or someone (who is really hot and crowded, and holding a wiggly baby in the sweltering sun) does it for her. Ugg.

Anyway, bitching aside, it really was awesome to see thousands of people storm the streets of downtown Milwaukee in order to raise some well deserved cha-ching for an amazing organization. Little wore her red "Champion" shirt, setting her apart from the masses as a child who has received care at Children's, and napped most of the way. Big ate popcorn, drank lemonade and enjoyed pointing out the various canines in attendance for the day. Local cheer leading teams and bands alternated lining the streets in order to keep walkers motivated and entertained as we made our way along the path to the finish line. Surrounded by thousands of other families, friends and champions alike, it was truly a sight to behold. Worth every. drop. of sweat. Truly.

We ended up with 17 people walking with our team, and almost $700 in additional donations from our friends and family who couldn't make it to town for the event. With great pride, I must say that we really have the most wonderful and supportive friends and family!! A big thank you to everyone who gave their time and money to make this event possible. I can't think of a more worthy cause.

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