Reece Ryde Memorial Golf Tournament

I have had many inquiries regarding the outcome of our first (possibly "annual") golf tournament at Pitts Golf Course @ Shields Town site. We had perfect weather, warm but not too hot. We took in (including raffle monies approx $2300, so after expenses, we raised very near $2000.
We would first like to thank Mr. Gary Prediger, Ms. Hazel Campbell, and all those involved with the beautiful Pitts Golf course, for donating the the course for the tournament. It is absolutely beautiful out there and you can tell the people of that community take much pride in maintaining their golf course! Not only that, but the hall they have built is a wonderful facility. This event would not have been a successful fundraiser had it not been for their generosity.
We wish to extend our deepest thanks to all those that attended, it touched our hearts to see so many familiar faces and know we have such amazing support. Thanks of course to our friends Rachel & Kelsey Ramey and Robyn & Marc Overacker, for coming from Athabasca to help out with that event. And thanks to Cassy and Kathy of course, for helping as you always do!!!! We are so lucky to have the family and friends that we do. Thanks again to Uncle Steve & Auntie Vanessa for the help & running the putting contest, looked like everyone enjoyed that!
Below are some pictures from our day on the course.

A Ray of Hope

We thought we'd share some good news with everyone. Aside from the fundraising going well, we have another development to look forward to. We are expecting another baby in early December. We desperately wanted to find out the sex at our ultrasound on Friday but unfortunately baby did not cooperate. Here are the pictures they provided. We did however get to watch the baby put it's thumb in it's mouth and suck. Very cute!! And although I had been worried that perhaps something may be wrong, as I've been sick and not gaining like I had with our other two girls, everything looked great on the ultrasound and baby measures slightly bigger than expected :)

Autopsy Results

We now know the results of Reece's autopsy and tests, and I thought the fastest and most effective way to share this information with those that are interested would be to write it here.
To start, at a Dr's appointment approx 3 weeks ago, my Dr told me she had received the findings of the brain samples that had been sent to BC for testing ( we do not have any neuropaths in Saskatchewan), the tests showed Reece did not have Meningitis.
This weekend Grant received a call from a local coroner, letting him know that although they were sorry to have to tell us this, they were unable to determine a cause of death for Reece. Grant asked "what about the stuff they were testing from her lungs" and the corner said they determined that was a result of the CPR.
After much discussion with our family Dr, we can guess it was likely some sort of pneumonia-related virus, which as such, would not show on an autopsy, and would hit an already weakened immune system, like Reecey's, quickly.

I was upset to not have a name to put on the 'thing' that took the greatest love of my life away from me. I guess I was hoping to have a disease or sickness to turn my energies on to eradicate from this earth in some way. Now I'm just left with reality. And after speaking with my Dr today, she reminded me, that that is all we have, the reality in front of us, and we have to deal with it and keep going.

As much as I want to, for many reasons, one being the new baby we are expecting in December, I can't help but replay that horrific morning, when Reecey reached her arms to me in the bathroom and said "mommy' and as I stood holding her waiting for the shower to steam the bathroom, she fell back, and I pulled her soother out of her mouth and saw her lips were blue.

And my baby was gone, as much as I desperately tried to bring her back, begging the universe to forgive me for whatever I did to deserve this, to please not take my angel from me. She was my joy. She was what made me happy.

And now I have to deal with the reality, that she is gone. I have no idea where to begin.

I suppose I've been 'avoiding' the grieving process, by waiting for the autopsy results, focusing on building a park in her memory, trying to keep up appearances that all is well, and that I can just keep functioning. Well the truth of the matter is, I'm human. And I can't keep up appearances. And I can keep avoiding reality.

Why put off until tomorrow, what you can do today.

With fundraising going so well in May, and hopefully to continue into the fall, it was decided why not move up the 'build date' for the park. This was largely thanks to a large donation from my Great-Grandmother Bertha Clarke's estate -we secured our plan to build next May long weekend. This was terribly exciting for me, as our initial goal was to have the park built sometime by August 2009! However, thanks to the generosity of our family, friends and the community we have now reached $27,000 and have decided that the build date for the park will now be the September long weekend 2008!!!! A year ahead of our initial goal! The amazing thing about this project is we have only received $400 total from official 'corporate' donations and $0 from government etc.

We are really hoping to raise a lot of money at our golf tournament, however, we haven't had many people register thus far. Thanks to Jenna @ C95, they along with their sister stations will spread the word. We are very excited about this tournament as it should be a great afternoon of fun, very laid back golf, friends and food! ALSO we have the generous support of Callaway golf! Every attendee to the golf tournament will get a little 'thank you' gift for just coming out. If you know anyone interested in coming out for 9 holes, texas scramble & supper (not to mention prizes on 6 holes for closest to the pin and other prizes!) PLEASE spread the word!! They can email Grant @ grantryde@sasktel.net to register.

Back to the park- I spent almost $6000 on park equipment today! This is just for 'the little extras' for the park, in addition to the main structure and swings from Blue Impe that we are ordering asap. Below is a picture of the main structure, designed with Reece in mind. We tried to have a component of music (she loved the sound of a piano) and lots of crawling/climbing stuff!
Hopefully it will be a hit!!

Thank You Thank You Thank You!!

Here's the latest on how fundraising is going-
We held a pasta night at Chianti restaurant. Although we didn't have a huge turn out for this event, we still raised $200 for the Park. The food was fantastic and Chianti's staff were fabulous!
The fundraiser we had this weekend was our BIG Garage sale. We had lots of people donate (Much thanks to the Collis Family, The Hellquist Family, the Lindberg family (including Cassy, Nicole & Aimee) and everyone else that dropped stuff off, and those that bought stuff! We still had a truck and van load of stuff left over, so we are going to hold another garage sale in 2 weeks in the City, to hopefully get rid of the rest of it. However in the end we raised over $595 (cash) and another $84 in change!!! Very successful as far as garage sales go I'd say!

A 3rd fundraiser that wrapped up this month was a Home & Gift order party held by Auntie Rachel in Athabasca, Alberta. For those that know Rach's Dad, Richard, please check out the picture closely... does that tree planter on the right look like anyone?!?!!? HAHA

We are now over $16,000. However, we have a significant amount of donations to be handed over to the Park Fund from the Town Office that came in over the Month of May.
So watch for the update this week!!! (I hope that 3 exclamation marks stress the excitement we feel)- let's just say, thanks to our generous family, May was VERY successful for the Park. SO much so, we know for a fact the park will be definitely be in place by next May if not earlier!!