save the ta-tas!

i love the color pink. it's always been my favorite, long after the childhood being-a-girl addiction to the shade wore off. pink was one of my wedding colors. and it worked out well that we had a daughter first, because otherwise, our poor son would have been sleeping in a room of pink and brown. my mind was set, and i was resistant to changing it. and looking in harper's closet, you'd think a half dozen bottles of pepto bismol were accidentally spilled.

so, i love pink overall. but when it's surrounding a breast cancer awareness event, i'm particularly all about it. until recently, i didn't know of anyone personally who has faced this battle. that was until december 2008 when we found out harper's music teacher went through chemo (with flying colors and is doing great!), and just this week, when michael's aunt had a mastectomy. i hate that this awful disease is starting to hit close to home.

thursday night brought bid for the cure to our local downtown. a simple event with live and tin can auctions, beer tent, live music, food and loads of people. oh, and did i mention some local detroit celebrities? a few of the detroit tigers! brandon inge lives in our little town, so he was the main ticket who helped to sponsor this event to raise money for breast cancer awareness.

i honestly didn't think it would get as out of hand as it did. we casually walked up there with harper and my nephews around 7:00 thinking we'd hop in line, get a few autographs and head back home for bedtime. nope. michael stood in the line as soon as we got there. a line that wrapped down half the street block, over to the other sidewalk and back up. they didn't promise us, since we jumped in line after the official end, but said we could stand there anyways just in case. michael got his beer and was the official standing-in-line-so-my-nephews-can-get-autographs fabulous uncle that he is. the boys, harper and i meandered over to the live music, from an acoustic guitar played by the lead singer of the verve pipe, brian vander ark.

ethan and griffin splurged on cotton candy, which harper wanted nothing to do with (not sure why she wouldn't want spun sugar!).

and we sat on the pavement and colored with chalk while we listened to tunes and enjoyed the perfect weather and the knowledge that we were there supporting a great cause.

when michael finally made it around to where we thought we might actually get autographs before brandon inge and austin jackson had to leave at 9:00, we stood in line all together. and no less than 10 minutes before closing time, we were at the table, getting signatures and taking pictures.

and so, in our brush with the famous, we celebrated by getting the kids ice cream.

and shuffled back home for late bedtimes. all in all, it was worth it and well worth the money we spent to support the cause to save the ta-tas!