Last night was our local Relay for Life event to raise money for cancer research. Since my aunt is fighting a nasty bout of the disease, I thought this year I really needed to particpate. I agreed to help chaperone the National Honor Society team. The kids are great, and a lot of it was fun - particularly when everyone got loopy around 2-3am! Parts of the event were really cool - you can buy luminaries in honor of cancer fighters, survivors or victims and they line the track with them. As the sun goes down, they light them and read off all the names - it's very moving. There are even luminaries up in the stands that spell out hope. I took a picture, but it's pretty crappy. Other than that, you're just supposed to keep people from your team walking on the track constantly. Because I was so cold, I just kept walking to keep warm - I think I walked between 10-13 miles! They had live music and different groups were selling food - there's nothing like a chili dog at 3 in the morning. My favorite group sold hot chocolate for 50 cents - they were my best friends, since it got down into the 40s last night.

As chaperones, my friend and I had to stay up all night to keep an eye on the kids so they wouldn't do anything stupid. So, I actually found the event a little tiring and I don't know that I'll do it again - at least not all night, maybe just a couple of hours. The luminary ceremony was really nice, though. I left this morning around 7am (the event went until noon) so I didn't get to hear the final total of money raised, but the last I heard it was about $103,000! I came home and crashed. I've been completely useless all day. Not only am I wicked exhausted, but I can't feel my legs and so I'm relatively immobile! :) We're going to watch a movie tonight and then I'm off to bed...