May 16, 2010

Celebration of Champions

Yesterday was the annual Celebration of Champions that a fundraising group for the oncology department of Children's Hospital puts on for cancer kids and their families. We went last year, and it was, and continues to be an amazing event. What always astounds me is that they get sponsors to donate $1500, or more, per child that participates in the relay. There are a whole lot of children that participate, and the event grows every year. Each child gets his/her own personal sponsor family and local celebrity. The sponsors and celebrity run a relay race with the child and their family. It really is moving to see and hear everyone on the sidelines clapping and cheering. Madeleine saw some cheerleaders this year and almost stopped running (well, she was really walking) to check them out.

This year, we somehow lucked out and got TWO celebrities! The Padres' Chase Headley and Will Venable were our celebrities this year. I really don't know anything about baseball but it was fun to meet them. Here are some pictures from our day.





Our sponsors were the Deutsch family - a group of the friendliest, nicest people ever.






More sponsor family




Padres player Chase Headley and his wife.





Padres player Will Venable and his girlfriend.







The real celebrities (for Madeleine anyway)











Madeleine has a strange fascination with owls. This owl was a big hit.





Madeleine and her buddy, Cade. This year Cade (also a neuroblastoma survivor) got to be in the "suvivorship" group at the Celebration - a great place to be!





Face painting - she's a kitty cat.













After the Celebration we went home to rest for a couple of hours and then headed back downtown for the sold-out Padres vs. Dodgers baseball game. It was fun to see our celebrities playing and Madeleine and Cade had a wonderful time running around in the grass. It was a true day of celebration.