Thank you!

Hello,
We had a great weekend. We have to thank Michele and Lisa (Greg's sisters) and all our friends for putting together the Silent Auction Charity Event for Nicholas. We are truly blessed to have people in our lives like all of you. The event was a lot of fun and it was great to see the kids really having a blast. We know many people donated gifts for the auction and put their time into helping out to make the event happen. Greg put together a wonderful speech for that evening. I have attached it for everyone to read. I know there were some people who could not attend but also helped to contribute to this event. The auctions items were great and of course Nick had to bid on the kid's game set. He wanted this one item so he decided to put his name down and bid on it. He then thought he could take it that right away and open it. We explained that he had to wait until the next day and see if anyone else would bid on it. He was definitely upset with that answer and Aunt Amy and Debbie both decided to keep bidding on the item for Nick. We could not figure out why Nick's name was the paper so many times and the bidding was getting higher, but once we knew who was bidding we decided to stop at the price and give it to Nick. He woke up on Sunday morning and played with the games all day.

Nicholas’ Journey (from The Shannon Family)

I would like to start by thanking my sisters Michele and Lisa for putting this great event on. According to Lisa, Michele has worked hard for a long time in setting this up, so thank you to both of you. Also, Mauri Tetreault has gone out of her way in helping to gather these great auction items. We would like to thank Mauri and all those who donated.

You never truly do know what obstacles life will throw at you. There are few people who have had a golden life where no real tragedies happen to anyone that they care about. There are a lot more people that have had to endure more and fight harder to keep this life. Nick is fighting his fight. He is the only one who can truly understand how much this cancer has and will affect him. It has been almost a year since we started to support Nick in this fight, this coming Thursday to be exact. As the parents of a child with cancer we have lived the emotional roller coaster that comes with this disease. We have not only had to come to the reality that our child has to go through this. We have also been blessed with the reality that people are inherently good. That people care. That you all here tonight were compelled to come out and support our son. It is not often in life, or it seemed not that often before Nick was diagnosed, that you see the extreme goodness of human kind. Karen and I are lucky enough to go to the Tomorrow Fund clinic every week and see these children who have not asked for this, who have not done anything wrong, fight for their lives. They are the most alive people you could ever meet and we are better people to have met them and to learn their stories. Nick is one of those children and we are extremely lucky to see him every day and every night. We are also blessed that of all people to have as a brother Nick has Colby. When Nick and Colby were real little Colby always worried about Nick. His empathy in dealing with the changes Nick has gone through. His understanding of how much this has affected all of us is well beyond his years. We are forever grateful to have family like we have that drops everything and races to help. We have friends who are willing to give up a day and make us a meal and deliver it with big smiles and warm hearts. I hope you can understand how humble we have become and how thankful we are that God has made people like you. You give us hope, but more importantly you give Nick hope that he will continue to live, love and grow up to be the great man that we know he can be.

At the end of the speech, the boys yelled into the mike - Let's PaaaRRty!!!

We know that saying thank you in this blog is not enough and we will work on our personal thanks in the coming weeks. Please know we appreciate everything everyone has done for all us since the beginning of his diagnosis and through this weekend. We'll be posting pictures soon. Take care, Karen