Christi Thomas Memorial Easter Egg Hunt at Tiffin Univ.

Thankfully, we’ve been “beyond busy” and that has allowed us to keep our minds focused elsewhere. Getting out just one Easter basket instead of two was very difficult and not without tears. Each time I see it, along with Christi’s baby picture beside it, I find myself sad instead of happy. She LOVED running and scooping up Easter eggs, not to mention coloring and decorating the eggs.
April 2006

After church last Sunday, we headed to another “Christi’s Tea Party” planning meeting with those amazing ‘Proper Party’ ladies, Kami & Kristin (and Jennifer and Lisa)! Fabulous items have been donated, including tickets to a Cleveland Indians baseball game and tickets to the Ritz Theatre!!

So far over 50 people are registered to attend. If you'd like to attend, please don't wait. Registration must be cut off at 140 as the country club cannot serve any more. (This means only 90 more tickets can be sold.) Last summer Christi asked if her next birthday could be a tea party for her friends. Although this is not how we envisioned celebrating Christi’s tenth birthday, we do think it’ll be a wonderful event! Everyone has been working so hard! If you'd like to donate or to attend, please follow this link: http://www.active.com/donate/christi

Shayla was thrilled with her grade card which came home last weekend and so were we!! Her teacher wrote, “Her progress in reading is nothing short of remarkable!” We’re very thankful to Dr. Schader! When we stayed with her in San Fran weeks after Christ's death, Robin diagnosed Shayla with an excessive convergence problem which was preventing her from reading text properly and which was causing her headaches last year. We’ve very proud of Shayla’s hard work and dedication to all of her required eye exercises to rid her of her “excessive convergence” problem. What a blessing! (I still remember Dr. Z. saying, "It's expensive, takes time and hard work, insurance doesn't cover any of it, but it's 100% curable." I said, "We've spent thousands of dollars on treatments that didn't cure so this sounds like a bargain!")

Last week on a visit to the cemetery I was humbled to see two new items left for Christi. A darling ceramic cat from her sweet school friend, Ali and a pink Angel piglet. God's people are amazing! I find so much comfort in knowing others loved Christi too. It makes me feel like I'm not alone.

This week Heidelberg College’s Education Department put up a plaque of tribute to Christi. I've not yet been in to see it, but my friends told me it’s placed outside of the Early Childhood Education room, which contains her lemonade stand inside. We are very touched! We also understand the plaque which will be placed beside her tree outside of the Education Building will be arriving soon. Go, Berg!!

The Christi Thomas Scholarship Committee put a great deal of time, thought, prayer and discussion into selecting the first scholarship winners. It was more difficult than we ever imagined. All of their application packets were fabulous! I'll share some pieces of their applications down the road. We really couldn’t decide on just one; therefore, Shayne and I decided to award two $1,000 scholarships to two Heidelberg College students and to give all of the applicants a $100 scholarship award because all were worthy. Shayne and I will be on hand to present these at their awards assembly in a couple of weeks. I had planned to make the presentation; however, after calling the two $1,000 winners in person yesterday I was in tears (and the “kids” were so grateful; it was really humbling) so now I realize Dr. Lori Grine is going to need to help me out (again) and do the talking for us. Other Angel parents have told me it’s very hard. May God be with us.

The Christi Thomas Memorial Egg Hunt at Tiffin University was held yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, I had to rush off to Ohio State right after school, but Shayla was there with bells (and bunny ears) on! Our thanks to Tiffin University for remembering Christi. (Isn’t that banner awesome?!!) I remember last year rushing out after school to get Christi to the hospital to get her blood counts checked and then quickly we took off for the Tiffin University egg hunt and somehow accomplished all of that by 4PM. While I love all my classes this quarter and I don’t miss going to the hospital before and after school, I really wish it were April 2006 and Christi would still be here with us.



Well, thanks to a 2 hour delay this morning (Can you believe it? It snowed yesterday and now black ice!) I had a chance to update the blog. Here’s wishing you all a blessed day during this special Holy Week.