Sporting KC Detour...

We had an AMAZING detour on May 14!

Our foundation, Braden's Hope For Childhood Cancer, www.bradenshope.org, and Sporting KC www.sportingkc.com hosted our photo shoot for our 2014 A Year Of HOPE Calendar! This calendar features 12 childhood cancer heroes and 12 Sporting KC stars have their pictures taken by DeCloud Studios and the resulting calendar is going to be AMAZING! It will be available in September.

(In August, we will do our photo shoot with the KC Royals and it will be available in September as well.)

This year, we are doing the photo shoots at the stadiums (WOO HOO) so we headed out to Sporting Park in Kansas City, Kansas for a day of fun.

First, I have to tell you that my friend, Jenny Grindel, did an amazing job of organizing everything. The Sporting KC contact we worked with was also absolutely incredible!

Jenny and I spent the entire morning with the photographers and in the stadium setting things up and it was rather surreal. We felt like we were welcomed as if we were in someone's home. It was simply unbelievable and very cool.

We had the BEST volunteers working that day to help with the photographers and families. They made it SO very special for everyone! We really can't thank them enough!

At about 1:00, the heroes and families got to the stadium and then the players arrived and it was a PARTY!!

I cannot adequately describe the smiles, laughter, and silliness.  It was PRICELESS!!!

And the cuteness...off the scale! The photographers got some amazing shots.

Each of the players spent quite a bit of time with the heroes and their families. Siblings were invited to be a part of the calendar shoots too because we believe that when a child gets cancer, the whole family deals with it and it's especially tough for siblings. They are ALSO our heroes! :)

And we took a family shot for them to have as well! Those won't be in the calendar but we want them to have a shot for their own use.

The players were so very gracious. They sat and talked and giggled and played with our heroes. How cool is it to be able play soccer with some of the BEST soccer players in the world on their own field??  Now THAT is a memory the kids and their families will have forever! TAKE THAT cANCER!!!

This day is about much more than just getting pictures for the calendar. It's about the EXPERIENCE!

It's about the chance to watch Graham Zusi sweetly pat the head of his little hero Calin, Aurelein Collin sweeping away the hair that the wind was blowing in Jenna's eyes, Jimmy Nielsen autographing Joseph's bald head, Seth Sinovic playing soccer with a big group of kids, CJ Sapong dancing with the heroes in the cafeteria, Benny Feilhaber sitting across the table from his heroes chatting for a long time, Chance Myers playing basketball with Ciara, Kei Kamara being so much fun and so silly that a very sweet and shy Aspen couldn't help but smile, Teal Bunbury making Isa giggle during their press interview room shoot so hard I think she had a tummy ache, Mikey Lopez making Tabby's dream come true,  Matt Besler and Isaac kicking around a ball, and Jacob Peterson taking a personal interest in his hero's talents!

The biggest smile of the day was mine because I know that as much as this meant to our families, and as much  fun as our heroes with the players...the guys had about a million times BETTER time with the kids!  And they learned about childhood cancer and WHO it affects.

And they CARE!! They honestly care about these kids!!!

THAT is what these photo shoots are about.

The calendars are a really nice thing...but I WISH I could adequately describe the fun these kids have during those shoots.  Imagine having an all access pass to personalized time with someone famous!  THAT is what these kids got thanks to the amazing generosity and kindness of Sporting KC and their players!!

I took my camera and took a few pictures and I have some pics that were posted that weren't mine and I will share them with you! I'm not a real photographer so they are not all that good but it will give you a little sneak peek at some of the faces you'll see. The REAL photos are 1,000,000,000,000 times better!

(I was also in mom role so I didn't get to every shoot and there are a lot of pics of Braden. ;)  I'll apologize now! LOL!)

This day ROCKED!! Say it with me..."TAKE THAT cANCER!!!"

And here is a video link of the shoot that Sporting KC made...it's BEAUTIFUL!! Please share it if you agree!! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UAX8cr0kVM

Two Years, And One Day...

Today marks two years...

and one day...

since Braden was declared to be in a second remission!

TAKE THAT cANCER!!!!!

Huge day...

absolutely HUGE!

If you've been reading along, you have heard the story of what has happened since he was declared to be in a second remission.

There's 3 years more story before of that stuff,

and it's equally filled with "Seriously!"  moments...

Seriously! :)

Well...yesterday was a day of celebration and DETOURS!!

So we all detoured, first separately, then together!

