thoughts of see jane run

shared by Marlo R. Beall, her sister

Today I participated in my first 5K event, the See Jane Run 5K and Half Marathon. My good friend, Mar, and I have been walking buddies for a few years, and somewhat randomly decided that we would give a 5K a try.

We trained a little bit, but I had never jogged the full distance prior to today. I actually woke up this morning thinking that we were going to walk the entire distance; especially since we hadn't had a chance to walk together over the past week.

But to my surprise, we were able to run (slowly jog, really) the entire length! I was very shocked, while also relatively proud.

My 5K experience made me think of Cyn. Seeing the pairs, trios and small groups of friends running together... I just knew that running a 5K - or even a marathon - would be something that Cyn would have eventually done.

I'm not a runner, and don't have "run a marathon" on my bucket list. So I realize now that my heavenly sister was running with me today. She inspires me everyday and I could feel her whispering, "Come on, you can do it... you might as well just keep running, since you already started."

So thanks Cyn, for the extra motivation and support. And the weather today was simply perfect - another way that I knew you were smiling from above.

thoughts of homemade yahtzee

shared by VJ Rabuy, her sister

During the last few weeks, I have been honored to attend several children's birthday celebrations. So it sparked a memory of a birthday party I attended in elementary school.

The party was for my friend Christine Francis in the first or second grade. It was fun to see my friends outside of school, and to take part in games, and eat cake. But the thing I remember the most about that day was playing Yahtzee.

I had never played before, and this particular set that Christine had was the Mickey and Friends Disney Edition. So when I got home, I could not stop thinking about Mickey Yahtzee. I had so much fun playing, and I wanted to play again.

You had to roll all kinds of combinations of Mickeys, the more Mickeys the better. And after that, the rolls were for Donalds, Minnies, Daisys and so forth. Five Mickeys was the best.

So before the weekend’s end, Cyn had created my very own Disney Yahtzee. It was impressive because she had constructed each die, making the cube out of yellow graph paper and drawing the corresponding Mickey friend on each face of the die.

She made all five dice and whatever else. Other than the weight, the dice were spot on. She played with me, she really made the game for me; and it was all made possible by Cyn’s prowess for seeing something and knowing, “yeah, I could make that.”