It's Official & our Vacation

The Dells & Our CF Walk:

I'm sooo proud to announce that Princeton, Illinois (my hometown) will be added to the list of OFFICIAL Great Strides Walks for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation! Make sure to mark your calendars for June 27, 2014!!!!!

(for those who don't know, I decided to start this walk last year & thanks to my community it was a huge success! Read about it here!

Pic: Me giving a speech last year, wearing my Team CF2 shirt

Here's the info I have so far:
   Zearing Park, Euclid St. check in 9-10am,
  10am the Walk.
   Lunch & dessert is provided to those who registered online!
  There will be lots of Raffles ($1 per ticket), Dj/Music, games, face painting!

Make sure not to miss out on the fun! I will let everyone know when the online registration is ready!

This year since we are our own walk site, we can now sign up numerous teams! This year (2014) our Team CF2 has raised over $14,000 for CF research! The Princeton Walk alone raised over $13,300! So next year lets make our goal $20,000!

Consider starting your own team with your co-workers, family, or friends. Or you are more than welcome to be on my team (CF2). Anyone without a team is welcome to join mine. But I'd love to see multiple teams. Team Leaders can earn prizes too! So gather your family & friends to join your team and have a fun-filled day supporting a great cause!

AND FAMILY, FRIENDS, & COMMUNITY please give yourself a big round of applause, because WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!

And now more has happened...

In the past week I have lost 2 friends from Cystic Fibrosis. One was my best friend and you can read all about her struggle & journey Right Here! She fought long and hard to get new lungs, but sadly she lost her battle last week. Laura was my bestie for a long time, we have known each other since childhood. And the second was an online friend with CF I met a little over a year ago, Alyssa. I've been in touch with about 5 CFers via Facebook on a regular basis. It was so tough to see them struggle. Also this week I dropped before 100 lbs for the first time in over a year.

It's so disappointing to drop in weight, but I just have to wait for the surgery to fix my stomach tube hole. Scroll down to the next blog entry to read about my Stomach Tube Hole problems.

But the sun in all this rainstorm is that my best friend Amanda got married! They decided to get married in the Wisconsin Dells!

Pic: Amanda (Bride) with me & her cutie niece (flower girl)

Which was soo much fun! Andrew works so hard (40 hours a week) plus school on top of that. And with the week I had been having this mini-weekend getaway was perfect!  We got there Saturday around lunch time and the Wedding was that night, then we drove home around 6pm the next day! My last vacation I took was with my uncles to Niagra Falls in 2012 ( Read about it Here). Then Las Vegas with (the Bride, Amanda) which is where she first started dating Jake in 2011. Andrew said he couldn't remember his last vacation, but it would probably be the trips he took in High school to Disney. And since he had never experienced the Dells (the non-waterpark way). I wanted to him to experience it all.  So I planned out 3 meals at the best restuarants, an Orginial Ducks (boat) tour, Mini Golfs, Shopping, Visiting Popcorn and Candy shops, and more!

Here are some of the pics from the weekend!

 Breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty

Everything was soo pretty!

Andrew & our veiw from the Duck (on the water)

 

 One of the scenic Mini-Golfs

(Incase you didn't know Mini Golf is one of our favorite activities)

And one of our desserts!

(Apple Pie Cake studded with Cranberries)

The week has been hard with all of its Up & Downs. And I'm glad to have that mini-weekend getawat! Then when I heard about Princeton being an official GREAT STRIDES WALK Site. I couldn't believe it. Laura would have loved that and would have been sooo proud of me! I plan on donating all the money that (individually collect for donation) in "Memory of Laura Blanchard"

In the next two weeks I'll be focusing on getting the healthiest possible before my surgery! Read about it below in the next post!