Marcie's Journey with ALS and my journey with her and others.

Fall brought high school football games but for us half time performance of the band was the only reason we went to the game !

Half time is about to start! The band is on the field and ready to preform!

Instruments UP

All Together -- March

Preforming their competition performance for 2011.

They all look alike - no way I can pick out my grandson except at the very beginning of the performance - but then I have learned his walk and can sometimes pick him out in the band. Sometimes!! I did go to practice when they were not wearing their uniforms and tried to watch some of his positioning during practice and that helped.

From Friday night football to Monday night football !

To the middle school football games - I can find my youngest grandson here but only because I know his number !!

Ready for that football !

Waiting his turn to go into the game.

Back in January when I first learned Kenny Chesney was going to perform at Cowboy Stadium, which is only about 15 minutes down the road from us, I thought it would be so much fun if my whole family could go do something all together, something we never get to do. I called about tickets BUT when I talked to Marcie about going she said she would be afraid of the crowd noise since we would not to be able to hear if her vent was working properly and she, most likely, would not be able to take her computer so she would not be able to "talk to us" easily.
Then she typed, using her eyes on her eye gaze computer, "If I could only afford a suite?". I would have never thought of a suite - well we both knew that was out of the question.

BUT as I left her room I said to myself "why not try". She does she not ask for anything - especially to go somewhere - she did not ask for this but I knew she would so enjoy it and what fun to go to the Kenny Chesney concert right here in town. She has nearly all , if not all, of his CD's. Her brother gives them to her since she likes to listen to Kenny Chesney's music.
So I started to think about what company might donate the use of their suite to us for a day. I talked to our preacher to get some ideas from him as to who I should contact. I sent emails and letters - I bet I sent 20 or more asking who could help me surprise Marcie -I even sent Oprah an email and Kenny Chesney's management group in TN. Out of those 20 or more emails and letters I only heard back from Dale Hansen, Arlington's Mayer's office and Cowboy Stadium. All along I was in contact with Doug, our preacher, just keeping him in the loop.

And Marcie had No Idea I was doing this !

To make a long story short ----
Two weeks before the concert I had all but given up saying I would not give up till the day of the concert. On a Thursday night a week before the concert Doug called and said he was pretty sure Marcie's Big Surprise was going to happen. Which so surprised me. So many people at our church wanted to do something special for Marcie and up till now we really did not need anything but they wanted to make this happen for her. The next day Doug called and said he had a suite for Marcie the day of the concert, 18 tickets, 5 parking passes and food for us while we were in the suite -oh my goodness - so much more that I had ever dreamed of! And it was a gift from our friends.

The next day was Friday and he called and confirmed what he had told me the night before but this time he had the tickets and everything in his hands. So now that is was for sure confirmed that we were going it was time to tell Marcie of this wonderful gift she has been given. She was so surprised - never dreaming I had been working on this all these past months and now she would get to go to the concert and in a suite with just our family and friends. She would be safe from crowd noises and we would be right there by her side and she could take her computer so she could communicate.

What a Wonder Wonder gift our family had been given and I will for ever be grateful to the great friends at our church who love Marcie and our family so much !

So that was the short story of how Marcie's Big Surprise did happen !

And now here are the pictures from that day.

We were given 18 suite tickets for this concert - our immediate family along with an uncle and aunt from Waco. She gave the rest of the tickets to her friends. She ask if she could pick who used the extra tickets and I told her this was her Big Surprise she for sure could pick who went with us.

Parking lot sign - right at the door - unreal how close our parking spot was - it had a number on it which was the same as our parking lot pass so no one could park in "our spot" for that day.
The picture of our van was taken just before we lift after the concert but it shows you just how close we parked to the door of the stadium.
I almost laughed out laud when we pulled in to the parking lot and the security people had to check our van to find several back packs with medical needs that I might need and a rolling cart with batteries and extension cords (Now who takes batteries and extension cords to a concert? Anyone traveling inside a building to watch a concert for several hours who has a family member on a ventilator and who uses a computer to commentate that needs electricity and or batteries). After seeing all this stuff, the parking attendant ask my husband if we had a good trip (the attendant had no idea we only lived 15 minutes down the road from the stadium) and my husband said "we sure did".

We were shown the elevator and once on the 6th. floor someone was waiting for us to take us to "our suite" which was on about the 50 yard line so right in the middle of the side of the stadium. After we looked around the amazing suite we saw this on the big screen. We had made it!

We arrived at Cowboy Stadium just as it opened at 3:00 and by 3:15 we were in "our suite" for the day. People were already claiming their spot by the stage where they would stand till 11:00 that night when the 4 concerts were over. Since I had never been to a concert like this before I had never seen this and it was explained to me what they were doing by my daughter-in-law.

This is the kitchen in the suit with Cowboy colored M & M's for a snack.

And for eats !!! Look at the huge boiled shrimp !

Baked Beans, Ribs and Chicken fajitas -so good !

Popcorn and 2 desserts!

You can see where Marcie sat during the concert - you can see her shoes at the bottom of this picture. My daughter-in-law and son-in-law taking in the view from "our suite" for the day.

Such a neat picture of Marcie, her computer (this computer reads her eyes and that is how she communicates with us) and Cowboy Stadium filling up with people for the 4 different bands that will preform this day.

Marcie's friend Lashawn and Lashawn's sister as they arrived at the concert. They have been friends since being cheerleaders together in high school. Look at the sun coming in the west end of the Cowboy Stadium.

My Grandson's watching the crowd at it got bigger and bigger as the afternoon went on.

And at 8:30
Kenny Chesney came from out of no where above the crowd on some sort of swing singing as he hovered above the crowd and was put him down on the stage.
Look very closely to the right of the second white light in the picture below and you will see him above the crowd.

Wyatt Beard plays the key board and is from Arlington. He graduated from Sam Houston High School - the same high school my children went to school. Marcie know his name but did not know him. He is a year younger than she is. He has been with KC band since gradating from high school in maybe 1990.

The band is very active during the concert.

Zac Brown and his band played just before Kenny Chesney did.

The end of the concert these 2 bands played together

We were in no hurry to leave - we did not want to get in all the crowd of the cars so we stayed and watched the clean up crew clean up the stadium which was very interesting to watch. Every person had their job to do and they did it very quickly.

Grandsons had some stories to tell their friends at school the next week !

SO MARCIE'S BIG SURPRISE DID HAPPEN after all !

We had a GREAT time - Marcie's Big Surprise would never have happened without the wonderful gift from our church family - North Davis Church of Christ - and all our great friends there who love Marcie so much!
Marcie had one more surprise - Two weeks after the concert when I went to church to one of the classes who help send her to the concert to show them 50 of our 360 pictures - they gave to me for Marcie an 8 X 10 autographed picture of Kenny Chesney he had signed just for Marcie!

What a GREAT memory my family has now and all because our church sent us to this concert and helped me to surprise my very special daughter who is living with this monster of a disease called ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) for 17 1/2 years now ! She is so brave and trusts God so much that she just knows HE is using her to show her faith in HIM to others and HE will heal her in time.

This is all a part of HIS big plan for our life - we may not really like this plan for us but we have accepted it. We always pray to God for a miracle that Marcie will be healed!