Almost February

Hi. Well tomorrow is February 1st and the year is starting to fly by. I won't sugar coat it. The grief that everyone talks about is truly starting to creep in. I miss Chris more and more every day. We all continue to move on, no matter how difficult it is.

We went to the Auto Show in Washington, DC last week. Spent the entire afternoon there. Afterwards, the boys and I walked to the ESPN Zone for dinner. After that we stayed a couple hours and played video games in the arcade. Bonding I guess!

We try to keep busy and have been doing a good job of that. We're starting to plan our summer. Alex will be away for 2 weeks in Australia and we're going to the beach and some other places too. Gotta get away. Alex started lacrosse practice last week and is looking forward to this season. A lot of people plan on going to the Pink fundraiser game in April.

Michel came by on Monday and brought us dinner which was very welcomed. I think the boys are getting tired of my cooking already! I guess it's time for some classes.

The boys are going to Ski Club tonight. That means they won't be home at all until 10:30 or so. I've started looking for things to do or places to go. These nights are the most difficult for me. I work from home and I'm alone all day. That''s not a problem at all. But in the evenings when it's quiet that is when things start to weigh on me. This is part of the process and I'm working through it. There's bad days and not so bad days. Maybe a sprinkling of good days too. Although those are hard to find.

Keep us in your thoughts and thanks for checking in with us!

Lycoming Lacrosse Plans “Pink Out” in April

See it on the Lycoming website here.

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa.—Lycoming’s women’s lacrosse team will be holding its inaugural Breast Cancer Awareness Lacrosse Game vs. Widener University at 1 p.m. at Robert L. Shangraw Athletic Complex on Saturday, April 12, 2008.

This game will be played in remembrance of Christine A. DeWitt, one of our players’ mothers who lost her life to breast cancer this past September. The lacrosse team is selling T-shirts in order to raise funds for Climb for Hope, a division of breast cancer research that Christine believed in very strongly.

To purchase a pink Lycoming Lacrosse T-shirt, please contact Kara Reber at reber@lycoming.edu or by phone at 570-321-4254. Shirts are $10 a piece, plus you may make an additional donation. Pre-sale orders are due by March 17, 2008. There will be additional shirts available at the game for sale.

The Lady Warriors would like everyone to wear their pink T-shirt to the April 12th game in order to “pink-out” the stadium. The goal is to raise over $3000.00 for Climb for Hope.

Climb for Hope was organized to raise and channel funds towards targeted and promising research in the fight against breast cancer. Its mission is to find a viable treatment for breast cancer by 2009. The goal for 2008 is to raise $300,000 that will go directly towards a vaccine being developed at Johns Hopkins University by Dr. Leisha Emens. This research will one day allow patients to successfully battle the disease using a specialized vaccine in conjunction with lower doses of chemotherapy. Not only does the vaccine address some of the most aggressive and lethal forms of Breast Cancer, but the research is expected to derive advances for many forms of cancer as well. Please visit www.climbforhope.com for more information.

Along with raising breast cancer awareness, Lycoming women’s lacrosse will celebrate Senior Day at the Widener game. Afterward, Lady Warrior lacrosse alumni will play an alumni game. April 12 will also be Faculty/Staff Recognition Day, as each current Lycoming player will recognize someone at the College for their positive influence and mentorship.

Please join Lady Warrior lacrosse for this event and help support a cause that affects many of our lives.

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I know a lot of you are planning on attending this game. If you would like to spend the night you can stay at the Fairfield Inn at the following:

• Fairfield Inn and Suites
• 104 Maynard Street
• Williamsport, Pennsylvania 17701 USA
• Phone: 1-570-601-9200
• Reference the "PinkRibbonLacrosse" group
• Rate should be $71/night

OR you can stay here as well:

http://www.genettihotel.com/

Rooms are reserved for both Friday, 4/11 and Saturday, 4/12 under Lycoming College Women's Lacrosse.

2 Double beds $72.85
King $81.85
Queen Suite $90.85

Rooms are held until March 12, and there are 20 rooms blocked.

