WOW!!!! What a fabulous weekend in Memphis! We all made it, some in a little better shape than others, but the main thing is everyone who started, made it across the finish line. This has been such an incredible weekend, once again words can not describe it.
When my body and my brain catch up on a little rest, I have ALOT to tell you and give you some reports on but for now I did want to touch base on a couple of things..
First - ABC 24 News out of Memphis featured Team Ethan on their Marathon coverage. So we had the awesome experience of having a photojournalist following us at our planned events all weekend. His name is Ryan, and he was just awesome. I will say he added an extra bit of excitement and fun to our weekend. And the best part, he is now an official member of Team Ethan! He actually wore our team shirt and ran with some of our different team members carrying his camera on his shoulder, and he did it in record time! He put some of us to shame! LOL It really was alot of fun having him around. You can see the video clip that aired on ABC News on Saturday night in Memphis at ABC24.com just click on videos, then click on "Thousands run for St Jude"
Second - At this point our team has raised just over $14,500.00 for St Jude!! Donations are still coming in and I'd love to see us hit the $20,000.00 mark. So if you did not get to come and be a part of this awesome experience, I do ask if you can reach into the bottom of your pockets and make a donation to the team or one of the team members. Ben's page is www.stjudeheroes.org/users/benpowell and Becky's is www.stjudeheroes.org/users/ethansmom Or you can go to stjudeheroes.org and find our team and select any of the team members that you choose to donate to. It really does not matter, bottom line it all goes to St Jude.
As of Saturday morning, the entire marathon has raised around 1.8 million dollars. To put this huge amount of money into perspective.... it cost just under $1.4 million a day, yes... I did say EACH DAY to cover the operating cost for St Jude. So all of this fundraising and hard work for this big weekend only covers the cost for ONE DAY! I encourage you to look into the many ways you can help this wonderful hospital in your local area or just on your own. Keep in mind, St Jude never ever turns away a child for treatment because of the inability for a family to pay and no family has ever received a bill for anything from St Jude. They do take what your insurance pays if you have insurance. They operate totally on fundraising and donations from people like me and you doing what we can to support this wonderful hospital.
More info and stories from the weekend and also pictures will be posted later, but I did want to get out a little "teaser" for you. More to come....
Thank you to those of you who did make this trip. Leave some comments to let others know about your experience here. Start saving up pennies in a jar for next year to come back and bring a friend with you. It is just to much fun to miss out on!!!
It was great to see you all again, already missing each of you and looking forward to next year!
When you say "GO TEAM ETHAN" I can tell you... TEAM ETHAN WENT ALL THE WAY TO THE FINISH LINE!!!!!!!!
Thank you all again,
Mardecia and Allison
Monday, December 8, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Good Morning!!
It's a very cool morning in Memphis this morning. I am looking at the forecast for the weekend at this very moment, at this point it is forecasting partly sunny (no rain) with a low of 30 for Friday night and a high of 52 for Saturday. No rain is what we are looking for! One thing you have to love about Memphis... if you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes...it'll change. Hopefully this forecast will hold. Last year it was pretty brisk when we got started, but warmed up to a very comfortable temp by the time we got going good.
A few things to keep in mind. First of all, and very important, I need to touch base with you about the St Jude Hospital tour. Just a reminder, no children under the age of 16 are allowed on the tours. They are very strict regarding this. Also, if you are sick, please for the sake of the children whose immune systems are very low, do not participate in the tour as you will be coming in contact with some of the patients.
***If you have RSVP'd that you will be attending, I have your name on a list that has been turned in to the lady organizing our tour for us. That list will be posted at each gate. Your name must be on the list to enter the gates. This is a security precaution to protect the children at the hospital. You will be asked for your driver license, so be prepared. Please allow time for the gate check in process, depending on how many are trying to get through the gate at the same time, it can take a few minutes. We need to meet in the main hospital lobby no later than 12:45. Make sure that you are in the main hospital and not in the lobby of the Chili's building, this can be a little confusing if you are not familiar with the hospital. I will meet you in the lobby, and I have name tags already prepared that you will need to pick up. Our tour will begin promptly at 1:00 pm. Our tour "lady" has another appointment at 2 pm so we must be on time and ready to go to get our full tour in.
For those at the team hotel, the hotel is hosting a Welcome Reception at 5:00 pm on Friday afternoon. Just meet in the lobby of the hotel. Again, we have name tags for everyone so come on down and get to know your teammates or have a reunion with the ones you may already know.
We will move from the hotel to Macaroni Grill for our dinner reservations at 6:30. Just let them know at the reservations desk that you are a part of St Jude, Team Ethan. Just to recap, dinner will include: bread, salad, main entree, tea, coke etc. and we will have that wonderful delish cake that we had last year. So a full meal for our special price of $10.00 per person. We will have a limited menu available to us at that price, but there will be 3 choices and each choice is one of Macaroni Grill's signature dishes. I promise it's all good!! Final count for the dinner will be turned in today to the restaurant.
