This morning was our Food Allergy Walk. It went really well. We raised $1,000 for the walk and I made t-shirts for all of us to wear. Here is what went on the shirts.

Front


Back


*The frames came from Pamela over at Digitreats. They're from her mega and on going ABC kit. She is so very talented and generous.

Check-in was at 7am and the walk began at 8am. My Dad watched Alysa while J, Kayla, my Mom and I walked. There were some vendors there with free goodies. Epi Pen was there with t-shirts, bags for our loot and water bottles. Twinject was there with some informational packets and pens. And then my favorites - Divvies, Home Free [previously known as Gak's Snacks], Enjoy Life Foods and Cherry Brook Kitchens were all there with lots of goodies to sample.

I had never had Gak's Snack's before but I had heard of them. They are delicious cookies, free of peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, wheat and dairy. They've begun branching out to be carried by Whole Foods. Hopefully mine does or will be carrying them. The husband of the founder was there and he was very nice to talk to.

Enjoy Life is one of our favorites and I was finally able to sample their new boom CHOCO boom rice milk chocolate bars. I also saw their newest product - Sunbutter Crunch snack bars. Unfortunately they did not have samples of the sunbutter bars, but...I made friends with the one woman there and before we left she snuck me a box of their cookies (not samples) AND the box of sunbutter bars. I can not wait to sample those babies. Also in our conversations, she told me she is a Dietician for the company and specializes in special diets such as Celiac Disease, Food Intolerance and Allergies. She lives in Northern NJ and is willing to come down by me to be a guest speaker at one of our support group meetings. She also thought Kayla was adorable.

It was very sweet because before the walk started, J had taken Kayla to look around. All of a sudden she came running to me with her arms outstretched all excited. I picked her up and she threw her arms around me and said, "Mommy! It's all safe for me here!" She had seen the Enjoy Life food and knew it and was just happy to be somewhere that she could eat the food. It felt good to be in a large group setting and know that although some food that people had could and would contain dairy, that there would be understanding. But also to see kids eating the cookie samples and know it was safe for her to be around. That feeling is priceless. Safety AND fun for your child. [As an aside, it was disturbing to see some of the volunteers bring dunkin donuts to eat. Thankfully it was fairly contained, but some complaints were put in. I being one of them. Hopefully they'll put the word out for next year to think a little bit more.]

Kayla had fun before the walk by playing on the moon bounce. During the walk, she wanted to be carried most of the time. Not surprising. After the walk, she played on the moon bounce some more as we just hung out. A friend from my support group was there and actually gave the opening speech. So it was nice. And my Mom won an electric scooter for the girls. Of course they're way too small for it and it goes 10mph. My Dad suggested selling it on eBay, so we'll have to see. It will be years before they are old enough to really ride it.

I had a possible mini catastrophe on my hands after the walk. I uploaded the pictures to my computer and after the pictures were deleted (this is usually, but no longer, done automatically upon upload) I noticed only 13 out of 66 were uploaded. I was SICK about it. I was able to take the card into Ritz Camera and they were able to recover the pictures, but...it is costing me $40. OUCH!

Kayla in her shirt




The view on the walk - the schuylkill River and "Boathouse Row".


Kayla & her Daddy


Kayla at the finish line


The jumping fool


All of us


Kayla and my Mom with the scooter


Kayla in her Walk t-shirt


My loot


Janeen - you have 2 sample packets of gluten-free sugar cookies coming your way. I just have to get myself to the post office. ;)

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As a side note - it took her 3 days but Alysa FINALLY got the 1st piece of her Cinderella set...the doll. Her hang up was rest time. She hasn't been sleeping, so there was no need for her to pee in her diaper. *sigh* Today, at rest time, she left her room, went potty all by herself and pooped! There may be hope for her yet. She's very excited to have Cinderella but said she needs a dress. Yup kiddo - keep working this hard and you'll have the whole set in no time.