I think I am staying at the Genetti as it is in the middle of downtown across from the Bull Frog Brewery! Let me know when you make reservations so I'll know where to find you all.

If you can't make it and still wish to help, send Kara Reber and email and let her know.

Tubing!

Last night I took all the kids to Liberty Mountain for some fun. We dropped Tyler and Michael off at the lift side and they went snowboarding. Alex, Jon, and I then went to the other side of the mountain and went tubing. It was pretty fun and wasn't too crowded. They have a moving platform to take you to the top which was kind of nice.

After a couple of hours we went back and met the boys over at the lodge and had dinner. After that we came home and played a game before I finally called it quits and went to bed.

This morning Alex, Jon and I went to church at St. John's. Well here's your sign!!! Father Funk was the priest this morning AND on top of that the entrance song was "Here I am Lord"!!! It's funny because I was talking to Chris's mother yesterday and we were just talking about Father Funk and wondering how he was doing. He started up chemotherapy a couple of months ago for a recurrence of cancer that he has been fighting for some time now. I spoke briefly with him on the way out of church and he and I gave each other a big hug! What a wonderful man he is.

Some New Pictures

This past week I received a bunch of pictures that were taken of Chris over the last 5 or so years while working at COMSTAR. Some are of her at their annual holiday party that they used to have. It was always a good time and you can see by the photos that she enjoyed the dancing! Me too, I guess.

I've posted all of them in my Picassa album so you can get to them all by clicking here. I hope you enjoy them as much as I am.

End of school term

Well it's been a little over a week since my last post. Not a whole lot is going on to tell you the truth. It's just the boys and I and they are in school and I'm working from home. It's sort of nice in a way to get back into a routine!

The routine is over though for now as their school term ended today. No school on Mon,Tues, or Wed next week either! Ty's done pretty well in school. Michael is doing okay but really needs to start focusing better. He just has a hard time in some of his classes.

Last Monday I went to the Hospices grief counseling drop in session. I've been feeling pretty crappy since Christmas and thought I would give it a try. I'm not sure if that is the best venue for me at this point as it is an open forum for people with varying types of grief. They have an 8-week session coming up in February that is only for grieving spouses and that may be a little better. They have a financial workshop coming up too which may be of some help. There are lots of resources available to me and I'm going to start looking into them. Also, Michael will start a session at school in March as well.

Alex and Jon (1-n) are coming home tonight for a couple days. It's the last time she can come home for the entire school year as lacrosse starts next week and that will take all her weekends. We're going to try and go skiing/sledding tomorrow depending on the weather. We got 5" or so of snow yesterday!

Oh yeah we had a guy come last week and install an invisible fence around our entire property. This will hopefully help keep the dog from wandering around in the neighbors yard. I can also leave her out and not worry about her anymore too. One less thing to have to worry about...

No problem there...

Well once again something very odd/coincidental happened to me today that I just cannot explain. I hope that by telling you someone can shed some light on it for me.

This past weekend I posted a couple of ads on Craig's list to sell some items out of the basement. We're going to do some painting and remodeling down there and wanted to get rid of some items. One was a desk that we had set up for Chris for days that she would work from home. All the computers and such were given back awhile ago so we decided to sell it. Well someone came to the house this afternoon and bought it and took it away. No problem there.

I also had an ad for a treadmill that I was getting rid of and a nice guy named Mark from Frederick emailed me and said he was very interested. We communicated by phone today and he said he would come by tonight to look at it and take it if he liked it. No problem there. He called about 8pm and said he was running a little late. I was down in my office cleaning up a huge mess and hanging one of Chris's pictures that she had in her office at COMSTAR and the doorbell rang. It was Mark. No problem there.

I went upstairs and went to the door and Mark and a friend was standing there. I opened the door and we shook hands and said hello. As he started to come in the house I looked out into the driveway and saw the vehicle that he drove up in. PROBLEM HERE!!! You see the vehicle was a black paneled van with a small logo on the side that said..... Keeney and Bassford Funeral Home. Yup that's right.

