I can hardly believe our 2nd Annual Comedians for a Cure event is only 4 days away!  We are so excited!  I cannot tell  you how thrilled we are with all the support we have received from AZ news and radio!  We are so thankful that so many want to do all they can to help promote our event and make it so successful!

Tomorrow, Boomer Nichols (our MC of the event) will be on 101.5 FM with Luis Gonzalez at 4:00 PM!  Be sure to tune in and listen!!

Yesterday we taped a segment that will air on EVB Live (channel 12) on Friday between the 4-5:00 PM hour.  They will air the segment on Jack and our family followed by one of our amazing comedians, Jill Bryan going on live!

Saturday Luis, Jack, Boomer, and myself will be going on News channel 15 at 8:30 AM and then heading over to Good Morning AZ (channel 3) at 9:40 AM!  We have a jam packed schedule and we couldn’t be happier about it.

This whole week 104.7FM and XTRA 910 AM sports radio have been promoting the event and hosting contests to give away a few sets of tickets.

Don’t forget to click on the link about to purchase your tickets…I promise you don’t want to pass up on this night!  We are through the roof excited about it!

If you can’t make it and still want to help, be sure to text “HAND” to 50555 and a $5 donation will be added to your phone bill in support of our night.

ALL proceeds will be going directly to PCH for Neuroblastoma research!  Please help us make this year beyond amazing!!

We only have 2 weeks left until our 2nd Annual Comedians for a Cure!!!  This year is so exciting because not only do we have a great comedy show lineup with Jill Bryan, Travis Thurman, Monique Marvez with the show being MC’s by Boomer Nichols, but the Diamondback’s Luis Gonzalez and The Cardinals Adrian Wilson will our special guests for the night!  They will be joining Tribute Art Live’s artist, Randall Hedden, on stage to kick off our evening!

If you want to score some amazing seats to the Coyotes vs King’s game on March 12th…stay tuned and we will tell you how to tomorrow!!

Thank you for all of your support and we cannot wait to see you all there!!!  Go ahead, click on the link NOW and get your tickets!

Here you go!  These are a few pictures form the other day at the Cardinals stadium for the Children’s Miracle Network!  The pictures not only include myself, Jackers, and my mom…but it shows you who the amazing people who I talk about are…Adrian, Alicia, Garett, and Evon…and Jack’s girlfriend Megan!

I have started and stopped many posts over the last week and really don’t know where to begin or what to even say!  Our days used to be so full of new information, test results, new medical terms, or updates on the kids in general with doctors appointments and now they are filled with the ins and outs of being 2 and 4 and that’s about it!  I am not complaining at all, I just don’t have a whole lot to fill you all in on that isn’t just our day to day lives!

One thing that is important that I do want to start off talking about is the Children’s Miracle Network and PCH.  For those of you who don’t know, the Children’s Miracle Network is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving and improving the lives of children by raising funds for children’s hospitals across North America. Each year, the 170 hospitals in the network provide the finest medical care, life-saving research and preventative education to help millions of kids overcome diseases and injuries of every kind. Since its founding in 1983, Children’s Miracle Network has raised more than $2.7 billion in support of these hospitals.

This national charitable effort is unique in that 100 percent of the money raised will stay in the community to support the local children’s hospital, which means Phoenix Children’s Hospital receives all of the funds raised in the northern two-thirds of Arizona.  One of the networks big sponsors is Wal-Mart.  PCH is having a rally for WalMart to celebrate their record breaking $1 million campaign and kick off the new campaign year. PCH is so very appreciative of Walmart as they were the valley’s first $1 million campaign!

If you missed it, Adrian Wilson was on the news last week speaking about his involvement with PCH, The Children’s Medical Network, and of course…Jack!  As most of you know, Adrian has been a strong supporter of Jack and our family from the very beginning when he first heard of Jack being diagnosed with cancer.  I am sure a lot of you were at the “shave-off” event that we had two years ago where Adrian and Steve Breston came out and shaved heads to raise money for our foundation.  Adrian is going to be speaking at this event next week and Jack and I will be going with him to show our support and give our thanks to PCH, Children’s Miracle Network, and of course the many people of WalMart who have continued to raise so much money for the hospital.  We are very excited (and a tad nervous as this event is for 1,000 people!) and honored that we would be asked to go.  If you want to help make a difference, please text HAND to 50555.  This simple text will send a $5 donation to Phoenix Children’s.  Thank you so much ahead of time for your donation as it helps support all of the families and patients at PCH!

On to home news!

