Light the Night - a Success!

Yesterday was the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Light the Night walk that I told you about about a month ago. The walk was a success! I'd like to find out, somehow, how much the entire walk raised because I have no idea - but I know my team raised almost $6,000! That doesn't include the charitable donation matching that Western Union does, so anyone employed here who made donations will be matched in a few weeks. I'm thinking that'll put us well over $6,000 since one person here donated $500! What a great fundraiser :)

I'd like to thank everyone who supported me. My initial personal goal was $300, and I thought I might have to make up the difference to get myself there, but I was so pleasantly surprised when after 3 weeks of fundraising I needed to increase my personal goal to $400. Still I was touched when I ended up raising just over $600!!! So thanks very much for your support :)

The walk was fun. All week the weather forecast hadn't looked good for Thursday - we were expecting a cold front to come in on Wednesday night and bring rain, possibly snow, and cold winds all day through the evening. Austin found out Monday he wasn't going to be able to walk with me because they were double booked at the shooting range so it was going to take twice as long, so I was planning to walk with my boss Dana and my coworker Dottie. As the forecast continued to seem to "rain" on our day, the two of them suggested they may not walk they'd just turn in their money. I would have been SO disappointed.

So when the winds settled and we never received any precipitation, I was overly excited because I wasn't going to be walking alone. We were working until 5:45, then hit traffic from a 5 car accident, so we didn't get to the walk as early as I would have liked - but we did get there in time to enjoy some snacks courtesy of the melting pot :) I've never eaten there, but now I want to even more than I wanted to before! They had marshmallows, pound cake, strawberries, and pineapple to dip in chocolate fondue - yum! We turned in our funds, got our t-shirts, found the balloons and just had time for a quick picture before setting off on our walk.

With all the people and the trees around it really didn't feel like it was 40 degrees (could also have been my layers: 3 shirts, 2 pants, tall socks and a beanie...) I tried to get some pictures of all the balloons along the way because it looked so neat - but with the flash you could hardly see the balloons, and without the flash all you saw were little strings of light. Every balloon had a blinking bulb inside it, so by the end of the walk the balloons were nearly dragging on the ground (or hitting neighbors in the face) but at the beginning it really was a sight to see. There were mostly red balloons, but I was happy to see white balloons whenever possible - those people had survived!

I didn't get home until 8:45 and Austin barely made it home before me - so I was pretty exhausted this morning. But it was a great night, I had a lot of fun with Dana and Dottie, and again - I really appreciate your support.

I better run though - doc appointment in 20 minutes!!! I lost .6 pounds yesterday...bad timing for the walk...so I wore my heaviest jewelry today to try and trick my doctor :) Happy Friday!!!