I get to see two of them this weekend - #12 and #7 - the girls on the outside, Katie and Alex... My Jenn is in the middle... I'll be thinking about her - Jenn was my first Iowan out for the climb and I'll never forget hugging her. I'm sure I'll see her sometime in Spring. I actually met Alex first - I met Alex at Sarah's when we met Kari's family. They house the world's largest Cheeto at Sarah's - but I remember meeting Alex and being with Kari's family more than the Cheeto.
I get to be with #8, #3 and #2 this weekend as well. And I get to make them all climb 1632 steps. It's one of the things I do to honor Kari. Having them out here makes it so much more special...
This is not my post for today, but I needed to post something because that's what I'm supposed to do on Thursdays. It's been very hectic getting my stuff ready and some of it distributed to the 99 people on my Kari's Klimbers team. Maybe I'll post again in the next few days, or after the climb. I hope you took a look at Melissa's colorful post yesterday... She used all of the colors from Kari's shirt in one of my favorite pictures of her... I get to finally meet Melissa face to face on Sunday too! And, I get to hang with that chick from New Jersey who calls me her "brotha from anotha motha"... She wrote a fun post about coming out here the other day...
OK - I confess - I'm just phonin' it in today... This is the start of my season and my mind is a little too occupied right now to barf it out on a page... All of my birthdays are coming up and all of the commotion surrounding the Hustle just launches me into that... And being surrounded by more than a hundred people, including her friends, climbing in her honor, and to honor all of our donors and donor families, and the people who work to keep us alive, reminds me how precious it is to be alive... And not that I ever need reminding about her, but this always reminds me how lucky I am to have had her come into my life...
