Relay for Life Recap

Yesterday was the annual Relay for Life out at CSUB. Bakersfield's Relay is #1 in raising money & turn-out! Pretty impressive! They start out the event early with the National Anthem (which was sung by a tongue cancer survivor who was told she would never be able to talk/sing again and did an AWESOME job!), then it was time for the survivors to release the butterflies, then it was time for the survivors to kick off the relay by walking the lap. It's always very emotional for me during this morning part because it just makes me realize how lucky I am to have my mom here with me and my family. She was diagnosed with Uterin (sp?) cancer almost 3 years ago and was immediatly scheduled for surgery on 9/11/06 (ironic?) which was 2 weeks to the day prior that I went into labor with Michael. She was in the hospital for a week and I spent most of my time with her as my dad had to work and I was off on maternity leave. I figured it would be okay to go into labor since I was at the hospital already :o) Anyway, she had her surgery and during they found cancer in another area they didn't think was there before which caused her to have to go through radiation treatments. Michael & I went with her most mornings (our house was being built at the time so we were living with them.) It was pretty nice to have her home with me, but scary knowing what could've been. Since then, she's had several appointments and still continues to go and things have been great ever since. We've gone to Relay for Life twice now and it's just a great experience to be there. There are many booths set up with raffle prizes, food, crafts, etc to help raise money to fight for a cure. It's a great atmosphere. It is a little hard when you walk by a booth that's there because they had a 2 year old child pass from cancer, but then you look around and see the sea of purple shirts of the survivors. It's a bitter sweet moment. All in all, it was a great time, they had lots of different shows that were put on by different people. We watched some belly dancers because my aunt had to take pictures for them. They invited people up on the stage for a "dance off" and Emma kept trying to get on the stage! Some guy told me "Let her dance!" I would've, but the dancers weren't paying attention to her so she could be a part of it. Oh well. The kids got to run around & play some games. They also had a kiddy area with a couple of bounce houses, a slide, velcro wall and elastic thing that you put on, race with a friend and it throws you back when you've stretched it out. We were out there from about 8:30am till 9 pm! It was a long day! The kids got sunburned on their faces! Not fun! I'll take a picture when my camera batter gets charged. If you're not doing anything next year when they put it on, I definately recommend attending. It doesn't cost anything to get in, they just have several booths that ask for donations.