Common, you know you want to help!

To My Dear Family and Friends,

You may remember me mentioning a few months back about my very talented photograspher friend, Carrie Butler, and her little brother Brett Fafard. Brett was diagnosed with STAGE 3 testicular cancer in June of last year. He has since undergone surgery and six rounds of chemotherapy. Unfortunately this fall, his doctor found residual cancer and has decided that the next step is salvage chemotherapy, which will come in the form of back to back stem cell transplants. His doctor has said that while he has a negligible chance of beating the cancer without these transplants, his chances increase to 70% if he has the transplants.

While Brett was very blessed to learn that he was approved for a primary insurance with medicaid as a backup, his primary insurance company has denied the first request for the procedure. Medicaid has agreed to move forward with the first transplant but is declining to provide the second. While one transplant is better then none, the Doctor feels that in order for Brett to be cancer free and return to leading a healthy life that he must have both transplants.

Carrie and her husband, Mike have been doing everything they can to help Brett with all of his medical expenses. But the fact of the matter is, they have a family of their own to take care of and they simply cannot come up with this money all by themselves and in the short amount of time they have left until Brett needs his second transplant. Brett has just begun his first transplant this week, and with your help, he will be finishing his last treatment at the end of March. There are a couple of ways that you can help...

1. There is a paypal account set up at http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FSave-Brett%2F258561409913%3Fref%3Dsearch%26sid%3D607896555.2896082454..1&h=1d9433b19c8cff1caf8b1ad50f9dcb74 where donations can be made. If they could get 120,000 people to donate just one dollar, then they will have made their goal!!

2. Come eat at the Taylorsville Souper Salad on February 19th. Carrie, and her family and friends, will be there clearing tables and filling drinks, a portion of the proceeds and tips earned that night will go to help Save Brett!!!

3. Carrie is organizing a "Fafard 5k" to help raise money for Brett. It will take place on February 27th at the Riverwoods in Provo. It is $20.00 a person. Register at www.fafard5k.com. There is going to be live music, cookies and fun! They need to get a head count so if you would like to come but can't yet register, please shoot Carrie a message or email at carrie_butler@msn.com. I know a lot of you out there are runners or else know of people who are so please join us in this race! It is for such a good cause.

* Chad and Jack will be running the 5k and would love it if there are other Father/Son or Daughter pairs out there to run with them. I am not a runner in the least, but am planning on walking it... It's only 3 miles or so... I should be able to handle it, right? Will any of you walk with me?

4. Pass this message on to all of your family and friends! I'm sure there are many out there who would love to get involved.

Thank you so much for your support! Any efforts to help will be greatly appreciated.

Fafard 5k

You all may remember me mentioning a few months back about my very talented friend, Carrie Butler and her little brother Brett Fafard. Brett was diagnosed with STAGE 3 testicular cancer in June of last year. He has since undergone surgery and six rounds of chemotherapy. Unfortunately this fall, his doctor found residual cancer and has decided that the next step is salvage chemotherapy, which will come in the form of back to back bone marrow transplants. His doctor has said that while he has a negligible chance of beating the cancer without these transplants, his chances increase to 70% if he has the transplants.

While Brett was very blessed to learn that he was approved for a primary insurance with medicaid as a backup, his primary insurance company has denied the first request for the procedure. Medicaid has agreed to move forward with the first transplant but is declining to provide the second. While one transplant is better then none, the Doctor feels that in order for Brett to be cancer free and return to leading a healthy life that he must have both transplants.
Carrie and her husband, Mike have been doing everything they can to help Brett with all of his medical expenses. But the fact of the matter is, they have a family of their own to take care of and they simply cannot come up with this money all by themselves and in the short amount of time they have left until Brett needs his second transplant.

If they could get 120,000 people to donate a dollar, then they will have made their goal!!

Carrie is organizing a "Fafard 5k" to help raise money for Brett. It will take place on February 27th at the Riverwoods in Provo. It is $20.00 a person.

I know a lot of you out there are runners or else know of people who are so please join us in this race! It is for such a good cause.
Brett will begin his first transplant at the beginning of February, and with your help, he will be finishing his last treatment at the end of March. If you have any questions about the race or how you can donate please visit (I don't know how to add a link...):

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Brett/258561409913?ref=search&sid=607896555.2896082454..1#/event.php?eid=278286439438

Friends

As I was just laying on the couch resting, I was thinking how lucky our family is to have such wonderful friends. We are surrounded by awesome people and I hope that they all know how much we love and appreciate them.

In just the past week I have received numerous phone calls, emails, kind and encouraging words, advice, and I know that sincere prayers are being said on our behalf. I am fully able to fix dinner for my family right now, but would you believe that I have only done that twice this week? Thank you Camie, Kim, Julie, Misty, and Amie for caring enough to feed us! It has been such a nice thing to be able to rest and not have to think about what we will be eating for dinner. I am full of gratitude and love for all of you. Thank you for being my friends.

Help us help a friend

We have some good friends, Mike and Carrie Butler who are going through a rough time right now. Her brother was just diagnosed with Stage III testicular cancer and is having a difficult time paying his medical bills. In order to help, Carrie has come up with the BRILLIANT idea of hosting picture play dates. She will be photographing children at parks or other beautiful places and will charge just $12 a child. The kids can picnic and play and Carrie will take them aside, one at a time, and snap pictures of them. Her pictures turn out DARLING. If any of you recall, she is the one who took our family pictures this past fall (yes, when we were violently attacked by wasps...not her fault :). After she takes the pictures she will post them to her photo site. You will have access and printing rights and each child will have between 5 and ten pictures. This is a great opportunity to help someone in need AND score some darling photography. If you want to check out a sampling of her work click here:http://www.carriebutlerphotography.myshowit.com/playdatesample
You can also view her blog for more details, just click on "Carrie Butler" on the side bar.

Jumpin Jacks

After a very busy hair week I decided that my boys and I needed to go do something fun. I had heard about this new bounce house place called Jumpin Jacks in West Jordan. I've been wanting to try it out and when my friend Carrie told me about this killer deal they have right now, I just couldn't resist giving it a try. With their coupon you can get a pass that allows 1 adult and 2 kids in for an entire month (Mon-Fri from 11am to 4pm)! It is well worth it. It was clean and my kids had a lot of fun. We went with our friends, the Sullivans. I think that everyone else should get the pass too and we can hang out at Jumpin Jacks together for the next month! Here are a few pictures from our day:








Click here if you would like to print a coupon.

Aubrey

This is a picture of my friend Aubrey and her family at the beach in California. Isn't it a great picture? Aubrey made the decision to go through the temple this past weekend and so I wanted to make a special "congratulations" post for her. I am a horrible, awful friend who let the date catch up much too fast and forgot to make the arrangements to be there. I am sorry for that Aubrey. I hope your day was wonderful! Congrats.