Sunday, June 29, 2008

Been feeling a bit depressed, it's my 34th birthday tomorrow and I'm absolutely dreading it. I can't believe I'm that old, I'm worrying that I'm running out of time to do stuff, there's still so much I want to do and I don't think a lot of it is possible now :-(
Anyway, I finally arranged something for last night, I kept putting it off, but thought I should really do something. It was a fun night, just a small gathering, Andy and Nicola came over, it was great to see them as we hadn't met up for ages. I got lots of nice pressies and cards and even a little birthday cake. Rach and Stu were dressed up, they had a fancy dress party to go to, Rach looked great, really funny! We went to a couple of different bars, so it was quite a late night. I've actually lost my voice today, I was cleaning the mould off our windows yesterday with this special spray, and I think I've inhaled some of it, my throat is quite sore.
So tomorrow night Jason has booked a nice restaurant for us, and then we're going to go to a comedy night. He already took me to see Phantom of the Opera as a surprise treat, I'm very lucky!
On Friday night we went out for a friends birthday, there were about 40 of us at a restaurant, and most of them were Irish, so you can imagine there was lots of drinks being had! Was really good fun. We were up early on Saturday morning, we went to see Kung Fu Panda, it was my work social club thing, so it was all free, we were eating ice cream and pop corn at 10 in the morning!! After that we went down to the garden centre and bought ourselves a little herb garden, Jason planted it all yesterday, it looks lovely. We also got an indoors plant and a couple of cactus, trying to make our flat look more homely. Talking of that, we're finally getting our settee next weekend...yaaay! It only took them 2.5 months! Luckily we didn't lose our deposit as the company was bought out and they have promised to deliver all outstanding orders.
That's about it for now. I'm just going to post a few random pics, I've finally figured out how to get photos from my phone onto my computer!
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Our herb garden
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Our friends cat (she just had a shave!)
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Jason and Willy
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and one from after our half marathon
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Saturday, June 21, 2008

I just wanted to post a blog about our half marathon and the fundraising we all accomplished. We raised $100,000 in total and it's still going up. Please read the touching story below from Sophie (mum of the triplet baby boys).
First, here are a couple of piccies I stole from the website, not very good, but you get the idea! I'm still waiting to get the team pic.
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My Half Marathon team for the ‘Henry, Jasper & Evan Smith Trust Fund’, Royal Hospital for Women

When I set out to look for people to join my second annual team to run the half marathon and ‘help save tiny babies’, in memory of my triplet sons, the response I received was incredible. After months of hard training and fundraising, 130 people lined up at the start line on 18 May in our red team shirts to run the 21.1km Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon for the ‘Henry, Jasper and Evan Smith Trust Fund’ at the Royal Hospital for
Women. The expected heavy rain and strong winds never materialised on race day. As my team gathered bright and early in Hyde Park for some frosty team photos, I couldn’t help but think that the sunshine was my Henry,Jasper and Evan smiling down on us. Our winning runners, Matilda & Kelly, racing each other to the finish line!

The team made their way to the start line and quickly dispersed amongst the 6000 other participants. The gun sounded and they were off up College St, and soon all 6000 runners had disappeared into the city. I took my place with other spectators along Art Gallery Rd, and in a ridiculously short space of time the winning runner was flying past, having completed his first lap of the City! A few minutes later and the front running pack was there, our first team runner not far behind.

From then on my eight-month-baby-bump and I jumped and cheered and waved as each of our runners came past – from the fittest and fastest to those for whom the course was a huge personal challenge. The determination and dedication shown by so many was truly inspiring, and humbling. So many told me afterwards that it was their thoughts of Henry, Jasper & Evan, and their brave struggle to live, that kept them going. Many told me that the tiny handprints on their backs literally pushed them up the hills and over the finish line. A highlight for me was seeing my husband, Ash, sprinting the final stretch to come in seconds under his goal time of 100 minutes. For some, it was not just Henry, Jasper and Evan who helped them, but the memories of their own precious babies lost due to prematurity or stillbirth. Baby Isabella helped her dad to push on despite a badly injured calf muscle, and baby Lucy inspired her uncle to run a fantastic time. And of course a huge inspiration was the generous amounts of money pledged to each runner by hundreds of sponsors– we were afterall ‘running for a humidicrib’ to save the lives of other precious premature and critically ill babies in Intensive Care at the Royal Hospital for Women.