Jack is doing really well in school and it is really exciting really.  He is writing really well and learning how to sound out words to spell them on his own.  He has learned 10 site words this week (he recognizes them on site and knows what they say) and that is HUGE!  He is really loving being there and I think he will be more than ready for kindergarten and that is all thanks to his amazing teacher.  She has helped to really tansition Jack in to the “normal” life of a 4 year old with such ease.  He used to be so shy at school and frankly didn’t really want to listen at all because his world for the last 2 years has been just about him and when he said jump, we asked how high.  He wasn’t used to following directions and sitting with other kids his age and now he is totally different.  He is good at school and great at learning.  He is proud of himself and all that he has accomplished and that’s amazing all in itself.

Braden is doing great…running around and talking more and more each day.  He LOVES to constantly run and kick a ball and go up and down hills while doing so.  He has great coordination and I think we will be enrolling him in his first “sports” lessons shortly!  He isn’t interested at all in getting out of a diaper so that has been a struggle, but he will do it eventually!

I have been busy being a mom and a wife and trying my hardest to learn how to run this Foundation with great success.  A thank you letter came in the mail yesterday from another special someone from PCH and it really was such a suprise to get it.  I don’t know why I would be shocked to get a thank you note from her considering she is such a caring person, but I was shocked.  It made me feel like we are doing the right thing and although I am sure we will make mistakes along the way, we will learn from them and keep fighting for Jack and all the children that have been affected by Neuroblastoma.  We believe in it and we know you do too.

Zac is busy working but he is home as often as he can be.  His relationship with the boys keeps growing deeper and deeper and it’s so great to see.  He is a great daddy and the boys know this.  They light up when they see him and so does he.  He is being very supportive with all that we are doing and he knows how crazy it can be around here.  After we left the comedy event, he told Nikki and I how proud he was of us for how we pulled it all off (with the help of so many!) and how he can’t even really begin to imagine all the work that goes in to events like this.  Just wait until next year…it will be much bigger!!  I am thankful for having him and for having his support.  I am not sure how I would do this all without him!

Ok, for not having a lot to say, I have said a lot!  Good night and please don’t forget to text HAND to 50555

The beginning of a new year not only comes with a fresh start, but time to reflect on the pass and I have been doing a lot of that over the past month as 2011 came to an end.  In 2010 we were in such bliss when our second son, Braden, was born to then be punched in the stomach when we were told that he had a large hole in his heart that might need surgery to be followed by the visit of true Evil when Jack was diagnosed with Cancer.  If you don’t know how that feels, to have Evil knock on your door, it went something like this:

Knock, knock, knock….

Us: Hello?

 Evil:  Hi, my name is Cancer.  Neuroblastoma Cancer to be exact.  I really want to take your son from you.  I want to take your son and I want to take him by putting him through hell.  I will make him extremely sick.  I will take things away from him…his freedom, his baths, his play dates, his school, his childhood…I want it all.  I want him to lose weight and be so thin and miserable that you hardly recognize him. I want him to go through many tests, scans, pokes, fevers, surgeries, and pain.  Not only that but I want to rip your family apart because the stress and emotional toll is something that you have never even imagined nor would you ever wish upon your worst enemy. I want to take away time from your newborn and I want you to suffer.  I want you to break down and fall to pieces.  I want you to question yourself and all that you have ever done in your life.  I want to see if your son can handle this.  I want to see if you can handle this, what do you think? Wait, before you answer let me tell you that you really don’t have a choice.  This is what I am going to do.  So starting now, it’s you all against me, ready for that?

 Us: Since we don’t have a choice in the matter, bring it on….not only will you lose this battle, you will miserably fail.  Not only will you not take our son away from us, you will not take away his childhood.  You will not take away his smile, his laugh, his love, his happiness.  You will not take away his faith, his hope, his determination.  You will not make the pain larger than him.  You will not win.  Not only will you not be able to take our son, you will not break my family for my family is stronger than you think.  We will take the beat downs, we will take the stress, we will take all that you want to give and we will give it back ten fold.  There may be times where you  feel like you are winning, but you are so wrong.  You will never beat us.  So the fact is, it’s not you against us, but it’s us against you.  Are you ready for that?

That is what it feels like.  It feels like you walked into a brick wall.  It feels like someone smacked you in the face with a baseball bat.  It feels like someone stabbed you in the stomach.  It feels like the floor was just ripped out from beneath you and you are falling into a dark hole and you may have an opportunity to grab a rope and climb your way out but that is also not a guarantee.  I do say that you would have to “climb your way out” because you do not get to float your way out.  You do not get to fall in to that hole and let a little cloud lift you back to the top, you get to climb.  You get to climb a very steep  climb with pieces of glass all throughout…with no shoes.  Yes, that is what it feels like when Evil knocks at your door.  It sucks.

