A quick run down of the "BIG Event" for those who have never been:
Friday afternoon you check in to your hotel and get your shirts. (Families pay for nothing all weekend). We stayed in the new Coralville Marriott.
We ate dinner with all the DM families. This year it was catered by Olive Garden!
Then @ 7:00pm the families are introduced on stage. Each family walks across the stage, their name is read and how many years they have been coming. (3 years for us)
Walking down the path to the stage. A friends husband who works for a newspaper took this picture and emailed it to us!
Then they have an opening ceremony that is so full of excitement and SO LOUD!!!
The main ballroom is where the dancing takes place-DM families can come and go.
There are LOTS of activities for the families to do- like the family room (which is a ball room where we eat, play games, talk or just hang out), they have a room full of big screen tv's and gaming systems that Best Buy donates, they have tv's with movies playing on, a movie theater, and then there are the students who LOVE to play with the kids.
The Family Room
Corrine got to meet Miss Iowa. Simeon also got to meet the Iowa football players and get their autographs Saturday.
Johann and Simeon playing in the Best Buy Room.
Friday night/Saturday morning and afternoon it's non stop dancing and playing. The dancers CANNOT sit down, except for certain times, like when they have a meet up with a family, or if they have earned a sit down time. Friday night some of the dancers were able to come to the pizza party @ 10pm with the families and sit and eat. Otherwise they stand while they eat-all chairs for the students vanish for the weekend!!
Our family meet up with students from the Newman Center.
Saturday morning-we were treated to a pancake breakfast, and lunch was tacos. All very YUMMY!
Saturday there are more people that come as spirit dancers. They can be there for 4 hours and they have to raise $100 each. The 24 hour dancers have to raise at least $400. This year there were 1,700 dancers signed up. It was the biggest turnout ever!
During the event they have people cutting hair to donate to Locks of Love, and this year they had a booth where you could sign up to register for the Bone Marrow Registry. (I signed up.)
A firetruck and ambulance were outside the IMU-and Ammon was so excited to see them.
Chair derby-alot of fun until someone got hurt!
Saturday at 5pm POWER HOUR starts. They music is the most active songs you can imagine. The students dance with arms raised with so much energy after being on their feet for 23 hours straight. They gave out glow sticks that just added to the mood.
At 6pm they have the closing ceremony, and the families sit up front and the students sit behind them. A family speaks, then they read the names of all the kids who are Forever "Dancing in our Hearts", and show a video of them. It is a very emotion time.
This candle burns during the entire marathon and the quilts have the names of those who have earned thier wings.
The very last thing they do is have students come on stage with cards, they turn them over and reveal the amount that was raised this year. $1,030,428.15
It's an amazingly powerful experience.
During DM this year a 18 year old boy was added to the list. Our 1st year a 10-12 year old girl was added during the marathon. Cancer doesn't stop, so neither do the students.
FTK-For The Kids is chanted during the Marathon.
Simeon's pillowcase-he has gotten a new one made by our AWESOME DM family Rep Annalisa Sawick each year. She's been our rep for all 3 years, and she's graduating this year.
This year we were given the chance to have our pictures taken through a group called Flashes of Hope. This is a group that has professional photographers come and take pictures of the kids and their families, at no charge to the families. We will be given a portfolio with some 8x10 and some 5x7 pictures in black and white and proofs of all the pictures taken. We had our pictures taken 3 times during the event-hopefully we'll get some good ones. Simeon wasn't the most thrilled to get his picture taken.
This year Simeon had the goal of staying up all night. At midnight we went to the theater to watch High school Musical 3. Ammon fell asleep during it, but Corrine & Simeon stayed away. When the movie got over @ 2am, I took Ammon & Corrine back to the hotel to sleep. Johann thought he and Simeon would be coming to the hotel soon after us. I woke up at 7:15 and they hadn't shown up. When I called Johann he said Simeon had fallen asleep at 6:30 am on a couch. He slept until 8:00 am. Johann didn't sleep at all. For getting such little sleep Simeon was in a good mood.
We left the IMU at 7:30pm Sat night and headed back to the hotel. We got stuck in basketball traffic and it took us 30 minutes to go about 2 miles. It took alot to keep Simeon awake. He really wanted chicken nuggets from McDonald's for dinner, so we went there as soon as we got to the van. We got home @ 9pm, and everyone crawled into bed and were asleep within minutes.
As you've read this if you think it sounds like a crazy and even overwhelming 24 hours-it kind of is. It's a celebration like no other. We celebrate the victories, celebrate the lives of those we've lost and celebrate the future. Dance Marathon is something we will always participate in and look forward to. Simeon asked if he could go to DM when he is married and had kids-that is how much this group means to him.
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