Team Evans

Team Evans t-shirts are here! For those of you who ordered shirts, please come by Alameda to pick them up on Sunday, or to the church office on Monday or Thursday from 9 am to 2:45 pm. If you do not live around here, or do not go to church here and want to make other arrangements for pick-up, please email me or leave your comment here and I will get back to you.

Thanks for all of your support- I hope you enjoy your shirts!

For those of you who are also participating in the RFC, please meet NO LATER THAN 7:30 am in the Bricktown Ballpark on Saturday, October 20th for the race. We will be INSIDE the ballpark on the first base side.

Scrapbook for the Cure

On Friday, October 26th, there will be a scrapbooking night at Alameda (801 E. Alameda, Norman) from 6pm-Midnight. The cost is $5 and all money collected will go to Komen. So, come on out and bring your scrapbooks and supplies and work on those albums you've been putting off for so long! If you plan to be there, please let us know in the comment section here so we can be sure to set up enough tables. You don't have to be an Alameda member, and feel free to invite all your friends!

RFC T-Shirts

I need to have all "Team Evans" t-shirt orders by Sept. 19th in order to have them in time for the race. I just spoke with the t-shirt company, and we WILL have children's shirts. You can leave your order here on the "Comments" section, or call the Alameda church office at 405-321-0788. Also, please begin turning in your t-shirt money to me(checks can be made payable to Alameda Church of Christ), or if you don't live around here, you can mail your payment to Pam Robeson c/o Alameda Church of Christ, 801 E. Alameda, Norman, OK, 73071.

Thank you so much for all of your support in this effort!

Remembering Melinda

I just wanted to let you know that Jason Evans, Mark's brother, has started a blog for you to share memories of Melinda. You can see it at rememberingmelinda.blogspot.com. It really is a beautiful site, and Jason has done a great job with it. Do keep checking back here, too, for more info on the race and other things you can do. I am still taking orders for the t-shirts, so reply in the comments section in the post below.

Also, thanks to those of you who gave blood at Alameda's blood drive yesterday in honor of Melinda.

OKC Race for the Cure

Please join us at the OKC Race for the Cure on October 20th. We will have another team this year and we would love for you to join us. Just go to www.komencentralok.org, then click on the "Registration has begun..." link. Next, click on "Join a team" on the right side of your screen. Type in "Team Evans" and complete your registration from there.

You can do the 1 mile or 5K, walk or run either. Last year we had over 60 people on 'Team Melinda," we hope you'll join us to make an even bigger team and bigger impact for the research and treatment of breast cancer.

Additionally, we will be selling team t-shirts that honor Melinda. I don't have a final cost yet, but we think it will be about $15/shirt. If you would like to purchase any t-shirts, please let me know here how many and what sizes. They will not be available until mid-October, but we need to take orders to know how many to get. Any money made from the sale of shirts will go to help two of Melinda's friends, Kathryn Rutledge and Carrie Ferguson, do the 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk in San Diego in November. 100% of that money will go directly to breast cancer research through the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. For those of you who would like to make a direct donation to either of these ladies, you can go to www.the3day.org. Melinda had hoped to do the 3-Day next year, I know several of us plan to go in her place in 2008.

Last year was a great experience, we hope you and your entire family will join us- moms, dads and kids!

Autopsy Results

Mark received the results of Melinda's liver autopsy tonight. She had cancer in over half of her liver causing liver failure. The cancer was very aggressive, she had a pet-scan (not sure if that is correct spelling)in April and everything looked great. And when she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer she had had a mammogram only a year and a half before which also looked great. Some of you may know that Melinda was told a recurrence of cancer would likely be in her lungs, brain or bone. The Dr. said that this just shows they don't know everything about this terrible disease and sometimes it just does not follow the likely path.

I want to thank you on behalf of Mark for all your prayers, love and concern during this time. I know he feels very blessed to have such a wonderful church family and friends. He was very comforted by all the hugs at the funeral.

I would also like to thank all of those who have been there for me during the loss of my best friend. It is so hard to be without her but I am comforted to know that she is not suffering anymore is so happy to be home. We love you, Melinda!

What You Can Do

We will continue to use this site so we can let you know if there is anything you all can do to help. So many have been asking and wanting to help. Here is one thing you can do: Share your memories with us. We would like to put together a little something for the kids so they will always know who their mom was. Any story, significant or not, that just shows who Melinda was. How she made us laugh. How she couldn't fix her short hair. How she helped people. How she talked about her kids. How she wouldn't eat roast, but was too nice to say anything... Truly, we just want your stories. You can post them here and we'll put them together.