Today was March for Babies!!!
We had BEAUTIFUL weather! It was 62 and sunny when we left the house at 8:45 am. This was a far cry from the 26 degrees we experienced
last year!
We met grandma and Ashley at grandma's house to pick them up to join us and took a quick few pics before we left of Team Maddie:
We got to Hudson Mills just after 9 o'clock and there were already lots of people there! We hung out at the VIP tent eating doughnuts and drinking coffee while we waited for the opening ceremony to start.
And grandma ran around with Maddie in the field while she picked dandelions for everyone.
Then dad took a turn...
And she ran off some more steam on the tennis courts...yes, this was all BEFORE the walk, hahaha.
And then the walk was ON!!!
Agan, there were a ton of people there, probably about the same amount as last year. I'd estimate easily over 1,000.
Dad rocked the sweatband AND pinwheel on his head for most of the walk.
I didn't take a picture, but the first checkpoint was sponsored by Target and I have to give them a LOT of credit. They were giving out awesome food and drinks (fruit snacks, granola bars, cereal bars, animal crackers, etc) as well as pinwheels and balloons for the kids!
The second check point was sponsored by Pet Supplies Plus and they were handing out goodie bags for all the puppies on the walk. Dozer and Bebe scored some awesome bags complete with frisbees, tennis balls and treats!
And, the third checkpoint was sponsored by ProQuest again this year. It's all for the kids! Face painting, bounce houses, cup cakes, pop corn, cups full of gold fish crackers, etc. It's Dr. Seuss Land!
After this check point the people start to thin out as many stay to play for a long time and then just sporadically finish off the end of the walk.
The fourth checkpoint was sponsored by Golden Limousine and they were giving out cotton candy for the kids and had a big trolly there for kids to go into and check out. We decided to let M try cotton candy. She was not a fan.
FINISH!!! Ryan sprinted ahead with Maddie to "win" the race. LOL.
After we finished walking I ran into something I thought I wouldn't ever hear at a MOD walk...
"She's SO TINY!!! How old is she?!?!" I replied that she was 17 months and the woman responded with "OMG, Spencer you are bigger than she is!!!" Um, yeah. We're at a walk for premature infants. Most of them are going to be small. What? LOL. Apparently Ryan later overheard her husband explain to her than "She was probably born premature." HAHA!
We raised a total of $633 dollars this year, which was $50 more than last year! YAY! So, we got a March for Babies t-shirt and and $25 gift card to Kmart or Macy's (which I donated back to MOD). Here's what this year's shirt looks like:
And, finally, a very special thank you to all of our donors:
Judy & Michael Barron, Stacy & Eurides Cepeda, Diane Tavana, Donna Simari, Stephanie Quarles, Rachael & Jarod Andersen, Megan Bolte, Bonita Kazmir, Kathryn Vasquez, Susie Hammons, Jean Spink, Cassie Schissell Barber, Nate Ramsayer, Amanda Bearce, Ryan & Stephanie Gubbins, Lindsay Willett, Jacki Billings, Nikole DeLuca, Holli Dreischarf, Kelly Gravatt, Laura Marek, Mary Olivio, Tara Rabiola, Autumn Rivera, Ruth Bass, Jackie Cronin, Jill & Aaron Duffy, Jenny & Louis Malic, Tamara Block, Victoria Schilke, Janice & Kevin Winslow, and an anonymous donor...
...without the wonderful support of each and every one of you, our walk would not have been the success that it was! So thank you thank you thank you from the very bottom of our hearts!
