Officially Fall

Today we woke up to a real chill in the air and found that we had a dusting of snow on our roof. Its a little early for my taste but our limited seasonal history in Ohio has taught us that usually we have an early cold snap and then we get just a little Indian Summer right before Halloween allowing for a comfortable evening of jacket-less Trick-or-Treating. We have a little time so we're crossing our fingers and toes!

It is hard to feel the cold since we have really had a beautiful fall so far. Here are some of the great things we've been doing in our amazing weather:

1) Soccer, soccer, and more soccer.

2) Picking apples and pumpkins at Mapleside Farms-a completely enchanting experience I have to say.

3) Halloween partying! In this picture you can see some of the fun Halloween pillowcases we made for some of our favorite friends in Utah. My mom came up with a great little poem set to the basic lyrics of "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed." Email me for our pumpkins version.

4) Oh...and growing a pumpkin of our own! (Sorry-the evening was dying and I'm wearing black so miraculously you can't fully appreciate my HUGE belly!)


And then when it snowed we decided to "Race for the Cure" at a walking and Burley-riding pace of course. Yes-we had a nice polar blast for our walk but nobody complained. They even had the nerve to serve free "Pink Ribbon Chip" ice cream from our favorite neighborhood ice cream shop, Mitchell's Homemade Icecream .



Thank you once again to all of you who support our race for Cookie! She is doing well and begins her chemo treatments on November 2nd. We expect her hair to start falling out after about 2 weeks of treatments and she has decided to go "hat" rather than "wig" so please send me any ideas you have about cute hat sources!

Race for the Cure Day!

Our family sends a huge thank you to all of you who continue to offer your love, support, prayers, monetary contributions and happy thoughts on behalf of my mom Gwen Drechsler. Tomorrow is race for the Cure day in Cleveland and we are excited to get up bright and early in the chilly weather to walk for our "Cookie"!

Gwen had surgery last week and found that the cancer has travelled to her lypmhnodes so it looks like there will be chemotherapy in her future. That is a bit discouraging but we are all doing our best to remain positive and be hopeful for her cure.

Last year we ached for our young friend Teague May as he battled (and so far has conquered!) cancer in Washington State. His family adopted a motto from the Book of Mormon, "Be of good cheer...". We share this sentiment as we are ever grateful for our blessings and ever hopeful for peace and comfort for our mom, grandma, daughter, sister and friend Gwen. Many kind acts have been sent our way and I am personally so appreciative of friends that have shown love and support in the sweetest ways.

To highlight a few that have taken place:

Kristi C. auctioned one of her adorable handmade Pockets and Posies bags on eBay as part of our fundraising efforts to support our family goal to raise $500 for our Race for the Cure fund.

Another friend, Emily G. made a last minute bid to win the bag and her contribution of $63 will go into the fund.

Amie A. (whom I have never met) sent me a very kind "Good Pink Mail" package full of pink goodies including cozy pink ribbon flannel pajamas, pink ribbon Race Day socks (which I will of course be donning tomorrow!) some fun pink ribbon sticky notes and of course chocolate. Amie's enclosed note shared a personal survival story from her family that instantly brought me "good cheer" and tears to my eyes to realize that we have many supporters all around us who care deeply even for virtual strangers.

Many friends and family members have made financial contributions to our Race effort online to support the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Foundations like these need our support to continue the fight against many cancers affect our friends and family members. It is hard to feel like one in a sea of many but when we look around there are a whole lot of fish swimming right with us.

Evan T. my starving artist little brother in CA has made it a personal project to contribute the proceeds from the sales of his work to support our effort. As a point of interest and to let you know how much this means to me, Evan and I share a biological father. He is doing this for MY mom not his (even though his is wonderful as well!). That is how sweet his involvement is to me.

I can't even name all of you who have promised prayers on our family's behalf but those are perhaps the most needed. We won't understand the why but we trust that there is a reason to draw on our faith and our friendships. Thank you all from my heart of hearts.