The day started just like any other

This morning Caitlyn woke up at her usual 6am time (and prior to that at 5am, 3am, 1am) - we think it was a combination of her room being fairly warm (it gets sun pretty much all day every day) and possibly going through a growth spurt (oh what fun...).

Today started pretty much like any other - waking up, making breakfast for the kids, getting them ready to drop Bianca off at school, pack her lunch box, having a shower, fixing my hair (well, not really I'm one of those "wash and go" kind of people)...

Then at around 2:40 this afternoon I got Bianca from school and we caught a bus to the city for the annual Funrazor event. Bianca has a special t-shirt that she received earlier this year from CCF during their appeal when she appeared on the Good Morning show and this was a t-shirt that was specially designed by All Black Kevin Mealamu for the Child Cancer Foundation. She also wore her beads.

We saw Steve from Make-a-Wish there who was there to watch and support and Bianca's teacher Miss Hilton also came to watch.

It was great seeing Steve Price there (he is the Child Cancer Foundation Ambassador) and we met him on the Good Morning show earlier this year. He is so down to earth and so we went over to say hello even though Bianca suddenly became very very shy, hiding behind me. Steve also got his hair shaved today and it is his third year in a row!

While we were waiting Justin Brown (the MC of the event) one of the hosts of Classic Hits did a short interview with me and Bianca that will be going on the breakfast show tomorrow morning (5 December between 7am and 8am NZ time). Bianca was a little shy again, but for her effort she received a cool Hi-5 DVD. Thank you very much!

And while we were all waiting for the event to start Luke Thompson entertained the crowd with some beautiful songs.

At the last second Terence decided that he would get his hair shaved too and so Bianca got to shave both our heads (although she didn't do much on Terence's hair, and mostly shaved mine). The NZ Herald photographer was there and he took an instant liking to Bianca and took so many photographs which might go into the paper (we'll have to wait and see) and at one point he asked if Bianca could please stand on a chair so she could be a little taller.

There were some spot prizes too and Terence was lucky to win a spot prize - unfortunately for him, Bianca went to choose the prize:

(And no the hand wasn't part of the prize that's just my hand showing what the white pieces of fabric with scorpions on them are supposed to be. I guess we'll be putting this prize away for Bianca until she is much much older, seeing as Terence probably won't have much use for this).

And just in case you wonder if we actually got our hair shaved, we have some sun block, a hat and a certificate to prove it:

And of course the fact that we both now sport a size zero hair cut should be proof enough:

And tomorrow I won't have to fix my hair...

So why did we do it?

Well, from day 1 the Child Cancer Foundation was with us and they are still completely with us. Without their support this journey would have been incredibly incredibly hard and they are totally committed to the child with cancer as well as their family. They require $7 million each year to be able to do the work that they need to do and every single week around 10 kids in New Zealand get diagnosed with some form of cancer, it is a long long journey (for us a 2.5 year journey of active treatment and then still tests after that) and it is emotionally and financially draining on many many families who suddenly get thrown into the horrible scary world of child cancer. No warnings and no time to prepare. Unfortunately this organsation gets no funding from the government or other cancer organisations and yet without them many of us would be totally lost!

Here are some photos at different stages of Bianca's treatment:

And today we had the opportunity to participate and give a little something back (thank you to all those very generous supporters who donated and sponsored, thanks to you all I managed to raise $2,265). A big thank you also to Jennie and Jo (my two latest sponsors). Jo actually stopped me after school to give me her donation so thank you so very much!!!

Today we had an absolute ball:

And we hope that you are having a great time too!