Kona Inspired 4/1/2013

Well, I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend.  Happy Easter for those of you that celebrated.   We had an amazing time with Shawn coloring eggs on Saturday and hunting them on Sunday after church.

It is hard to believe that Shawn is growing up so fast.  We are honestly blessed to have him in our life considering how tough his 1 year was being in and out of hospitals.  Sadly several families with children born with birth anomalies were not as fortunate because they children were tethered to hospitals beds.  It is a something I am sure you get tired of hearing about, but it is something that remember everyday!

On a lighter note, I have made some really good progress today on a few things.  We have been trying to get the H.O.P.E. Flag made so we could start putting the names that you see listed under the H.O.P.E. Flag tab on it, but we have been striking out. Claudia Bravo of Bravo Screen Print & Embroidery has been calling around on our behalf.  She is so amazing, but sadly she has been striking out trying to find someone to make the flag.  All things happen for a reason though, so I started to think about what I we could do.  This flag is going to be very unique and never reprinted.  It should be one of a kind since this journey will only happend once.  Then it hit me.  What if the flag was painted?

Rhonda & Reginald Adams
(www.mocah.org)

I have followed a local artist here in Houston for quite sometime now. Reginald Adams has contributed a lot to the community and specifically to our mutual partner, Texas Children's Hospital. Reginald and his wife, Rhonda,  co-founded the Museum of Cultural Arts Houston (MOCAH) that mix art and community together.  You can find out more about them by going to http://mocah.org/about/founders-bio/.  If you are in the Houston area, I know you have seen their art.  It is simply amazing.

I took a shot in the dark and gave him a call to see if he would consider helping me create this flag. He loves the idea and we are now working out the details on how we are going to get it done. If you get the chance to go their Facebook Page, make sure you send them a message thanking them for being a part of this journey.  This is going to be incredible!

Okay, finally here are the results of the voting over the weekend:

1	Kona hopeful F16 pilot (Help Our Heroes)	6602
2	Boudousa Brain	5355
3	Fireman Brian's Mission	4421
4	Shawn's Ironman	2833
5	Suck It Cancer	2285
6	Green Dot (Henry Tolstedt)	2242
7	The Quadfather (Nick Tieney)	1147
8	Eric Yollick (Team Yollick)	910
9	Isabella' Legacy	578
10	Happy Birthday Ironman	456
11	From the Bathroom to Kona	414
12	Operation Brain Tumor (Ted Pepenhagen II)	378
13	Dad's Great Day	342
14	Spirit of Hawaii (Anja Kraft)	332
15	Kona for the Kids	314
16	The Opportunity	298
17	I am ... "Anything is possible" (Milan Dubravka)	279
18	Iron driven lifestyle	269
19	Crash To Kona (TychoRiis Weiche)	254
20	A race for the women in my life	251
21	Dr. Martin Jay Hernandez Motivational Specialist	234
22	my biggest dream (Christian Schon)	212
23	Dean Kashlan Mantra (Dean Kashlan)	192
24	IRONMAN-BAWDO	105
25	Life Long Journey	48
26	Choose to be well!	10
27	Kona Inspired, Ironman retun…Heart Condition	10

We lost ground in total views to one of the two videos that I predicted was going to overtake us, but we are still holding our ground thanks to your dedication to vote and share daily.  I want to give a special thanks out to my big sister, Tracy Erwin, for all of her efforts to rally up the troops for the online voting Facebook event.  I have watched as she has personally thanked every person that accepted the invitation.  It is truly amazing.  I would like to end this post with her recent but powerful words:

Tracy and Brett Shannon~ Christmas 1968 

Approximately 134 million babies were born in the world the same year that our Shawn was born in 2009. 4 million of those children were born in the US alone. If u consider the statistics we know about congenital anomalies, that means over 4 million were born with some sort of anomaly & Shawn was 1 of the 121,212 in the US & has had several surgeries thus far. Of the other newborns, nearly 8,200 did not make it. 

My "oldest baby brother", Brett Shannon Cates, was another born with a birth anomaly in his birth year, he was one of the unfortunate that did not make it past 6 yrs. Long enough for me to fall deeply in love with him & become best friends forever :'( ONE VOTE, ONE SHARE, ONCE PER DAY. PLEASE HELP ♥

Thank you sissy! I love you!