The Carnival Fundraiser......

Today is the big day, the one we have been waiting for. Ariauna had told her doctor in Minnesota that she could come back anytime as long as she was home for the carnival. Ariauna and I spent the last couple of days baking stuff for the bake sale. The committee really tried to keep me out of the carnival planning and letting me do anything to help, so I thought baking a few treats was the least that I could do.  This morning started early. The carnival committee was meeting at 7:00 a.m. to start setting up. Jerry and I got up early and went over to help them. It was amazing, the committee had already gone over to the school ahead of time to decide where to have everything set up. Here is most of the committee ready to set up. I think we were only missing my friend Lisa and one of the young woman named Emma. It gave me the chills to see them all decked out in our Ariauna attire.

 We tried to help as much as we could with setting up. I left at 8:30 and went home to get the kids ready. As soon as I walked in the door, Austin walked out to go help where he could. I did the girls' hair and got Jaxon ready. I helped Ariauna get in her clown costume, did her make up and we all headed back over to the school.

 They were still trying to get the last little bit of stuff set out for the silent auction when we got there. Everything looked absolutely amazing. They did an excellent job having things set up. They had some signs at the front with prices and with posters of Ariauna's life. The table at the entrance had pictures and scrapbooks of Ariauna. They also had the rubber band bracelets that said "Ariauna  Go-Fight-Win  Fanconi Anemia" written on them. They were light blue with pink writing and were being sold for $1.00. Then they had button pins with Ariauna's picture on them that said Thank you for helping Ariauna get a bone marrow transplant. I had bought my family and the carnival committee t-shirts that had Ariauna's picture on the front and they said "Thank you for helping Ariauna get a bone marrow transplant" and then on the back it said "We would like to thank our family, friends, neighbors and community for all they have done to support us".  Thanks Karen, Cindy and Brent for running the front table.

Then as you went in there was a table with buy it now items that you could buy and take home right then. Thanks Heather for running that table. We also had one of our neighbors Nanette that was at that same table handing out bone marrow donation kits from the Be a Match organization. I want to thank her too for spending the day doing that. Hopefully we will get some more people to sign up to be donors so that we can help save more lives.

Then was the bake sale and a few kid crafts. It was unbelievable the amount of baked goods that were donated to people. There were so many goodies and they all looked so delicious. Thanks to everyone who spent days and days baking for us. Thank you Angela, Rachel, Heidi, Haleigh and Camilla for running the Bake Sale for us.

I tried to start tying some balloon animals. I had learned a few (okay four to be exact) animals to tie at one of my girls' birthday parties and so I was trying my best to tie a few balloon animals for the kids. I was starting to get quite a line of people and it was taking me forever to make just one. When all of a sudden Chef Hugo showed up. No one even knew this man and we had no idea he was coming. Later we found out that he had seen it on face book and knew that no other clowns would show up to do this for free and so he came. I couldn't believe it and was touched that he would come and spend the day doing this. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was trying to tie balloon animals and he pretty much told me I sucked at it. He was hilarious and kept us all laughing the rest of the day. I was so grateful he came as he could tie 10 balloons in the time I could tie one, plus by the pictures below you will see that he could tie some pretty darn cool things. Later on another clown showed up that had also seen the info on face book and wanted to come help us out. I am so grateful and then to top it off, all the tips they got they gave to the bake sale table at the end of the carnival to donate to Ariauna. There are so many good people in the world.

 
 

We had the Ivie Farm (this is the farm our son Austin has worked at for the last several years) bring their ponies to do pony rides. We are so grateful to them and for their generosity in helping our family. Thank you to the Ivie family and all the helpers they brought with them today.

We also have a local business "All in One" who brought a couple of bounce houses, cotton candy machine and a popcorn machine. We are so grateful to them and their generosity too.Thank you to Brandon, Zachary, Guy, and Austin for your help keeping the bounce zone safe.

Then was the amazing silent auction. It brought me to tears when I saw all the tables completely covered with amazing and beautiful items that people had made, donated and business' that had donated. My heart was overwhelmed with gratitude and I was humbled at the love of everyone. I want every person who donated something for this carnival to know how deeply touched my immediate family is, my extended family, my friends and I think I can speak for the whole community on people being touched by the amount of love and support shown to us this day. Thank you to Molly, Erin, Marilyn, Terri and anyone else at the Silent Auction
area. There was definitely a couple of bidding wars. I know there was a good bidding war on the Starbucks gift basket and then the top bidding war was on the University of Utah quilt and it ended up selling at $750.00. Thank you, Thank you to all who donated their time, talents, products for the silent auction and for everyone who bid on things.

There was also about 20 games that were set up for the kids to play. A couple of really cute young woman in our ward, Meshell and Emma decided to do this as one of their 10 hour projects. So they helped plan the carnival and then they were completely over the games and prizes. Thanks to them for all their hard work. I want to thank each of the people that helped to run the games too. I think all of the kids had fun playing the games.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

And last but not least was the food. We had hot dogs, pizza, popcorn, water, soda, and cotton candy. Thanks to Rick for BBQing hot dogs all day, for Austin, Katie, Jessie, Heidi and Marilyn for spending all day in the heat selling food. Thanks to everyone who donated the food for us to sale.  And we can not forget our safety  guy Oly for making us all safe during this huge event.

My heart is over flowing with love. I know this post had tons of pictures, but I want everyone to see what an amazing carnival was held in our families behalf. I can not thank everyone enough. I hope that some day I can pay it forward to another family who is in need. May each and everyone of you that helped put on this huge event or who came to support us be blessed. We are so very grateful for such a wonderful event and the huge turn out of people that came to support us. God bless you all!