So, I am going to try to post something without getting too upset. This day is a bit hard for Jerad and I. One year ago, on a Wednesday, just like today, I walked down to the busstop to meet Ally. She dropped her backpack at the corner, and took all the strength she could muster just to walk the four houses home. She went straight to the couch and laid down. I opened her backpack and found her lunchbox. Her lunch was still inside it, never touched. I got a pit in my stomach and called the doctor, but never ever thinking it would be leukemia. The day was exactly like today....it was sunny and hot and just like summer. Last year, some of the neighbor kids had gone to our community pool to try to cool off. I called my friend Nicki, who was at the pool, and asked her to come help me out and stay with the kids while I took Ally to the doctor...who sent us to the hospital. After the blood test, and me running down the hall to get Jerad, we heard from our family doctor the news. We both felt kicked in the stomach, confused, and frantic. Well, you can read the whole story here. http://all4ally.blogspot.com/2009/06/diagnosis.html I really don't need to relive it again.

But again, today was somewhat eerie for me. Because the weather and the day seemed so alike. But today is different. Today, Ally came home from school. She walked home all on her own and I was upstairs putting her sister down for a nap. When I walked back down the stairs, she was standing in the kitchen with her bathing suit on with a big grin on her face. She really didn't even say hi to me but instead told me she was going to the pool with Madison. And she did! Although Ally sat on the side of the pool for a lot of last summer, today she was right in the middle of the pool playing with all the kids!! And when her Dad came home from work, she asked him if he would take her back to the pool. So what a difference a year can make.

Tomorrow actually marks the one year anniversary of Ally's diagnosis. May 27 will forever be a horrible day for me. (Sorry to my friend Shelley whose baby boy was born on this exact day last year...Happy Birthday Joshua) But on this May 27th, we are marking the anniversary in a good way. I will post tomorrow about that.

For now, I am going to continue with little bits of information from the fundraiser Saturday night. While I wait for some photos of the event to come in, I will post a video instead. This is for the out-of-towners and/or people not there that night...but these are my remarks that I spoke to the crowd. Thanking the army, talking a little about my hero Ally, and describing my Dad's giant heart to the crowd. On another blog day, I will post my Dad's remarks too...I can't overtax the system here with too much.