Golf Tournament

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day for the golf tournament fundraiser for the Foundation and Deryk Degase sponsored by my high school class (MHS 1994). There were 24 teams in all golfing for the day.


A big Thank You for Melanie Stiens Wassenberg for organizing the event.

And a big Thank You to all the hole sponsors who paid had signs at each hole.

After everyone was fed and all the prizes handed out, I announced that we wanted the Foundation's share of the funds to go to Deryk so that they can buy him an ipod to talk for him by pressing a button.

Just One Reason Why

"Dear Abrielle Neff Foundation,

I received one of your stuffed animals when I hurt my eye and had to go to he ER. They gave me Goochy, the Jellyfish! He helped me be a brave boy at the hospital. I love Goochy so much! Thank you very much for Goochy, the Jellyfish!

Love,
Owen Wonderly
4 yrs old

P.S. My Mom and I are making a donation so more little boys and girls can get an animal at the ER and be brave like me!"

Making Progress

Thanks everyone for understanding my absence. I have to say that my break from added stress in my life has been a blessing. We have made the decision for me to stay home and spend time with our girls for awhile, which I am enjoying immensely. I look back at some of the decisions I have made since losing Abby and some were not what was best for my mental health in the long run. After the accident, I went back to work 7 days after we laid our little girl to rest because I didn't want to be home. The house was too empty. There were many things I left undone and still had not taken care of them in the three years since. During the last few weeks of being home, I have tackled many difficult ones, the hardest being the pictures. I finally took all the pictures off the memorial boards from the funeral, crying my eyes out as Mady helped me put them back in the albums. I am going to do my best to keep the blog up again, although it might not be daily.

Prison Speech ~ Round 4

I attended the ICVC class at Maryville Treatment Center last week to give my speech to the new batch of students. I would think it would become easier each time I give the same speech, but it still invokes emotions. I still catch a few tears and this time I did not watch the placement of the laptop that plays the pictures for my speech and flipped out a little when pictures came up that I don't like to see. Warren was there to help and I was so grateful for that. This class spent a good 20 minutes asking questions and making comments. It was probably the most involved class I have had so far. It appeared that each one of them were touched as all of them spoke. There were new questions this time too. I was asked about vengeance instead of forgiveness, trying to move on, and our new family dynamics. One man even admitted that he was receiving treatment for DWI's and stated he would never do it again after hearing me speak. I told him that I hoped he stayed strong and did not, but that if he should choose to drink that he would see Abby's face before he decided to get behind the wheel.

Golf Tournament

Changes

I have recently made some changes in my life to help myself and my family, but unfortunately the blog has been neglected. I am still trying to find the balance I need and will be back to blogging on a regular basis again soon. Right now I am spending some extra time with my family and enjoying every minute of it. The last few years the constant changes, stress, and business of life have kept me from doing some of the things in my family life that needed to be done. Some days I think I was merely surviving and not really living, not cherishing every moment fully like I wanted to. With these recent changes, our lives should benefit and hopefully our new normal will emerge.

Balloon Artist

The balloon artist we added this year was a hit! He tied over 400 balloon hats, flowers, swords, etc.