Ride4Grace 2011

The 3rd annual Sufficient Grace Ministries Ride4Grace was on Sunday, August 21st. Anthony and I made the trip back up to the northern region to go to it.

We had a small number of bikes show up and the weather started off really nice. We were ready to get out there and start riding! We said prayer first of course for a safe ride!!

As you can see in the pic below as soon as we started out it looked pretty ominous. Those dark clouds followed us pretty much the whole time. Felt a couple sprinkles once and it got chilly through one part of the ride but we managed to outride it.

It was around a 77 mile ride (shortened it from a 100 mile ride) and we stopped in McComb to fill up on some gas. As it usually is in small towns, people knew people who were at the gas station and got into some chit chat.

Took a couple of videos during the bike run. It’s pretty noisy with the sounds of the bikes and the wind.

Coming back into the parking lot I saw Kelly standing outside with her camera ready to snap away and welcome us back……with hot dogs and ice cream! I’m all about that!

I wish I could’ve stayed longer and talked with Kelly but Anthony and I had to leave to start heading back home since it was already getting late and we had a 2 1/2 hour drive ahead of us. But I really enjoyed hearing Kelly talk about her visit to The Haven Network when she visited the Chicago area. Wish I could’ve heard even more! You can read her post about it here!

Ride 4 Grace, stamping, and more!!!

What a busy last few days this has been! So much has been going on that I can hardly keep up with things. (I hope to catch up with blogs within the next day or so!)

First I'll share with you what I did on Saturday. My Aunt Nancy is having all of the grandkids put their hand prints (or foot prints for younger kids) on stones for everyone to have. So my mom and I took Kyndra and my niece Audrey to her house to get that done. We didn't make too much of a mess!

What's really neat is that my Aunt Nancy got stamps made of Carleigh's footprint so that she could be on the stones too. I want to say thank you to Streicher's Quickprint in Findlay, OH. Once they learned what the stamps were for they gave my aunt's money back to her and gave her the stamp for free plus an extra one that was rounded. I'm so blessed by their generosity!

So for Carleigh's print I started off with the flat stamp but then moved to the rounded one, as it worked much better.


On Sunday we (Anthony, me, my in-laws and their friends) did the Ride 4 Grace to help raise money for Sufficient Grace Ministries. It was a bike run hosted by Kelly's friend Dave. And guess what!? I got to meet Kelly!! In person!!! SA-WEET! It was so good to finally meet her and give her a great big hug (love you Kelly!). (Just too let you know she is even sweeter in person than she is on her blog. But I bet ya'll figured that anyway.)


It was a hot and sunny day, but I was glad it wasn't raining (like it did on Carleigh's run)! The wind was blowing pretty good, which helped keep things a little bit cooler. And if you're wondering why I'm wearing pants if it's so hot out it's because I didn't want my legs sticking to the seat of the motorcycle.


The ride was great and the route was beautiful. We got up to Perrysburg and stopped at an ice cream place called Mr. Freeze, I believe. Holy cow! They give the biggest portions of ice cream I have ever seen in my life!!! My medium ice cream in a cup was in a large-sized cup plus overflowing! (I got orange twist.) I couldn't even finish it all and it tasted so yummy on such a hot day. We ended the ride in Bowling Green at one guy's house. We got a drink and then headed back to Findlay.

Ok, now to the bad part.......I GOT THE SUNBURN FROM HELL!!! Seriously. When we were on our way out to the church for the ride I was thinking I should've put on some sunscreen and that would've been a bright idea but.....yeah....I didn't and now I am paying for it!! (The picture just does NOT do this sunburn justice. My MIL got it pretty good too!) Poor Carleigh's tattoo is half red. :(


I got a package in the mail today from Mary Ellen and it was quite a surprise! If you remember, Mary Ellen owns Lighthouse Photography and edited Carleigh's NILMDTS pics for me. What I got in the mail was a lovely photo of Carleigh's feet and a small book with edited pictures. They are really, really nice!! Thank you so much Mary Ellen!! You have been so very kind to me! (Sorry poor pic I took it with my phone.)


