WAM 2010

One of our favorite events of the year was this past Sunday. The Make-A-Wish foundation does a 3 day, 300 mile bike ride to raise money that goes towards granting “one true wish” to children with life threatening illnesses. This is the largest fundraiser for MAW in the United States and last I heard, the riders had raised over 1.5 million dollars!!! Absolutely amazing! The final day there is a celebration at the finish line with all types of fun things to do for the kids and it is basically one big party. We have been blessed by the MAW foundation over and over again, and if you haven’t read my blog posts about our wish trip, you can find most of it in October of 2008 and a final post in October of 2009. The trip was life changing for us as a family and the foundation is VERY dear to our hearts.

Once again,this year, Keyan was a wish hero for Team Craig. That means that they use her and her story as inspiration to ride and help them put a face to their fund raising efforts. At the end of the ride, Keyan meets them all and gives them each a medal (and a hug!) We met Team Craig last year at the Hero’s Hurrah and as you know from previous posts, they too have become very dear to our hearts. While Keyan is considered their “hero”, we firmly believe that these riders and their families are our heros. Team Craig rides not only in honor of Keyan but also in memorial to their son/brother Craig who began his journey in heaven a few years ago. It is an honor to know this family and has been a joy to get to know them over the last year. It made the day even that much better watching them cross the finish line and spending the day with the entire family was so much fun. It was great to celebrate with Sandy since this was the first time she did the entire race without “sagging”, and to laugh with Jason, who had only ever ridden 100 miles one other time this year! We shed tears with Mark and Debbie when we talked about the silent mile and looked at stars with Craig’s picture on them and watched in awe at Jeremy and Amy’s connection both on and off their bikes. It was fun to watch Justin tease the kids and admired John as he decided we could just carry Keyan and her wheelchair up the stairs and onto the medal stage. Caitlan and Tiffanie cracked me up with their illegal parking of the dotted van just in order to get good pictures with the riders and although Chad was a little late in arriving, the few snippets of conversation that we caught with him, was great. At the end of the day, as we piled into our van to head back home, Paul grabbed my hand and with tears in his eyes just said, “it was a good day, a very good day.” And that sums up the whole experience!