Everyone around here is doing well. We are staying pretty busy, especially through the holidays. Christmas was OK; it was a lot different without Chance here. I am just so thankful that we have Destiny that makes a lot of times easier. The hard part is for her not having someone to play with. We did have some sad news over Christmas, Desirae’s great-grand father passed away and they buried him on December 24th, but now he is no longer suffering and he is up in Heaven playing with Chance, Sherrie, Pete, and the others that have gone on before him. On Christmas we opened presents here at home and then went over and Destiny took Brub Brub two presents, then we headed down to Desirae’s parents for the day. All in all it was a good day, we just miss him a lot.
Basketball is keeping me pretty busy. The Chance Harman Classic was a huge success, we are hoping for bigger and better next year. Hopefully the weather will be a little better next year. Still trying to get a final number on what was made, but it will be between $10,000 and $11,000 dollars which is awesome. As of right now the plan is to give a scholarship in Chance’s name to a student at Floyd County High School in the amount of $3,000 dollars. Any student that has played a sport at Floyd County High School and has participated in Fellowship of Christian Athletes will be eligible for the scholarship. All they have to do is pick up the application at the guidance office and fill it out then a Board will decide on the recipitant. If something happens and we have two qualified students we may end up dividing the scholarship and giving $1,500 dollars to each. We will also be sending Giles County High School, Radford High School, and Glenvar High School $1,500 dollars for a scholarship in memory of Chance at their school. What is left over will go the The American Cancer Society in the department of pediatric brain cancer, that should be somewhere around $5,000.00 dollars.
The games were four very good games to watch. One of the coolest things of the Classic was when Giles came out to warm up they had Chance’s name on the back of their shoes, then Graham came out, followed by all of the other teams. Coach Rick Cormany from Radford said he wanted to come up with something special so he got with a company in Roanoke Dixie Sporting Goods and they donated the name tags for the tournament. It was a really neat idea and meant a lot to me that the coaches and kids showed the respect to wear them that day. Most every team warmed up with their Classic T-Shirts on and Giles’s coaching staff wore them during the game. All of these things are small ideas and small things, but to me they meant more than those guys will ever know. The first on matched up Graham and Giles, in that Graham beat Giles in overtime. The second game Glenvar got a big win against Christiansburg with a single digit victory. The third game had Blacksburg, one of the best teams in Double AA in the state playing Radford, one of the best single A teams in this area. This was a very good game, two teams that really went after it, with Blacksburg pulling away at the end. The last game was Patrick County and us, where it was close till about 4 minutes to go and Patrick pulling away for the win. We sold several T-Shirts and still have a few Adult L and Adult M if you are interested. If so, just send an email to the information page on Samefight. The barbecue dinner went OK too, we were hoping more numbers, but with everything going to charity any amount is great. I think they severed somewhere around 400. When we get a final on the dollar amount of the Classic we will give an update under events, this should be available over the next week or so. This will also include some stats from the games and more highlights from the games. We will have some pictures from the day posted soon too. We should already have this done, but basketball season is so crazy and wild around here. We have a little over a month left for this basketball season.
We have taken one small trip since the last update, last weekend we took Destiny to Gatlinburg to get away for a couple of days. Rates we very cheap and I had never been there before so we headed out about mid day on Friday and got back late Sunday afternoon. We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed ourselves. We have a hardware show scheduled for February in Orlando, but I am hoping we miss out on that because our basketball season is still going on.
We still run into people when we are out a lot that come up and speak, this means a lot to us to that Chance’s memory will never go away. The last month or so has been tough, but we keep focusing on and keep pushing on. Your prayers, support, and friendship have kept us a float and without the peace that God gives we would never be able to make it through one day. It is hard with out him here, but we have to just remember that it is for the best and that God never makes mistakes, we don’t always understand, but he does and one day it won’t matter. God’s grace is sufficient!
As I go back and read last years journal and well wishes, it is like I can remember each and every one of them like I just wrote them. Thanks so much for what each and every one of you did through our journey, there is no way we can tell you how much your love has and always will mean to us. We still continue to check the well wishes daily and hope to update some pictures soon. We have started working on Chances Head Stone and hope to have it done and placed by early summer. We will update soon on the total amount from the Classic and will also update the students of the scholarships over the next few months. Please keep all of the other kids that are still sick and anyone else that is battling this awful disease in your prayers. Thank you again and keep checking in on us.
Love,
Brian, Desirae, Destiny, and Angel Chance |