After a quick chat with Mark, I find out that he works at the Funeral home and Mark along with the Funeral Director Rick were the ones who came to our house the day that Chris passed away. This was the SAME van used that day...

Mark was very, very nice and once again extended his sincerest condolences to us. We went downstairs and then brought the treadmill up to put in the van. It was very strange but I held it together pretty well. He was a nice kid. In fact I just looked at their website and his name is listed there with a little bio too. Check it out.

Afterwards I talked to the boys a little bit about it and we all chuckled a bit. I then called a special friend to talk about it. That helped a lot.

So, that's the story. I'm not sure why but it happened exactly this way for a reason. I'm still trying get my hands around things but these things really throw me for a loop.

G'night.

New Breast Cancer Site

I just ran across a new site about breast cancer. Please take a moment to check it out.

Breast Cancer Research Program Director Nancy Davidson and Avon Foundation Breast Center Administrative Director Lillie Shockney discuss the latest in breast cancer on ABC News' On Call web site. Also read answers from Johns Hopkins experts to viewers' breast cancer questions.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/OnCallPlus

Lyco Lax Schedule

Alex went back to school yesterday and her classes begin today. Her lacrosse team has posted their 2008 schedule. I am hoping to continue on the tradition that Chris and I set last year of attending at least 1/2 or more of the games. It's not easy since the boys are both playing lacrosse too but I'm hoping that I can swing it. Here is the schedule for you to see:

2008 Lycoming Women's Lacrosse Schedule

March	5	Ursinus	Home	4:00pm
	8	Montclair	Home	3:00pm
	12	Eastern	Away	4:30pm
	15	Buffalo State College	Home	1:00pm
	16	Arcadia	Away	1:00pm
	19	Susquehanna	Home	4:30pm
	21	St. John Fisher	Away	1:00pm
	29	Manhattanville	Home	2:00pm
April	2	King's	Away	4:00pm
	5	William Smith	Away	11:00am
	6	Colorado College at William Smith	Away	11:00am
	10	Elizabethtown	Home	4:00pm
	12	Widener	Home	1:00pm
	15	Messiah	Away	7:00pm
	19	FDU-Florham	Away	3:00pm
	26	Wilkes	Home	3:00pm
	29	MAC-Playoffs	TBA	TBA
May	1	MAC-Semi-Finals	TBA	TBA
	3	MAC-Finals	TBA	TBA

I did map out the away games and there are some close ones as well. Here they are:

Eastern - Near Harrisburg, PA
Arcadia - North of Philadelphia
ST. John Fisher - Rochester, NY
Kings - Wilkes Barre, PA
William Smith - Geneva, NY
Messiah - South of Harrisburg, PA

That 's the update for now. Not much else is happening. Christmas, and New Year's are over. A very difficult time for me for sure. A lot harder than I had prepared for. The decorations are put away and we are trying to get into a routine now.

Take care...

A Climb for Hope Message

For those who have not seen it, this was posted a couple of weeks back as a comment to one of my posts.

This is a wonderful site and a great tribute to Chris.

I'm so sorry for your loss. That's why I started Climb for Hope so families won't have to deal with the horror of losing a loved one to breast cancer.

We'll be sure to carry Chris's memory to the summits of Cotopaxi and Kilimanjaro in 2008. And, we'll work hard to raise money so Dr. Emens will find the next viable treatment for advanced breast cancer

Andrew Buerger
Founder
Climb for Hope
http://www.climbforhope.com/index.php/cfh/

Climb for Hope raises money primarily for the research of Dr. Emens at Johns Hopkins. Her clinical trial for stage IV breast cancer patients was the one that Chris worked so very hard to get into, only to be in it for just a month. She felt so very strongly about Dr. Emens and this project that I have made it a point than all my future cancer donations will go to them to help Dr. Emens speed up her research. I would ask everyone else to do the same if possible.

Andrew Buerger also sent me a personal email as well and explained a little more as to why he is so involved with the program. They just set out on an expedition yesterday to Ecuador and very soon they are off to Mount Kilamanjaro. Dr. Emens herself is going on that one! She went on the Ecuador trip last year at this time.