I continue to be overwhelmed by the generosity of people in helping us raise these much needed funds for lifesaving equipment for the hospital’s Newborn Intensive Care Centre, in memory of Henry, Jasper & Evan. A complete stranger in the crowd at the finish line handed me $50. Con and his staff at the Coogee Café donated all their tips from the race weekend. An anonymous donor sponsored one runner $10,000!


That afternoon we had a team after-party at the Beach Palace Hotel in Coogee, for runners and their sponsors. Among the guests was Tracey Spicer who spoke in her role as Ambassador to the hospital’s Newborn Intensive Care Centre and presented our team’s prizes. It was wonderful to see so many exhausted, yet exhilarated and proud runners celebrating their great achievement.
The success of this team would not have been possible without the kind support of local businesses in Coogee and Randwick, who helped in so many ways. Many cafes, including the Coogee Café, helped in recruiting runners through distributing flyers and displaying posters. ‘Salt and Lemon’ in Randwick encouraged people to join with the promise of free fish and chips! The Beast magazine kindly publicised the event. Chris Warhurst, of the Beach Palace Hotel, and Patrick Byrne, of the Coogee Dolphins, generously sponsored our team’s running singlets. Alex Porter offered her services as team photographer.

Amazingly, our team this year raised just over $100,000, which will be used to buy four much needed state-of the-art humidicribs for the smallest and sickest babies in Intensive Care. Thank you to all our generous sponsors, supporters and, of course, runners. It has been extremely uplifting to see the local community come together to support the Royal Hospital for Women, and in memory of my three very special little boys.
Sophie
www.henry-jasper-evan.memory-of.com

MY BEAUTIFUL, BRAVE LITTLE BOYS WHO INSPIRED SO MANY TO RUN
Henry Tim Smith Jasper Cotton Smith Evan Cotton Smith
Lived 31 July 06 20 August – 16 October 06 20 August – 29 August 06

THEY ARE GONE
You can shed tears because they are gone
Or you can smile because they have lived.
You can close your eyes and pray they’ll come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all they’ve left.
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see them
Or it can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember them and only that they’ve gone
Or you can cherish their memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what they’d want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
(author unknown)
Henry Jasper Evan

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

I'm just finally getting over my cold I've had for over a week. It started off a week last Thursday, so I didn't go out at all last weekend. This weekend I managed to venture out again, plus we had a long weekend as it was the Queen's birthday. On Saturday, Jason and I went to the Doggie rescue place and took a dog (Willy) for a walk, he was an old dog and had a bad back leg, so he couldn't really walk very far, so we sat at a cafe and he sat on our knees. He was very well behaved! I'm not quite sure whether I could have a dog at home though, I hate to say it, but he smelt a bit and I could smell dog for the rest of the day! I am a bit anal when it comes to smells though! But it was nice to do something for the little doggies, it's really sad that 60,000 dogs get euthanised per year in NSW alone, very sad :-(
I went to see the Sex and the City movie with a girl from training on Saturday which was really good. After that I met Jason and we had a nice meal and a couple of drinks, which we haven't done for ages.
Sunday, we just went to the mall and bought a couple of things for the house. But then we bumped into our friend and she asked if we wanted to meet her and her friend for a quick drink, so we met her for an hour, then went home and watched a dvd.
Yesterday had a bit of a lie in and bummed around at home as the weather was pretty bad. We dragged ourselves out though in the evening, we went to see the U2 3D film at the IMAX, it was amazing. I didn't think that it would be that good. You could almost touch Bono, he was right in front of our faces. We felt like we were actually at the concert, but with a much better view, I had goosebumps at some points. You could see the audience clapping and waving their hands in front of you, I kept thinking it was the people in the cinema that were waving it was that real. Anyway, I'll stop raving about it, but if you ever get the chance, go see it!