I want to bring a special little girl to your attention. Her name is Harley Carson. I met her mom Katie (DancingK) through Cafemom. We are in a couple groups together, which includes a group where our daughters were born in the same month. Harley has been diagnosed with Alper's Syndrome. It is is a rare, progressive neurodegenerative disease of the brain in which there is no cure and is eventually fatal.

I pray for Harley daily and that God would slow the progression of this disease. Right now, Harley's liver is failing and that is not a good thing. I ask that you please pray for Harley, Katie, and Cameron. I also want to make you aware that we are trying to raise money to get a shadowbox for Harley. This is something Katie and Cameron would truly cherish and it costs about $300 to get one. If you feel led to help, please go the Fundable website that is set up and donate.


You can read updates about Harley on her blog, her CaringBridge page, or her Cafemom group.

Carleigh's photo is up on Say It With Flowers in Rory's Garden Part 2. Her flower is the 41st one if I counted correctly. It is a purplish daisy and it's so fitting! Go check out all the beautiful photos of names on flowers.

Bike Run

The Caring for Carleigh benefit bike run was Saturday in Findlay. Registration was from 11am-1pm at the Whiskey Venue. I had never been to Whiskey Venue but I had been there when it used to be Brandy's back in my college days. It's quite a nice place! We had about 30 bikes register for the run. We were expecting more but with the weather the way it was we weren't surprised. Before we left I thanked everyone for coming out and explained what the run was for. Then we all got on our bikes and headed out!

Our first stop was at Dave's Hideaway in Findlay. No sooner had we went in the bar then the rain starting pouring down. Are you kidding me? It was raining when the radar showed no signs of it. We stayed there for about a hour and decided to take off when the rain let up. We lost some riders at this point. Everyone who had rain gear suited up. Anthony and I did not have rain gear but it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. My pants got wet on the ends from water splashing up but that's about it.

The next stop was Clark's Bar & Grill in Mt. Blanchard. My brother-in-law Todd got us and Anthony's parents some rain suits and we put them on at this stop. Mine was absolutely huge. They didn't have smalls so I had to suffer with a medium. It looked way funny on me. I had the pants pulled all the way up to my boobs and it still looked like I was carrying a load. I snacked on some Ballreich's and water. (If you are unfamiliar with what Ballreich's are then I am sorry for you. They are the most wonderful chips in the world and made in NW Ohio!)

We went to the R-Bar in Carey next. It was still rainy outside at this point. A lot of people got food at this stop. I got some breaded mushrooms. When we came out of R-Bar the weather was totally different! It was warmer and it had stopped raining and was almost dried up and the sun was starting to peak through. Wish it would've been like that at the beginning!

We headed over to Sonny Jack's in New Riegel and then made a stop at The Stable in Arcadia. We raffled off some tshirts at The Stable from Thiel's Wheels in Upper Sandusky. Then we left and headed over to Taylorpalooza where the Rock-n-Roll Outlaws played. The bon fire there was unbelievably HUGE. We did a 50/50 drawing there and raffled off some other tshirts. We made almost $200 off the 50/50 as the person who won generously gave the money he won back to us. It was so very nice!! The run itself we raised almost $400. (And the happy hour a few weeks ago made around $350.)

First stop at Dave's Hideaway before it started raining.

Anthony and me at Dave's Hideaway in Findlay.

At R-Bar in Carey.

At R-Bar.

Being silly at R-Bar.

On the open road...

The run after it got nice (thank goodness!).

We might be holding another bike run in the fall. Danny, the owner of Whiskey Venue, talked to me at Dave's Hideaway about having some type of fundraiser for neural tube defects in the area and to help raise awareness. He said there's nothing like that in the area and it would be good to have one. Danny has spina bifida but you would never know it. He was telling me he his 3rd surgery not too long ago. So I think he might partner with us again if we do hold some type of fundraiser. I imagine our beneficiary would be the Center for Human Genetics at Duke to go to their Neural Tube Defect Research Fund. All the details will need to be worked out. But I think that would be really awesome for this to turn into an annual event-something great to do in Carleigh's memory.