Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. Thanks so much, again, to all involved with the Head Shaving Party on Friday. It was a great day from the word "go."
The morning Open Gym was busy with lots of our regular faithful members and that meant more to me than most people can know. It meant that our members are invested and interested enough to keep track of our wacky schedule shifts and adapt with them. (This has actually been a very successful Spring Break and now we are VERY excited that the official Summer Session schedule will be available TOMORROW!)
Then, after Open Gym, I went running around, gathering stuff for the big event including some cool jars and vases for the donations, face paint for the freshly shaved heads, and prizes. I had some good karma going and the timing actually worked out perfectly to fit in a Dr.'s appointment for myself. (Yeah, I actually need those too sometimes) Just a checkup. My numbers were all good except my cholesterol for which I actually have medication but I had stopped taking for a while to see if my low numbers from last time were a result of the statin or better eating habits. Turns out it's a little of both so I started taking a half dose again since that's what worked so well for my last checkup.
So, back on task...Got everything together and got things rolling right at 3pm (again, perfect timing despite a bog ole' traffic jam on 95). The rest you know about. $4600+. THANKS!
Rachel gave out lots of thanks but I want to send out my own.
Amanda from Great Clips a couple doors up was so generous with her lunch hour and did such a great job of whipping out those heads.
Also, Cici's Pizza gave us TWO huge trays of brownies for the party and has often offered meals (which we've taken them up on once)
I can't tell you how much I appreciate Pam and Chick-fil-a for everything they've done and are planning to do for us/Charlotte. Thanks for letting me be a cow! :-)
The head shavees. You helped make it so much fun!
The completely AWSOME RNR staff who proved once again how much we couldn't do without them.
Sorry for forgetting anyone. I'll remember them during my Grammy acceptance speech!
Now we have our next event coming up:
The Lisa Nichols Richardson Memorial All-You-Can-Eat Benefit Dinner, titled, "Living With Cancer" On April 25 from 2-5pm. At the Elko Community Center in Sandston, VA. Tickets are $10 and will be on sale at Romp n' Roll VA Center! All proceeds to help Charlotte.
This post to be continued...gotta run to the store to get some last minute stuff for Easter dinner...

An Update:
OK, I'm back. Yummy Easter meal. Charlotte is still eating like a champ. She's been downing the strawberries like nobody's business. Need to get a little something else in her so she doesn't explode (if you know what I mean).
The Flannagans (Lou and Joanne) brought by a couple discs of pics from the head shaving party and I'm going to try to post a bunch of what I have to Facebook since that's the best place I've found to share lots of photos (given my limited technical ability). Thanks folks.
Back to schedules...Happy Start of the Civil War. Does licking my chops at the number of future Southern Horizon gigs make me a war profiteer? 150 years or so after the fact? :-)
Here's what else is going on:
Tomorrow evening: RNR to Go up to Caroline County for an adventure class. There were several people from up there at the Head Shaving Party. Thanks for being there.
Tuesday, April 21 - We're invited to participate in Come and Play With Chic-fil-a at Virginia Center Commons Mall (in the play area by Sears) Not exactly sure who's going to do that as I will be doing RNR to Go. Needs to be led by a trained employee but volunteer "helpers" are always welcome.
Thursday, April 23 - There's an Open House at Rainbow Station by Memorial Regional Hospital. We can use a volunteer "helper" and a babysitter for CJ.
Saturday, April 25. - Talk about a nuts day! Besides the "Living With Cancer" benefit dinner in Sandston, we also have The Connections Fair at the Childrens Museum all day, Miss Alyson's Wellness Fair in Ladysmith, and a Southern Horizon performance at Tredegar Ironworks at 1:00. So it's going to be a huge day. I would like to take Charlotte to the dinner after the SoHo (My personal abbreviation) performance but we will probably need "CJ coverage" before then if anyone is available.
Wednesday, April 29th - I have a conference in the morning and Rachel is teaching at RNR.
Saturday May 2 - Randolph-Macon College is having the Relay For Life and we might be involved a little. Several organizations on campus have contacted us one way or another about doing something for Charlotte. More details as they develop.
We're going to have "Rompy's Bluegrass Jam" at the store on Monday, May 4. Bring your axe. Free for adults, kids can play in the gym for $5.00 each. Donations to the cause always accepted! Charlotte will be having chemo round 3.
I'm sure we will eventually have all of this on the Care Calendar so please check there to volunteer/sign up.

Last Night's Head Shaving Party was Amazing!

