Relay For Life Event!

Hi everybody!!!

   So basically I had the funnest time at the event! "A World Of Hope" was the theme this year. I have never done anything like this for. I have donated to causes and been to fundraisers but I have never actually participated in a giant event like this. After a lot of anxiety these last 2 weeks, I'm so happy to have such a fun and social day. I got to go early with my friend Kayla to set up and bring things to the location, a popular park in our town. We only saw a few people in the morning. I love being early to do stuff. It's just my thing. Plus I picked the theme less then two weeks. I only found out then about it. I'm glad Kayla told me about it. We were doing Team Chainsaw, for my bestie, Alex. Our theme was Bollywood, everyone liked my idea so we all started the planning process. I basically did all the decoration part. I'm such a dummy, I forgot to do a DIY for it, haha! Oh well. We did mehndi (henna) styled designs on our all our shirts. I think mine came out pretty good! I liked the font I chose, the A's came out cool! Everyone did a great job on theirs also.

Team Chainsaw, holding Chainsaw aka Alex.

   The had all different things going on and all the teams had their own booths. We stole Sean's job's Flight's tent thingy, Thanks Babers for that! The open ceremony Kayla sang the national anthem. She did a fantastic job! We also got to see all these kids from the elementary school sings a song, I don't remember the name but it was in spanish about friendship. It was adorable! They even did French and American Sign Language in the song too! I couldn't even pass Italian, not to mention sing in another language! Then the MC thanked the people who put it together. They do a survivor speech every year, the women who read was an amazing person and we got to hear her story and what she had to face. They had a few people come up and talk about the organization and other things related. Even gave out two awards. One was for the photographer! He was taking the pictures of them announcing it then was so surprised he got an award! He has been at the event every year and is a survivor of cancer too. It was a lovely opening to the event and I felt so lucky to be able to participate in it.

This event was an over night event. Started at 5pm and went all the way to 7am! So crazy. I left at 11:30pm though. At the beginning of the actual walking around the track, the first have a survivor lap, then it's a survivor/caretakers lap then finally the team laps! As the survivors walked around ever person their joined hands around it. I've never been apart of such an amazing thing. The love and support we all showed was incredible! It just shows when people get together you can make a difference. Alex walked around the track with her mom, her mother is seriously the cutest. She was so happy to walk around with her daughter. She totally deserves it. SHe does so much for Alex. Every week they go up to the Boston, MA area for her acupuncture. It really did help her. Alex's tumor shrunk a little bit!!!

Kayla and Alex's mothers

   Then the event officially began! There was this hilarious jail that one of the booths had. You could put a person in there for 5 minutes or even 20! Michela (Sean's cousin) put Andrew (Sean's bestie) in there for 10 minutes and the prisoners have to hold out buckets and beg for money as walkers go buy. If they make the amount of their time they can become free! Such a creative idea. Kayla put Chris in there for tricking her that Sean got fired (My Babers was really on vacation for a week!) She defiantly got him back good!

So sad! Andrew finally was set free, he had a bunch of little kids stuck in there with him, hahaha! 

Kayla finally got Chris back!

   Our booth we had candle jars to decorate for $7. Massages a $1 a minute by Allen's (Kayla's BF) mom. And when Nazly (team member) got there at 8pm she did the henna for $5. All money went to our teams donation. I had a such a good time hanging out with everyone, we had tents for people to take sleep breaks in and there was food being sold. ANdrew brought a mini grill and burgers/dogs so we all had something to eat. He even picked up veggie burgers so I could have something too. I brought the chips and Kayla brought tons of drinks and water bottles for all of us.

   Around 10:30pm they did the Luminaria Ceremony which where we hold a candle around the lap in memory of who we lost to cancer. It was beautiful, but we had trouble keeping it lit because of the wind. It took team work to keep it going! We only had one candle because they ran out of them! AT the end of the lap they do a slideshow. People submitted photos of their loved ones who've passed and some were in honor of survivors. People were tearing up, it was so emotional. I even was tearing up. The kids came back up to sing a song while it played. After that slideshow they actually did a 2015 event slideshow. They did awesome putting it together so quick. I made the cut! Haha!

 Alex, Rachel, and Kayla. And below our all the people walking around.

Here are some extra pictures I took of all of us!

Me, Alex, and Chris. Our bestie rap album cover pose. And then a pic of Alex and Her mom, they are so sweet! Below is us seflie-ing it up! Haha!

Chris, Andrew in the back, Alex, Rachel and me . Then last row was Nazly, Meg, and Kayla. Then Juan of course had to do sexy pose in the front. We had an awesome team!

If you haven't done anything like this I highly recommend it! You will feel good about helping others and you'll have a blast doing it!

Love, Christina

Here is a extra pics... selfie life. Haha! Oh well...