We will be joined at the dinner by a few extra guest. Some of you followed Sully along with Ethan, his parents and Hannah plan to join us as well as another patient that some of you followed too, Natalie Cravens. Natalie, her twin sister and parents plan to join us for dinner too. Each of these families have their own hero teams, but did want to join us for dinner to meet many of you who supported them and prayed for them.
Don't forget to pack your t-shirts! Let's show Memphis exactly who Team Ethan is!!! I hope to get a team picture at some point. We'll have to work on that one! Please bring your team shirt to Macaroni Grill with you, we might have to slip them on and try to get a group picture at that time. I'd like to get it before the run starts, but since we will not all be doing the same run, that might be impossible to get everyone together before or after... we'll see!
Ok, enough for today! do you realize it is FINALLY here! WooHoo!! This will be a life changing experience for you. I am so excited about what we as a group are able to do for this wonderful hospital. Keep up the good work!
Oh yea.. I do have one more thing... there will be door prizes at the dinner!! You must be present to win, but there will be prizes for a) who traveled the farest b) who raised the most money for the team and other prizes to.
If you need anything, you can email me and I'll try to help.
Have a great week! See you this weekend!!!
Mardecia
rebelmom528@aol.com
It's a very cool morning in Memphis this morning. I am looking at the forecast for the weekend at this very moment, at this point it is forecasting partly sunny (no rain) with a low of 30 for Friday night and a high of 52 for Saturday. No rain is what we are looking for! One thing you have to love about Memphis... if you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes...it'll change. Hopefully this forecast will hold. Last year it was pretty brisk when we got started, but warmed up to a very comfortable temp by the time we got going good.
A few things to keep in mind. First of all, and very important, I need to touch base with you about the St Jude Hospital tour. Just a reminder, no children under the age of 16 are allowed on the tours. They are very strict regarding this. Also, if you are sick, please for the sake of the children whose immune systems are very low, do not participate in the tour as you will be coming in contact with some of the patients.
***If you have RSVP'd that you will be attending, I have your name on a list that has been turned in to the lady organizing our tour for us. That list will be posted at each gate. Your name must be on the list to enter the gates. This is a security precaution to protect the children at the hospital. You will be asked for your driver license, so be prepared. Please allow time for the gate check in process, depending on how many are trying to get through the gate at the same time, it can take a few minutes. We need to meet in the main hospital lobby no later than 12:45. Make sure that you are in the main hospital and not in the lobby of the Chili's building, this can be a little confusing if you are not familiar with the hospital. I will meet you in the lobby, and I have name tags already prepared that you will need to pick up. Our tour will begin promptly at 1:00 pm. Our tour "lady" has another appointment at 2 pm so we must be on time and ready to go to get our full tour in.
For those at the team hotel, the hotel is hosting a Welcome Reception at 5:00 pm on Friday afternoon. Just meet in the lobby of the hotel. Again, we have name tags for everyone so come on down and get to know your teammates or have a reunion with the ones you may already know.
We will move from the hotel to Macaroni Grill for our dinner reservations at 6:30. Just let them know at the reservations desk that you are a part of St Jude, Team Ethan. Just to recap, dinner will include: bread, salad, main entree, tea, coke etc. and we will have that wonderful delish cake that we had last year. So a full meal for our special price of $10.00 per person. We will have a limited menu available to us at that price, but there will be 3 choices and each choice is one of Macaroni Grill's signature dishes. I promise it's all good!! Final count for the dinner will be turned in today to the restaurant.
We will be joined at the dinner by a few extra guest. Some of you followed Sully along with Ethan, his parents and Hannah plan to join us as well as another patient that some of you followed too, Natalie Cravens. Natalie, her twin sister and parents plan to join us for dinner too. Each of these families have their own hero teams, but did want to join us for dinner to meet many of you who supported them and prayed for them.
Don't forget to pack your t-shirts! Let's show Memphis exactly who Team Ethan is!!! I hope to get a team picture at some point. We'll have to work on that one! Please bring your team shirt to Macaroni Grill with you, we might have to slip them on and try to get a group picture at that time. I'd like to get it before the run starts, but since we will not all be doing the same run, that might be impossible to get everyone together before or after... we'll see!
Ok, enough for today! do you realize it is FINALLY here! WooHoo!! This will be a life changing experience for you. I am so excited about what we as a group are able to do for this wonderful hospital. Keep up the good work!
Oh yea.. I do have one more thing... there will be door prizes at the dinner!! You must be present to win, but there will be prizes for a) who traveled the farest b) who raised the most money for the team and other prizes to.
If you need anything, you can email me and I'll try to help.
Have a great week! See you this weekend!!!
Mardecia
rebelmom528@aol.com
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