Zach and I headed out for a cooking class!

He's a huge foodie..yes, he's nine, but he loves to cook and create in the kitchen! :)

His "mixes" require much supervision though...the boy would throw everything in the pantry in a dish. 

I think it's because he's a boy... LOL!! :)

We play "Chopped" at home quite a bit and one time his basket was:

(cue the dramatic music please...

and....hit it Ted Allen....)

Vanilla pudding powder mix

Milk

Nilla Wafers

and...

Bananas.

You can probably guess what I thought he would make,

BUT...you would be wrong!

He made a vanilla pudding, banana puree sauce with a cookie/cake made from pulverized nilla wafers and pantry ingredients.

It wasn't awful!  :)

So we took a class at the KC Culinary Center in downtown Overland Park..it was a BLAST!

It was a SuperHeroes class and we made 1-2 Punch, Hulk Juice, Iron Man Meatballs, Spiderman Spaghetti and Captain America Patriotic Parfaits...

We had so much fun he wanted to make it for dad for dinner so we went to the store and did just that!

And it was just as yummy at dinner.

Again.

Twice in one day...but he was VERY happy so it was worth it! :)

I heard about a million Zachisms during the day,

but the funniest one was when we were eating and talking about the ingredients in the meatballs.

They were made from ground turkey.

He suggested we call them "turkey balls" instead.

I thought Brian might spit his food out, he was trying so hard not to laugh out loud. :)

I told him we should stick with meatballs.

Oh my sweet little blonde mini me.. :)

Braden got to spend a good chunk of the day with one of his favorite people in the world...Miss Fuller (who got married and is now Mrs. Bradley but somehow...I don't think she's ever gonna be Mrs Bradley to him)! :)

She took him down to the College Basketball Experience in downtown KC...

It is his FAVORITE place on Earth.

Basketball is Braden's love...well next to his incredible teachers and friends at school...

He shoots hoops for at least two hours a day outside when the weather allows,

and on bad weather days, he shoots inside for a really long time!!

It got him through bone marrow transplant when he was three.

Transplant is so painful you can hear kids screaming day and night.

When the nurses would hear Braden scream, they would come running to the door to check on him and leave cracking up because...

...he was screaming because he just made a good shot!

"SLAMMA JAMMA" was his first really long multi-syllabic utterance!! The MLU rocked, but the verve in which it was delivered was...

...priceless!! :)

During transplant, he got up out of bed and played basketball every day, but two.

That is FIERCE!!!

I know I'm his mom, and therefore EXTREMELY biased,

but seriously...

THAT is FIERCE!!!

And that distraction and need to play is what got him released about 3 weeks after admission.

Again...

FIERCE!!

TAKE THAT cANCER!

So he got to do his favorite thing too.

And dad coached wrestling at a kids' tournament...his love too.

And then, we all sat around, completely stuffed, watching Bubble Guppies and Zach and Brian played checkers and chess.

I really don't think a day could be more perfect!

2 years ago, they said we wouldn't get this....

and it was a lovely, wonderful day of detours....

EVERY day is a gift!

FAITH is a powerful thing...

so is HOPE!

One more time....

TAKE THAT cANCER...

In Zach's words, "Braden just PONED you!!!"

Detours...

Websters defines detours as..

Okay...be honest, how many of us started at LEAST one high school or college paper that way??

I did. :)

And my High School English teacher was not amused.

Sorry Mrs. Schmeller!

Upon further review...she was not amused by anything. :)

The dictionary reference is probably a bad idea in 2013 since

they are apparently archaic now.

But, I can totally picture ours at my house when I was growing up.

It sat on the shelf right beside our circa 1965 set of World Book Encyclopedias,

that I'm pretty sure a door to door salesman convinced my mom we HAD to have if her children stood any chance of being educated and well rounded!

And I'm too lazy to do it the 2013 way and  pull up another browser to see what Wikipedia has to say...

So I'll do what the "everybody does", make my own up and post it on the internet,

then it must be factually true! ;)

Actually, let me just explain what happened to start the whole "detour" thing...

When Braden was fighting his first battle with neuroblastoma, all of his chemo was "high dose" and had to be given to him inpatient.

Basically, we lived at the hospital for about a year and a half.  We RARELY came home and when we did, it was only hours or a couple of days before he spiked a fever or the next round, or surgery, or about one out of a million other things that required us to go back and spend more days at the hospital.

