NKF Kidney Walk - 2012

On October 13, I had the opportunity to participate in my very first walk with the National Kidney Foundation, and I gotta tell ya....these people know how to do it. I have no idea what the actual numbers were, but there were a LOT of people there, especially considering the crappy weather. There are two things that I'll remember forever about that day. The first is my friends who braved the elements, stood with me and supported me on this day. I don't reach out for help a lot, but emotionally, they all knew that this is what I needed, and I'm forever grateful.

breakfast provided to fuel our bodies for the walk

Caroline enjoying a warm cup of coffee

my friends, hanging out together, waiting for the festivities to begin

Izzy and Joacim playing around in the healthcare tent.

And the dogs.....there were SO many dogs there, dressed up for the dog contest.  Awesome.  Look at this little cutie!

Introducing Sidney the Kidney!!!  He was flashbombing my picture, but in a great way :)

dog + cow = dow or cog

here I am, getting ready to go on stage..yes, on stage

I was one of the top individual fundraisers for this walk, and those of us that achieved this milestone were given the opportunity to speak to everyone.

here's Izzy and Daniel...she was a VERY grumpy girl that day, but she sure does remember it

Here I am on stage, taking the following picture

And here's the picture.  Joacim's right in the front, and to his right is Aaron, who I met when I attended National  Kidney Day in Washington, DC back in March.  He was in the twin cities the day of the walk and joined my team, which was AWESOME!!!!  He also has the only video of  me giving my little schpeel (which went amazing well for me at least) :)

And here we are (with cranky Izzy) in front of my sign (also because I was a fundraising all-star)  Yay me!!

So that's it for the walk.  My girlfriends and I had decided to go out for a girl's night downtown, but my legs were swollen and I was cold, so we decided to have everyone coming back to our house for pizza, beer, wine and hanging out.  Between the walk and that, though, my friend Kristin (who has a membership to Lifetime Fitness) got us in as guests and we sat in the hot tub and sauna (although the sauna last less than a minute), but it got me good and warm from the inside out, and I felt great.  Everyone came over later and we had ourselves a nice little gathering,

at night, it's almost impossible to take a decent photo, but this was everyone chowing down on some pretty great pizza

Murphy...might be possessed by aliens

Caroline loves Rosie..I mean, who doesn't?  She put some sunglasses and a red lei from earlier in the day on Rosie, and it was hilarious, but it didn't last long enough for me to get a picture.  Maybe we'll trick her again sometime soon!

And then we started talking about our upcoming Halloween, and I decided that Caroline would make a PERFECT Grace Kelly :)

Man, it was such a great day.  It's hard to describe how special these people made me felt, even if they didn't even realize it.  Moving to a new state has been great, but building these friendships has been the icing on the cake!