Where in the World is Shayla?

Shayla enjoyed being at "the shore" in New Jersey with her sweet Philly friends.







New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York (Plus a few minutes in Delaware when we missed our exit back to Philadelphia after our quick run up to NYC).Photos from Thursday's entry: "down the shore" (Wildwood, NJ), eating a Philly cheese steak and Philly pretzel in University City (PA) and watching the carriages go by in NYC's Central Park (NY).

Some very sweet bloggers are also excellent guessers!! Thank you so much for blogging back and emailing your responses. Shayla was squealing with delight and giving comments, "Wow! They're really close." "Oklahoma? No way! They're just joking!" reviewing each of the sweet responses, thank you! And today Shayla received a little taste of her own medicine; it had us both laughing! A a sweet little blogger (Christi's age) emailed a picture for Shayla to guess where she was last week (South Beach, Miami) too fun! Thank you so much for all of your kindness and interaction!!

We flew to Philadelphia where I had a teachers' meeting. Shayla and I had planned for months to make the trip alone and we also planned to meet up with some of our sweet Philly friends. Little did we realize we'd also have the opportunity to establish an on-going "Christi Thomas" program, but that opportunity came up at the last minute so I booked Shayne a flight and we all went. (More about all of that "Christi stuff", including our visit with Dr. Maris at CHOP, later. It was brutal, emotionally.)

Once we landed in Philly (without Christi), I wiped the tears away and Shayne called sweet "Angel" Penelope's dad to see if we could drive up to NYC to give him a sympathy hug in person - since we were just two hours away - so we spent a few hours in Central Park with our sweet friend. (Penelope's 5th birthday should have been this weekend. He called Shayne on his way to and from the cemetery. I wish we could have gone with him. When we were in NYC, it was the very first time I'd ever seen Penelope's dad without Penelope by his side, heartbreaking.)

When my meetings in Philly started, Shayne went with our dear friends to New Jersey where they enjoyed being together at the shore (that means "beach" to our Ohio friends). It was an incredibly emotional trip, especially staying at the same hotel (and same floor!) where I stayed with Christi before, and meeting up with some of the sweetest volunteers and Angels on earth while I was in the city, but I'm so appreciative that I was able to go and also that Shayne was able to join us. Christi led us to many incredible people throughout her journey and I hope our friendships, like our love for Christi, will continue forever. Thank you, Philly friends - until we meet again!! (Most likely when Shayne competes in a race there next June.)