A huge thank you to all who supported our family today by joining our Angels for Ally team or contributing to the effort of raising yet another huge amount of money, that will no doubt save many lives in our community!!! Over the next few days the total will be complete. There is still time to donate, if you like.
Today as we walked, we remembered and took time to honor our donor families from Texas and Michigan, both of which have provided Ally the Gift of Life! Without their decision to say "yes" to donation, Ally would not be here today. We also honored our little buddy Logan Davis who passed away in December from complications after his transplant. His mom also flew in from Ohio to join us in our walk.
We had a very busy weekend with the walk, having friends from Pittsburgh in town, and just making time to enjoy each other as a family.
The event today went very well. The team was well represented with many of our friends and family. Having so many people attend an event like this, makes it difficult at times to just get a quick hello into some of the team members. If we missed talking or catching up with you, please forgive us! We were being pulled in many directions today.
Ally's day was fairly good. When we arrived at the event and she had seen the amount of people, the first thing she said was "go home"! Ally does not do well with large crowds, alot of attention, and hates loud noises. Most of this is due to being confined to a hospital setting for so long. Something we will need to work on over time (as well as many other things).
The think worst and most terrifying moment of Ally's life did happen to her today. Some of you were witness to it. As the walk was about to start, Ally was sitting in her double seated red wagon, with her back to me, when all of the sudden out of no where came the Philly Phanatic. Without realizing Ally was seated in the wagon, the Phanatic jumped right into wagon. Remember Ally is in the wagon, so that meant he was sittting on her with his belly covering her. If Ally would of just seen him from a far, she would have be terrified, but to sit on her, well I thought she may just need a heart transplant! I quickly gave the Phanatic a push and wisked Ally away from the scene! It took about 15 minutes for her to calm down and remove the hands from her eyes. The poor kid can never just have an uneventful day!
Anyway, the rest of the day went well. Weather was cool, not to hot, and no rain!! Jill, Ashley, and Ally left tonight to go back to Pittsburgh, so I'm sure the girls will be exhausted tomorrow from the long day today.
We will update with photos in the next couple of days. If you were at the event, and captured some photos, please pass them along to us at aajsheintz@yahoo.com. We would love to include them to the website.
Thank you one more time to everyone for such a huge effort to Angels for Ally and the Gift of Life! You are all truely the best friends and family one could have!
Next year, we have some bigger ideas for the event, so plan now to mark the calendars to join us again in 2009!!!
Shane