Fri, June 27th - Sun, June 29th - Late Thursday evening my 28 year old niece Kristen came into town from NYC for the weekend to assist. It was a great weekend, as Cole seemed to feel a little better each day and it was great to have my niece here. Cole went from lying on the couch for most of the day to being up and about. He was definitely getting some of his energy back. Kristen was able to spend some good quality time with each of the kids over the weekend. This was a welcome break for mom & dad. Cole even felt good enough to go for a swim in our pool with her! On Friday, my daughter Madisen had 2 showings of a play she was in with Standing Ovation Performing Arts summer camp. Madisen had gotten the role of Belle in Beauty and the Beast. She did a great job and she was excited that her cousin Kristen was able to see her in it. We were unable to bring Cole, as it was a small and crowded location for the play. However, we did video her and Cole was able to watch the video.

Cole again had a steady stream of visitors throughout the weekend and even went over to a friends (Tristen Rucker) house for his birthday party. The Rucker's neighbors are a very sweet family named the Coman's, of whom I have met on several occasions. Their son Robbie Coman plays baseball (catcher) for the University of Virginia and played during this years college World Series. Cole had met Robbie before and his parents told us that he knew of Cole's situation and was thinking about him while he played. Robbie took a game used ball and had all of his teammates sign the ball for Cole, along with a couple of other nice items. This was an incredibly thoughtful gesture! Thank you to Robbie, the Coman family and his Virginia Cavaliers teammates.

Denise and I are getting used to Cole's medicine routine. Wednesday brings another big day, as he will have another spinal chemo and they will again will test his fluids. We are hopeful that the results will continue to show that the treatment plan is indeed working as planned.

We received our first dinner delivery Friday night. Thank you Jessica Quastler for the delicious pulled pork. mac & cheese and others. It made for a good dinner and lunch the next day. It was great not having to think about or even having to plan for dinner. Thank you to Jessica Strikowski for arranging all of this. I think she has dinners scheduled out into late August now! We have amazing friends!

Bracelets will hopefully be in today or tomorrow. Will post here and on Facebook when they arrive. We are awaiting 2 shipments. The first is for 200 and the second which should come later in the week is for 1,000. We will fill the smaller, local requests with the first shipment and then send out to those of you who ordered 50 or more to those from the larger order. Thanks all for your patience on this.

The Cole Strong 28 baseball tournament looks like it will be Aug 2nd & 3rd at West Boynton fields. Just awaiting final word on field availability. Once approved we will need sponsorship dollars, donated items and volunteers. We plan on selling bracelets, t-shirts and having a concession stand. The shirts will list our sponsors on the back of it. So anyone looking to reach a good number of local 8-11 year old kids and their parents, here is your chance. Details will be coming very soon on this.