2010 brought us so much we didn’t want but we had to get through.  2011 came and we knew it had to get better.  We said good-bye to 2010 with Braden given the all clear until 2011 because he was doing so well.  His hole was closing and he was healthy as a horse.  We said good-bye to 2010 as Jack rounded the corner with his treatment and his scans started coming up clear.  Cancer wasn’t winning.  2011 was a year that still brought much pain and struggle watching Jack continue to go through treatment, our family split up by our constant hospital stays, but our kids continued to stay strong and push through and we knew we had to follow.  We could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

2011 brought us much joy when Jack finished treatment and was given the all clear by Dr Eshun.  He was able to get his broviac out, go swimming, go to school, have play dates, get dirty, and start being a “normal” 4 year old.  We feel very lucky that we are in the place we are now.  We feel very lucky that Jack is beeting the odds and Braden has his brother to grow up with.

We enter 2012 with two healthy boys.  First time we have been able to do that and it’s wonderful.  We get to spend this year still going in for scans for Jack and we will continue with the same anxiety as we will probably have for the rest of our life with the fear of the big Evil coming and knocking at our door again, but we hope and pray that it won’t.  Braden will get an ECHO next month to confirm that his heart is still doing ok and hopefully we won’t have to go back to the Dr for another year or so…or for even longer than that.  We get to spend this year raising money for Neuroblastoma Research through Jack’s Foundation and that is a wonderful feeling.  We feel so great that we get to help and we are so thankful for all of you out there who want to join us in this effort.  Of course we send out huge hugs and thank you’s to all of our family and friend who have been there.  Thank you to all of our new friends.  We really couldn’t get through this without you.  There are a few people that have been there throughout this journey that we want to send extra special “thank you’s” to…people who never knew our family personally but when they heard about Jack being diagnosed, they wanted to help.

We thank Evon and Garret Fig.  You have done more for our family than we would ever ask of anyone.  We didn’t really know them at all when Jack was first sick, but Evon was one of the first ones to stand up and let us know that we weren’t alone.

Thank you to Adrian Wilson and his family.  We have asked time and again for help with fundraisers and you have never said no.  You are so very kind and we are so appreciative.

Thank you to Megan Kinnie and Brittney Walker who helped to organize our first golf tournament and who have become wonderful friends since then.  Thank you for always going to bat for us and for always wanting to be involved.  You both are so wonderful and we are so happy to have you in our lives.

Thank you to Tyler Kinnie for always wanting to help spread the word about Jack and his fight and help raise awareness. You and your sister must come from a very great family because you both have hearts of gold.

Thank you to Sue Dunn who has known my husband for many years and the day she decided to start volunteering for PCH was the day that Jack was diagnosed…all a complete coincidence.  Sue always made sure we had everything we needed when we were at the hospital and has become a great supporter and friend.

Of course there are many more of you whom we adore, but I just wanted to say thank you to these few because I want them to know how much we appreciate and love them all.

We know that we are very lucky that we have all that we have right now.  We know that there are many others out there who’s lives will never be the same because of what Cancer took away from them and it is not fair.  For all of this, we continue to fight.  Some get through times like this and don’t want to look back.  They don’t want to relive it and talk about it.  I get that, I really do, but that’s not how we are doing it.  We want to scream at the top of our lungs until we help to find a cure for this awful, Evil, nasty disease.  Even though Jack is doing well, we will still fight because you never know.  We never thought Evil would knock at our door in the form of Neuroblastoma.  Did you?  Doubt it.  So you will hear from us and you will hear from us a lot.  We will not stop until we make a difference.

On that note, we will be giving more details over the next couple of weeks, but we are very happy to say that we have a wonderful night being planned right now for March 8, 2012.  It will be 2 years since the date of Jack’s diagnoses and we are having a fundraiser to help rase money for Neuroblastoma research.  We met a very funny man named Boomer Nichols who is not only a comic in the Valley but like us, his family got the Evil knock at their door too a few years back.  They were also able to beet the monster and that is so wonderful!  He is graciously helping us plan a very wonderful night at Stand Up Live in Phoenix for March 8th.  Like I said, there will be more details to follow and I will get them all to you ASAP but for now…mark your calendars!!!!!