Registration is Now Open!

It's Here, It's Here!!!  The registration for JDRF's 2012 Ride to Cure is now open!  Now, the hard part... which ride to choose?!

Registration opened on January 30th, and to celebrate, the Dayton Cycling Team had a meet and greet that night and encouraged new riders to attend and for current members to bring some one new! Assuming that I'll get assigned one of their coaches anyways, I made it a point to attend.  I'm glad I did, to say that this is a great group of people is a complete understatement!  Everyone was so welcoming and had great stories to share!

I think the highlight of my evening was meeting the three "kids"!  A 17 year old boy (diagnosed around 16 months), an 18 year old boy (diagnosed at age 5), and a "girl" whom I believe is around 22 (diagnosed around 2 1/2)!  All three of them were diagnosed early on and have gone through all kinds of life changes with this disease and all three are very well-rounded, pleasant kids!  The one guy has done 3 (or 4) of these rides already and he's only a Junior in high school!  Both guys were talking about being councilors at the diabetes camp they have every year in Bellefontaine (which I am making it a priority to see that Ellee gets to go to that this year)!

There are days when I just want to sit down and cry because of T1.  There are nights when I don't want to get out of my warm bed to go check blood sugars or don't want to set a second alarm because she is high and I need to check again in a few hours to make sure she comes down.  But this is the reality of it.  Over and over, I am thankful that she was diagnosed with something that allowed us to bring her home, but at the same time, no kid should have to live with all the needles and finger sticks.  On Monday night, seeing these kids, who have gone through so much, have such positive attitudes is very encouraging!  These kids are the reason this is so important!  They are wonder role models for Ellee!  Which now-a-days it seems like positive role models are few and far between.  But I'm very thankful for an organization such as JDRF!

Knowing that I'm going to ride 100 miles doesn't sound all that intimidating right now... what does is deciding which of the 5 destination I'm going to choose!