Why We Ride

Team IRON EAGLES is a group of friends and family dedicated to fighting Multiple Sclerosis (MS). We join forces to raise money for the NATIONAL MS SOCIETY to support the great PROGRAMS they have available to help members of the community and to support the exciting RESEARCH being done in the field. We blog about why we ride, our experiences at fundraising events, our fundraisers and training tips. We also have links to information on MS and MS research. JOIN US!

Monday, July 13, 2015

MS150 2015!

Hello World! :-) I really should have written this post right after we got back from the MS150 -- while the memories were still fresh! I will do my best to recap. Pictures help :-)

So this year Bethany decided instead of riding she would decorate and man our team tent. She came up with the idea of decorating it with origami cranes. Apparently if you make 1000 origami cranes you can have a wish or you get good luck. 1000 cranes is A LOT of cranes! LOL We were camping the week before the MS150 so I missed the text about making cranes. I got the word the day before the ride. We purchased 1000 origami papers and some twine to hang the cranes and we learned how to make origami cranes! We spent hours making cranes. I was impressed that the kids really got into it. We even had friends and extended family make cranes and send them with us. It was a lot of fun. In the end I think we made around 100 or so cranes. Maybe 150. I calculated if it took five minutes to make a crane it would take a little over 83 hours for one person to make 1000 cranes! Yep. That's a lot of cranes.


 Here we are making cranes at dinner the night before.


Carbo-loading crane :-)



Getting ready for the ride the night before (so glad we did it the night before! that made the morning so much smoother) 



Breakfast.  





Rest Stop one. 


The infamous playground. Remember last year when Marianne got hurt on this thing? The kids are still young enough to play :-)  Notice the crane is playing too :-)



Second rest stop. 



My favorite picture :-) 



The crane taking a break at the rest stop. 


The crane on the road. 


Checking the map. Check out that nail polish! :-) 


Ice cream at Gossners on the way back. This is Emily Lara and Sarah. This year our rookie was Emily Lara. She is Marianne's daughter. She did a great job! I think the kids had a good time. 


And then Aggie Ice Cream after dinner :-) After all, we were celebrating two birthdays that day! 



Bill and Jacob did the 100 mile route again and this year they were joined by our good friend Liz. She was worried that she wasn't ready. Turns out she was hard to keep up with! :-) Way to go Liz! 


The tent. 





We had a sign that said people could donate and write a wish on a crane. We had a couple people write wishes and one family donated $10. It wasn't the most successful fundraiser we've had :-) It was fun though.  And the kids discovered a love for origami.   Guess what we are going to decorate our Christmas tree with this year! Origami :-)  We have origami stars, origami stockings, origami hats.... Maybe instead of a bake sale or lemonade stand for our next fundraiser we'll have an origami stand! :-)

All in all a very successful ride!  THANK YOU to everyone who supported us on this ride.  THANK YOU to those who donated money and those who donated cranes.  THANK YOU to those who sent us well wishes and prayers in your heart.  THANKS again to Lisa and family for putting us up and putting up with us :-)  And THANK YOU for reading this :-)