I forgot to send out probably the biggest (most?) kudos to Granny, the original Brazen Hussy (ask us), for standing her ground and being CJ's biggest advocate when we couldn't be there. It doens't take Fellini to figure out where Rachel and Charlotte get their maddeningly lovable firey streaks.
Speaking of her, the word from the hospital this morning is that she woke up happy. I actually got to talk to her on the phone for a bit. I asked her if she wanted me to shave off my goatee and she said no, 'I like your goateer on your face." So on it stays. I didn't shave the jowels this morning because I thought everything would be coming off. Sorry if I'm a bit scruffy this morning.
The interview on WHAN 1430am went very well and Bob got a $100 donation out of it. Good thing he rolled out of bed! :-) Thanks to Bill and Skip for being so willing to have us in the studio multiple times.
Spoke to Scott at Glen Allen Golf this morning confirming the prizes for today and revisited having the Spirit Night on Wednesday, May 6 from 7-10pm. Should be fun and my idea for the longest-drive and closest-to-the-hole contests is to sell golf balls used specifically for the contests via the government stimulus method. That is $1 per ball or $5 for three.
Hey Devon, hope you got SOME sleep last night.
Gotta go get Open Gym going. (Man! Annette does a lot in the mornings! :-)

An Update:
Here I am sitting at a very quiet Romp n' Roll. Open Gym is over, birthday party won't start till 3. I'm catching up on paperwork and listening to the Dixie Chicks' Lullaby. If you've never heard it, it's a must listen...calming to anyone...
And I'm probably about the happiest I have been in weeks. Last night's Head Shaving Party was an amazing event. Let's just put aside for the moment that we raised somewhere around $5K (!!!!!) for Charlotte's ever-growing medical expenses. There was fun, fellowship, head shaving and painting by some very brave and enthusiastic volunteers, great food, and the best part about it was that I did hardly anything to make this happen. There are so many people to thank but let me start here:
o To Jackie Plank for getting the initial ball rolling
o To Bob Flangan for grabbing the baton and sprinting to the finish
o To Amanda at Great Clips for coming by on her lunch break and shaving heads
o To my fabulous employees for coming out, showing support, cleaning up, signing in guests, bringing food, etc.
o To Chick-Fil-A at Virginia Center and Cicis Pizza for providing food and a visit from "The Cow"
o To the folks at Glen Allen Golf for providing a great prize for our head shavees
o To Margie (our resident Avon rep) for another prize
o To Annette's dad for yet another prize
o To my Aunt Phyillis for the Bose Wave Radio & CD player
o To the now bald heads in the HOUSE:
Mitch Hayes, Bob Flanagan, Jeff Reynolds, Mark Bishop, Wyn Price, Kolbey Hogeboom, Bruce King, Chris Murphy, Daniel Edwards, Xavier Madrigal, Aiden Feria....AWESOME!
We did have plenty of fine folks taking pictures. Please send them our way and we are happy to post on Caring Bridge and/or Facebook. If you are on the Get Well Charlotte Reynolds site on Facebook, feel free to post pics there as well.
Thanks to everyone for showing up. We had such a great crowd and it was so good to see so many kids playing...including the guest of honor, Miss Charlotte herself. She held up really well and we were very happy that she stuck it out as long as she did.
I snuck off midway through the event for some "girl time" with one of my best friends from college (Kelly) in town on Spring Break. We treated ourselves to pedicures and a Girl's Night dinner where we got to catch up and talk about LIFE...
Then her husband Nate, who is quite the chef, treated us all to breakfast this morning: French toast, homemade blackberry syrup, fresh whipped cream, and BACON for the whole family. Charlotte's favorite part? She dipped the bacon in the whipped cream!! That's my girl!
Oh, and I almost forgot the best part: Charlotte pooped last night! Hooray! Hopefully we can keep everything going.
It was so great to feel the positive energy blowing in our direction last night. That's the kind of stuff that energizes me and keeps me going. Thanks again.
As mentioned in a previous post, bracelets are in at Romp n' Roll and some of you who paid earlier may stop by any time we are open to pick them up.
There is another fundraising dinner coming soon (April 25th) in Charlotte's honor out in Sandston and I will post the details on that soon. It is a $10 a plate all-you-can-eat feast. We will probably be selling tickets for that at Romp n' Roll as well.
Hope everyone has a great weekend and a Happy EAster. More posts later...Gotta go get ready for a Super Birthday Bash!

It's been a good day for the most part.

