Relay For Life

One day. One night. One community: By participating in an American Cancer Society Relay For Life event, you honor cancer survivors, pay tribute to the lives lost to the disease, and raise money to help fight it – all right in your community.
Much more than a walk around a track, Relay is a time to celebrate those who have battled cancer, remember those lost and get inspired to fight back. Those who have shared the same experience find common ground, hope and healing at Relay. By participating, you have the power to continue the American Cancer Society's progress toward a future where cancer doesn't take the lives of our friends and family.
Relay For Life opens as cancer survivors take the first lap. This emotional time sets the stage for the importance of each participant's contribution. Highlighting the evening is a luminaria Ceremony of Hope held after dark to honor cancer survivors and to remember loved ones lost to cancer. The luminaria candles line the track and are left burning throughout the night to remind participants of the incredible importance of their contributions. There were so many bags around the track, it was beautiful and sad because you realized how many people were effected by this awful disease.
On Friday we joined a Relay for Life team with some friends of ours. It was a great experience for our family. Kevin walked between 11 and midnight and I being the late night girl I am, walked at 12:30-3:45 a.m. We rotated all night long between teammates. The kids had fun at the beginning of the night decorating bags for the Luminaria ceremony. It really was special to see them care so much for the people we knew who died of cancer. I am glad I was able to participate in this and I highly recommend getting involved with your community to do an event like this. It was a great experience. http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/

Our Luminaria Ceremony bags

IOA 5K

Every year Human Performance Institute (where Kevin and my Dad work) participates in the IOA 5K (3.1 miles). This race is all about healthy living: move more and eat wisely. Many corporations and Busineeses throughout Florida patricipate. There were over 7,000 people running or walking this year! I decided that I wanted to be apart of it. We had a lot of fun. Kev ran it in 23.41 minutes and I finished in 23.58! My dad was injured so he just cheered the team on. It was a great run- painful, but fun.

Epcot Garden Festival

Living in Florida had its ups and downs. I don't know if I love being in a tourist city but I do know that I want to live it up while we are here. Otherwise if and when we leave I'll be doing the shoulda-coulda-woulda scheme in my head for the rest of my life. Having a 4 and 2 year old meant that this year we were going to get season passes to Disney. Passes are free for kids under three so we thought it would be the perfect time to get them so we would only be paying for Avery and I. (Kevin is still debating if he wants to get one because we usually go while he is at work, who knows if he'll get one, only time will tell. )

I was pleasantly surprised when Avery, Boston and I ventured to the Garden Festival at Epcot. I was expecting a sea of people hovered over every possible inch of the amusement park, but it really wasn't that crowded. Maybe its because they stretch the festival for over a month long, but it was definitely worth the risk of the park being swamped because we had a great time.

I had no idea they had so many things that kids could do. We decorated pots to put flowers in, made caterpillars and butterflies. They had all kinds of make-and-take projects for kids to do. Our favorite part of the festival was the Ladybug release and Minnie's Butterfly Garden. At the Lady bug release each child received a box of lady bugs and when you opened the box there were approximately 30 lady bugs in each one. ( Did you know you can by ladybugs at Home Depot to help your garden grow because they eat the bad bugs in your garden? I had no idea, I'm obviously not a gardener, but some day I would love to learn.)

The lady bugs were thirsty so they sprayed water all over every one's arms so the lady bugs would stay on your arms for a while and then you were supposed to release them into the gardens. Boston's favorite part was getting sprayed with water and he repeatedly kept going up to the "water sprayer man" to get dowsed with water.

Avery loved Minnie's Butterfly Garden . She would of stayed there all day if I let her. I thought it was so neat that they had a little house that had over 100 cocoons in all different stages of metamorphosis. Maybe I get excited about learning about simple things all over again because I have a daughter whose eyes light up when she learns something new like this but I will say, it makes me smile. We will definitely be back for seconds this month. I recommend it to anyone coming to Orlando before June 5th.

Avery's favorite butterfly

the cocoon house