Save The Face Race (with my dental office)

Dr. Brayer's dental staff walk a 5K for oral cancer

So I blogged this for my dental office here. I'll edit it a bit now to personalize it for my personal blog too. :) It's like writing one paper for two college classes. Genius! Except I don't have deadlines, so it's almost a month late. Oh well, it's still Oral Cancer Awareness Month! Didn't Dylan do a good job taking that photo above? I love it. 

Here is most of our Creating Smiles Dentistry team. Two more participants are not pictured though. They got way lost then did their own 5K. :) 

Dr. Brayer sponsored the whole office as well as our families so we could support the Save The Face Race 5K for oral cancer awareness. We picked up our race packets a couple of days before in anticipation. The shirts are cute, but most of us wore our office t-shirts. I took this photo for our Facebook page. Gotta create buzz you know! Oh, go like us please. And set your alarm or reminder thingy on your phone to log on on Tuesdays to win a gift card. You don't have to be a patient to play, we just want buzz and happiness!

This race was special for us because we diagnosed oral cancer in one of our patients. He is now an oral cancer survivor! He and his wife came to support the cause too of course. Dr. Brayer walked ahead of us with them and they had a wonderful conversation on their long walk on the beach. Bay News 9 said they would come interview him, but they didn't show up. Oh well. We'll share their story! We walked north on Pass-A-Grille towards the Don Cesar then turned to come back to complete the 5K. I actually wanted to cut back early, but Dylan ran up and stayed with Dr. Brayer. I literally cannot run right now, especially with Tyler walking next to me in my big fat shadow (literally, I was like a big beach umbrella for him with the morning sun), anyway, I had Isaac run up to tell him to take a photo of Dr. Brayer and her two friends then to run back so we could turn back. Well, poor Isaac told Dylan to take the picture, but neglected to tell him to turn around. I had Isaac go BACK to tell Dylan to come to me. Poor hot sweaty tired Isaac was crying on his way back to me the 2nd time. I had planned on using the double stroller and a scooter b/c I knew Isaac would not want to last that long. But when I found out it was on the sand, there's no way I wanted to push a DOUBLE non-jogger on the beach. I certainly wish Dylan had stayed in ear-shot of me. He did stay in eye-sight, but he wasn't looking back at me much. He stayed with Dr. Brayer. It's my fault for not telling him to stay closer. I had actually told him that we would be turning around early, but he didn't stay close enough to find out when. It was a long hour and we really were the last family to cross the finish line. Ok, back to the blog post:

 There were many participants. Some of us had planned on using strollers, but then we found out it was on the actual beach. Some still braved the strollers since our kids are so young.

I had mentioned that we should plaster our logo on t-shirts for community events like this. And Dr. Brayer did it! She ordered me an extra large and even ordered kid ones. Awesome.

 It was a beautiful warm morning that turned fairly hot since we were slow walkers. The scenery and cause made it worth it.

 We have such a good dental team

 and we love our patients too. (Here's the photo Dylan took before he turned around.)

 I do believe we were some of the last to cross the finish line, but we were in no rush.

 We got back to the setup for ice water and donuts. Don't worry, we brushed their teeth afterwards! (No we didn't, not 'til before bedtime! But had to do some sort of disclaimer for my boss's blog!)

 Our pregnant hygienist walked the 3+ miles with her 3 boys. (This IS true, we made it almost to the halfway point before turning around.) It is exactly one month before her due date. We're having a guessing game at the office to guess her actual delivery date and time. This is her 4th pregnancy here with us - we have seen her family grow through the years! The closest guess wins some Periosciences antioxidant infused dental gel. Come in and play!

Jessica won one of the raffle items, the Melting Pot basket! 

(I had paid for some tickets but we got back too late from our long walk, so I bet they had to pull other tickets since we weren't there to claim the prizes. Oh well, the $ went to Oral Cancer Foundation.) 

The race was put together really well, we loved that it was on the beach. A lot of money was raised for the Oral Cancer Foundation and we are glad we could support Oral Cancer Awareness Month this first Saturday of April. We actually stayed after the race and went and had Tiffany's baby shower right there on the beach at Paradise Grill. We'll blog about that soon. 

It was so hot out and the walk to the shower from the car was brutal, but not as brutal as the walk back to the car then to the shower to put $ in the meter. If only I had remembered our parking spot number, I could have paid anywhere. I even tried to pull the parking lot up on Google Maps since I knew the exact spot location. But I couldn't read the numbers painted on the asphalt. Oh well. I'll tell that story later. And will probably do the double blogging again. :)