{{An Attitude of Gratitude}}

I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again. We are so grateful for everything everyone has done on our behalf. Prayers, thoughts, donations, shares. You name it. We're so grateful for it. We're still recovering from the shock, excitement and emotions from yesterday, but I think we've settled on the overwhelming amount of gratitude we feel. We don't want to over shadow everyone else who donated with Bryce Harper's because it wasn't just him. So many people pulled together and gave what they could. There is no way to express how that feels. But yes, Bryce's donation is incredible and brings about a whole other round of emotions for me. He was just the last piece to the puzzle of helping us out. It truly was everyone who has helped us get to where we are today. So Thank all of You and thank you Bryce Harper.

We also want to specially thank Abbey Kyhl. Had she not come forward and offered her talents, connections and time, we wouldn't be where we are today. Bryce Harper would've never seen the video Kim and Jesse Moore made. Our story wouldn't be reaching the amount of people it has reached. So Abbey, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You are so amazing in every way! And even though I'm not an AK Bride, I feel like having worked so closely with you on this and sharing the hard and good times, I qualify as one! ;) haha We love you so much and are forever grateful for you!

Now, that the fundraiser is over, I'm sure you all will go back to your lives and back to your routine. But I will forever be changed by the generosity Abbey, Bryce, and everyone else has shown to us. This is a once in a life time kind of experience. It's truly been life altering. I can only hope that someday we'll be able to repay, or pay it forward to those who have helped us over this last year.

Abbey took the words right out of my mouth, "To the 639 people who shared [our] story…THANK YOU! To the 125 people who donated…THANK YOU!" We truly love you and are so amazed at the generosity, love and support everyone has given us.

Yesterdays Story:
We've had quite a few people ask what happened yesterday and how it all came about so I think it's fitting to give credit where credit is due.

As everyone knows who reads this blog, yesterday was the deadline for Abbey's give away. This meant that yesterday was the last day to donate and enter to win. So we were all sharing and re-sharing everything on Facebook. So yesterday at around 2:00 PM we got a message from Kylie, Garrett's sister, asking if we had looked at our GoFundMe recently. We're both working college students so we hadn't been really checking it. I had just got to work, logged on to my computer when I discovered we'd reach our goal of $20,000. I quickly scanned my screen,

"$11,000 Anonymous"

What people don't know is that when you log into your account on GoFundMe you can see the names of people who donate, anonymous or not. So I quickly log into our GoFundMe to figure out the mistake on our account! I see,

"Bryce Harper"

It was around this time Garrett called me and we're both bawling. "Bryce Harper the Major League Baseball player for the Washington Nationals. Yes, that Bryce Harper." When I realized who it was I become more hysterical! I thought, "Why would someone who has no idea who we are, who has never met us, give us THAT MUCH MONEY?" It really is a testament to who he is as a person. After this tear-filled phone call, students started coming into my office and I really had to try to pull myself together. But whenever I had a break of students I was on the phone with Kylie getting the rest of the details as to how he found our story.

I am so thankful for social media. Without those outlets, no one would have ever seen any of our story and we would have been left to bare this financial burden for years to come. Thank you all so much for sharing it once, or many, many times. I'm sure some of our friends were sick of seeing our story pop up again and again but it was ONLY because of that, that we accomplished our goal.

This has been such an incredible experience. Thank you all, so much.