We learned quickly that even if you finished chemo at 11:00 at night and the doc said you could go home or spend the night at the hospital and leave in the morning,

you chose HOME!

and slept in a bed...

I always slept in Braden's little itty bitty hospital bed with him because he wouldn't let me get far away. He had to be touching me the entire time.  Every minute of every day. It was actually really sweet!

I had to call the nurses to sit with him when I had to pee because he couldn't stand for me to leave and he would cry and cry while I was in the bathroom. Brian used to have to come up to the hospital to sit with him so I could take a shower every 100th day or so! ;)

Well...one of those nights, we left the hospital late and as Braden and I were pulling out of the hospital, we were met by a detour sign.

I wasn't happy to see it. 

It was late at night, I was tired, stinky, wrinkly, and had a son in the back seat with his feeding tube running with a limited amount of feeds to flow through with a limited battery pack and Braden was equally tired...although less stinky and wrinkly.

A detour would mean the long way around something and that would take more time.

UGHHHHHH!!!!

We followed the detour,

and it took us past an historical part of Kansas City called Crown Center.

It is filled with lights and water features.

As soon as Braden spied it, he squealed, "PRETTY WATER!"

(he has a thing for water features...it's pretty much his favorite thing in the world)

Then he yelled, "WIGHTS"!

(he has a little l/w speech thing) :)

And he was clapping his hands and screaming and laughing REALLY hard!!

Well...no one was around, I didn't see any police cars so I flipped a u-turn in the middle of this usually very busy street.

He continued to laugh and scream and clap,

except now it was even louder and happier!

SO...

I turned another u-turn

by now, I was laughing, crying, clapping and turning around to talk to Braden in the backseat.

We did a "few" u-turns...maybe 6 or 7...

or more...

maybe a LOT more...

He was sooooo happy...not many things made him laugh that hard at that time in his life...

And it was wonderful until...

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.

I looked in that direction and saw...

a bus stop...

filled with people waiting for the bus.

When I made eye contact with them, they quickly looked away!

Whoops!!

Not as alone as I thought we were! :)

I think they were a little scared of the blonde lady in the white SUV who was spinning circles and laughing, crying and talking to the back seat...

And that is how "detours" began for us.

You never know what wonderful things can happen,

How much joy and happiness you can find,

by taking an unexpected turn (even if you weren't really looking forward to that turn).

We try to do at least ONE simple thing every day that is a detour....something to just make us laugh and giggle and enjoy our time together.

Some days it's a trip to the park,

Others popcorn and a movie at home,

family game night,

reading books together (currently it's Horton Halfpot--awesome book),

eating dessert before dinner,

the best detours are free!!

Last week, I had lunch with my friend, Christine, (that was a detour for both of us...we rarely get to spend time together!).

After lunch, I was taking her home and we realized we we had just pulled up behind another friend.

We hadn't seen her for awhile and we were excited!!

So I honked and we waved. 

Then while at a looooong stoplight, our friend sent a text to Christine that said, "Chinese fire drill?"

Never throw down a challenge to be silly....

I'm all OVER it!!

And this friend would be JUST the person to reciprocate!

SO, at the next stoplight, I threw my car into park and SPRINTED up to her car,

She opened the door and almost got out,

but we were laughing so hard and we didn't have that much time,

so, between laughs, we just gave each other a high five and blew kisses!

Then I sprinted back to my car.

Just in time to throw it in drive and make the green light...

Okay, maybe I was a "little" late for that light, but it was worth it!

We got many strange looks.

That happens to me a lot.

We're early into this blog thing, but that was probably apparent long ago. :)

Life should be filled with impromptu, silly moments,

those are detours!

Even when you are a 47 year old mom!

For me, it's what makes life worth living,

because it is living life!

Tada...detours,

definied ala Deliece.

Somehow, I don't think Webster would have the same definition. :)

Need a New Year's Resolution...

try a detour-a-day.

Free,

you can still eat chocolate,

drink wine,

and you don't have to go to the gym!

Again...Tada!!!

(oh and I have been working to try to figure this whole blog thing out and I added several really awesome links to the right). The top one is a story by JiaoJiao Shen from Kansas City's NBC Action 41 News. She is an AMAZING advocate for our children with cancer and she did a beautiful story that really sums up 5 years in 3 minutes.  You will laugh...guaranteed...my boy has SKILLS! (you'll know what I mean when you watch it)!

Hugs!