Stellar

I had my fundraiser event this past weekend - what a stressful event! I never knew that hosting a fundraiser would take up so much time and energy! The restaurant owner, Gary Bric - who is also the mayor of Burbank! - offered to pay for ads in the Burbank Leader. In order to get those out, I had employed my dad to design paper ads as well as online ads. (Originally we did not have online ads, BUT they completely screwed up our first print ad because they didn't run the color yellow the day of our ad. Fantastic. Nothing better than seeing your ad in the paper and realizing half of the information isn't there.) Needless to say, this whole thing snowballed into one big headache!

Luckily it seemed to go very well. I suppose I had really high expectations for it because I was really hoping for everyone that I invited to show up. Alas, people have lives and plans and such an outcome was not feasible.

Once I got past the dinner hours and got into the cocktail hours, naturally, the evening got better. :) If y'know what I mean!!

I also had tons of help from my mom in getting ready for this event. We had prizes for the raffle we put on, which she coordinated. She also prepared all the raffle details - such as actual raffle tickets, their prices, something to put them in, etc. SOO many details!

Once all was said and done, I raised over $600 that night! HELLO! $600!! Let's go shopping!!

Just kidding.

I'm not REALLY gonna go shopping. That money is going straight to my campaign!

I made a speech toward the end of the night because I was so moved by the whole event. It was such a special occasion - these kind of nights don't come along too often. Having the mayor of Burbank believe in me enough to host a fundraiser event was something that truly touched me. On top of that, having all of my friends and family there to share the night with me meant so much.

The next morning I got up at 7am to run 7 miles with my pace group. Not an easy task after you've been up til 2am fundraising! But I showed up and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! I've realized that once I pass the 2ish mile marker, I start to really hit my stride. Plus, the people in my running group are really fun and help pass the time.

We started our run at Griffith Park and ran down to and around Warner Brothers and then back up to our starting point. The coaches have advised for us to eat these "Gu" things every 45 minutes when we're out running. They're like power bars in gel form and, let me tell you, are awesome! They re-balance your blood sugar and give you this surge of sustained energy - totally love 'em.

Wish me luck as I get closer and closer to my fundraising goal and prepare for my 8 mile run this weekend!