Light The Night Walk 2010

On Saturday Ella and I participated in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's annual Light The Night Walk. This is a nationwide event that takes place in Cities all over the Country. Proceeds directly benefit research and treatment for Lymphomas and Leukemia. Yay!!



Ella and I walked on a team called Brady's Buddies! Brady is a CUTIE PATOOTIE 2 yr old who has been fighting AML since he was 8 weeks old. This is Brady (and his Mom, Rachel).



AML is the same cancer that took Baby Violette so to have another family I know still dealing with this horrible disease is very saddening to me, to say the least. But Brady continues to fight and is the bravest kid I have ever met. He just had surgery like a week before the walk and yet there he was, clutching his soccer ball the whole time. :)

The walk started at the Tempe Center for the Arts overlooking Tempe Town Lake.



And speaking of Baby Violette, hell yeah, you better believe baby girl had some representation at this year's Walk! A lot of people (and most of my besties) turned out also to walk on Team Violette. Here are only some of them...



We made these cute signs to wear on us.



And I also wore a special one in honor of Violette.



And Brady was hanging out playing catch waiting for the walk to start... ;)



We grabbed our Light The Night Balloons that have blinking lights inside and we headed off. There were literally thousands of balloons lighting up the night sky. Red, White and Gold. It was real cool.



It was a total bottle neck getting started and very chaotic but it wasn't long before we literally bumped into Team Violette. And since my besties were there with their kids, Ella's besties were there too. So she was very excited to have 2-3 of them jumping on our stroller with her at a time.



Until I ran a few kids over and Ella decided to jump in the wagon with her friend Madison and I ended up pushing Kendall and Jacqueline in my stroller for most of the walk. :) We got separated from Brady's Buddies in the crowd but that is to be expected sometimes.

Wait... want to hear the BEST part? Phoenix knows how to represent. We had 3,000 walkers that raised $225,000! Woot woot!!

It was chaotic. It was 2.5 miles, it was chilly, but it was fun. And we can't wait for next year. PS: Ella passed out on the way home sipping a hot chocolate. :)