This weekend

I thought I would start telling you about the bone marrow drive weekend with our Saturday activities. Rachel (my best friend since high school, the person Alivia gets her middle name from and bone marrow drive organizer extraordinare) arrived and she and I headed to the wonderful world of Costco. We got all the snacks for the drive and headed to our car. Out of nowhere it started to rain. It was a hard, freezing, soaking rain. We were running around trying to load the car...laughing like fools. We noticed others around us just standing and staring so of course we had to stop and look. There in the sky was the most amazing rainbow I ever saw. It looked like someone took a marker and drew a perfect rainbow in the sky...and you could see both sides. Here are the pictures I took (couldn't fit it in one frame). We took that as a sign that the weekend was going to be wonderful.

That night we had dinner. Bill, Cynthia, John, Will, Erin W., Rachel, Dave, Gretchen, Andrew, Aaron, Rachel, James, Alivia and I waited forever to get our food. But we made the most of long long dinner (over 2 hours) and had a nice time together. Alivia did great cause she was with most quite a few of her favorite people..and they had taxidermy animals in the resturaunt which she found amazing.

Sunday AM we arrived at Cimbrian (where the drive was) around 11 and set up. The volunteers were so amazing. We had a crazy, busy day. Over the course of the afternoon we added 355 people to the registry!! That is 155 more than we originally planned for. So overwhelming. There were times when you couldn't even move around and there was never a dull moment. (Aunt Ann could you send me some of the pictures you took so we can post them for everyone?) I couldn't even believe how many people showed up because they saw us on the news or read about it in the paper. Probably about half the people I didn't even know. Thanks to every single person who came. You don't realize how much it means to me and other parents with sick children.

We had a nice time today. Andrew, my parents, Alivia and I spent some time at the mall. I took some cute pictures which I will post later (my computer is acting up tonight). Currently my dad and James are on the way back from dropping Andrew off at the airport. It was a great weekend.

Tomorrow we have our meeting with the transplant team. They won't be giving us a time frame (I don't think) but they will be giving us more of an idea what we are facing. Not looking forward to it at all but that is the next step (I guess). My parents and James' parents are going with us for support and just to have more ears listening...sometimes someone will hear something James and I miss so its good to have others with us.

Tomorrow evening Alivia is going trick-or-treating for her very first time.I will most definelty post some pictures. It will be good to have something fun to do after such a huge, scary day.

Thanks to Cheryl A, Vivian H., and Janet B. for the toys for the treasure box. Thanks to Marmie, Mamaux, Erin and the McClements for the great cards and to Sandra Knowles for the gift.

A super, huge thanks to the volunteers yesterday...it wouldn't have worked without you guys. The volunteers were Rachel K. (organizer/ location oversight/she-who-I-lean-on-most), Andrew A. (location oversight), Aaron A. (barcoding), John H. (barcoding), Jamie S. (barcoding), Will H. (health screening), Cynthia H. (health screening), Dave A. (my dad/crowd control/directing/jack of all trades), Sonya L. (health screening), Andy L. (greeting/publicity man), Erin W. (health screening), Angie S. (health screening), Scott S. (who jumped when we desperately needed help with health screening), Leslie Y. (health screening), Ann B. (Bill's sister who drove from Virginia and ended up being the refreshment table manager), Bekah W. (cheek swab queen), Darcy S. (barcoding), Jason (health screening) and Matt H. (clean-up)