It's been a good day for the most part.
Camp was AWESOME at Romp n' Roll today. We had a great crowd of kids and a lot of fun was had by all. Then I got to have lunch with 2 of my girlfriends at a park in Church Hill (more Christophers...YUM).
Charlotte slept a LOT last night, going to bed before 9 and then getting up after 9 the next morning. The medications are STILL an issue and we ran into an even bigger issue after the new strategy (sneaking the medicine into chocolate milk) completely backfired. She tasted it right away and was very upset at the nurse who told her "there isn't any medicine in it". We did get her outside a bit on this BEAUTIFUL day. She is getting the last bit of her chemo tonight and we should be getting loaded up with fluids and will go home sometime tomorrow. Hopefully earlier rather than later...
Very much looking forward to the Head Shaving party tomorrow. There's been so much good energy behind it and I think that is having a positive effect on my energy and mood. To me, it doesn't matter how much money is raised (but I am EXTREMELY grateful and excited by everyone's efforts. It will REALLY help us a lot). The most important part of it all is an opportunity to show some "solidarity" for my favorite little bald chick and have a chance to play, laugh, and socialize.
We are playing a Charlotte "appearance" as a wait-and-see depending on many factors. I would love for her to be there but we don't want to overdo things.
I keep thinking that I have something else to say but it's not coming to me right now so I will just sign off...Charlotte is watching a Best of Elmo video and it is great. Lots of vignettes with Elmo appearances on Sesame Street including making Angry Faces with a very young Julia Roberts and talking with Whoopi Goldberg about her "fancy hair" (dreads). Too cute!

Update from Roger:
Well, while Rachel was having her great day at camp, I was having a ball doing Romp n' Roll To Go at Primrose at Atlee Commons. Got yet another new sign-up today (I think it's up to 13 now) so I guess word's getting out. Very cool. I got a very rough estimate about how much their Spring Fling raised. The initial estimate is approximately $2000, about half of which will be going to A.S.K. in Charlotte's name! Awsome folks, thanks!
Now, it's been a while since I've posted, mostly because Rachel has been on it and doing a great job but also a little bit because I got us in trouble with risk management for saying too much secret stuff. Rachel got the lecture from the suits which is very funny (funny - strange, not funny - haha) in a way (not to her) because she could have given them the lecture on how to do their job, not the other way around. Sorry I made you endure that, dear.
I also think they're mad that I sometimes let it slip that some of their medical staff are a bunch of bone heads who tell bald faced lies to my daughter about medicine in her sippy cup. What was with that?!? They obviously don't realize that she's smarter than most of us put together. Her catching them lying to her was damaging and it's just one more insult adding to her injury with which we'll have to deal. That's the kind of stuff people file lawsuits over.
I'll say again, I'm more than a bit underwhelmed with the quality of care we've received this time around. Some child psychology training might be in order before they work in peds. Thank God for Monica who I guess helped smooth at least some of the mess out. She also has really helped our mental status on more than one occasion. With all my griping, the psych Dept at MCV has proven to be top knotch.
So let's try to be positive: Psych Dept. - Good. Hem/Onc Dept. - Good! Pediatric neurosurgery - GOOD! Monica with the meal cart - Good. Child Life Dept. - GOOD!!! PICU - Good! Med students - pains in the asses but one of them will probably save my life one day - GOOD!!!!!
On to other items. Head shaving party. Can't happen soon enough! Gotta get this stuff off of my head. It's itching constantly and driving me batty. Not to mention it's super way disturbingly silver and grey! :-) I knew the white was pretty prevalent in the beard but didn't think that it would have spread to the head. (There are lyrics to a song in there somewhere).
Extra side note: Someone cleaned the house again (thanks probably Granny, Gramps, and/or Uncle Kolbey) and the floor in the office is kind of slick so my feet keep moving of their own accord. Could be kind of creepy if I hadn't already had a little smackeral of something Kalua-esque (sp?)
To the Montesorri clan, I just tapped a pan of lazagna from the deep freezer and BOY! was it tasty! The freezer and all the food in it has been, hands down, the longest lasting utilitarian gift we've received.
So back to the head shaving party...It's going to be a blast and I'm worried it might be too good. Please be patient if chaos reigns. My clippers and electric razor are ready to take care of your cranial exterior and I'll be on WHAN 1430AM again tomorrow at about 7:30 talking about it. Bob Flannagan might make an appearance as well. Any of you competing for the coveted "Bowl Of Hair Clippings Award" may come by too if you can get yourselves out of bed.
Take care everyone. Have a good Good Friday.