Our Tribute to Landon

On Sunday, we participated in the March of Dimes "March for Babies" event at Hudson Mills Metropark. We were lucky to have my parents with us as well as Trevor & Stephanie. I didn't think we'd end up doing the event as the weather forecast suggested we'd have heavy rain and storms on Sunday morning. Luckily, though, the rain came overnight on Saturday and then again Sunday afternoon -- but the rain held off for the walk! Against my better judgment, we took Jack along even though he came down with a cold on Friday night and had a runny nose and cough all weekend long. He seemed to have a great time though (even walked all by himself for about a mile!) so I'm glad he was able to participate with us.

I forgot my camera on the kitchen table (of course) but was able to take some pictures with my phone. (If you'd like to see any of the pictures in more detail, just click on the click and a new window will open with an enlarged shot.) The pictures below appear in the order I took them so it will give you a sense of Jack's journey through the 3-mile walk:

The walk started out with Jack hitching a ride with Uncle Trevor:

After about 10 minutes, he decide to get down so he could walk on his own:

Every once in a while, he'd turn around to make sure we were all still with him:

But sometimes we'd split up and the faster walkers would wait for us to catch up:

He was really focused on walking the yellow line:

I was able to bribe him into the stoller by offering a bag of popcorn that one of the local banks was handing out at a pit stop:

But the stroller didn't last forever as soon enough he was off and running (literally) again:

With about a half mile to go, he decided he was done and veered a bit off the path. He wanted to go through all of this brush to get to the road (he kept saying "home, home!" to me) but I stopped him:

Papa then took over with Jack as the rest of us had arms of jelly (it's tough carrying around 27 squirming pounds!) and, at this point, Jack didn't want to walk or ride anymore:

The finish line had some exciting balloons to look at:

And the car ride home found Jack completely wiped out, albeit clutching the piece of pizza he received after the walk (Uncle Trevor taught him how to say "crust" and "sauce"):
Thank you so much for your support of the March for Babies. Together with my parents, we raised over $1600 for the March of Dimes. If you still would like to make a contribution, you may do so by visiting www.marchforbabies.org/landonjames.

March for Babies on Sunday!

We are five days away from the March for Babies which we will be doing along with my parents, Andy, Sarah, Marcus, Deagan, Trevor, and Stephanie. We are really looking forward to this year's event as we will finally be able to do it together, in the same location.

Thank you so much to all of you who have donated already to the March for Babies. As you know, we do this not only to honor Landon's brief life with us, but also to celebrate all of the healthy babies who have been born in our families and to our friends.

If you would still like to contribute, you may do so either by clicking on the banner at the top of the page or by visiting my personal page where you can read more fully about why we walk. I am only $370 from my personal fundraising goal and am confident I can reach it, with your help.

As always, thank you for all of your support. We'll post walk pictures after Sunday's event.