2 weeks to go!

First of all thank you to the R family and the C family for their donations to help us get to Stanford for Alena's surgery!

We are now two weeks from our departure date and a little bit over that for Alena's surgery date. Of course the jitters have started in the Zupko household over this surgery and trip. Alena's teacher this year Mrs. B made her a wonderful little PECs book (picture system communication) to help her understand what is going on. Mrs. B has been Alena's teacher for three years in preschool and has done so much for her and we are going to miss her tremendously!!

I also made one with Teague in mind since it will be a lot for him to process as well.

We have now made it to 1900 dollars raised for Alena and our family is just so overwhelmed with the generosity of our friends (and some people we have just met). We have 1100 till our original goal. I can also see in our Marriott Rewards account that we have raised 52,000 points so far, this is enough points for two and a half nights stay for free saving us 208 dollars on our trip! If you have Marriot points to donate I would welcome them, Marriott has set up a special account for Alena's heart surgery trip and you can find more information here: http://alenasbrokenheart.blogspot.com/2012/05/wanna-get-to-know-alena-and-find-new.html

Please feel free to share this information with your friends and family! We have also set up a Facebook account for updates on Alena including updates about her surgery when the time comes so please feel free to join it as well. You can find that here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/217545245022169/

Thank you so much for being a part of our journey!!

A Thank you, Marriot points, and a favor to ask.

Of course I want to first thank the S family for their contribution of 200 dollars to Alena's Heart Fund! I have also sold a few things on Craigslist so now we are at 1805!! still 1195 to go but a lot closer!!

First of all I'd like to ask you all to join Alena's Facebook group on well... Facebook! Here is the link for that. You need to ask to join but I will approve you as soon as I see you and you will get reminders when Alena's blog is updated and faster updates when she is in the hospital as well. You can also keep track of Alena by following this blog with your own blogger account.

The second thing I'd like you to do is to post about the points fundraiser. Alena currently has 50k points and that will get us two nights at a hotel but we are hoping to get enough points for 14 nights. That's about 200,000 points. I'm asking you to post it to whatever you use to communicate on the Internet, post it to your Facebook, twitter, Google, email it to your friends or post it to your blog, however works for you! Basically you could post something like this (feel free to copy and paste) : The link for instructions is here.

If anyone has a Marriott's rewards account you can help out a friend of mine: Mary Zupko. Her daughter is having open heart surgery in California and is raising funds for travel and living expenses while there. They think they will be there for 2 weeks. They have set up a special account with Marriott and you can donate your points to her to help her get lodging for free using points. You can find details about how to donate your points to their family on their blog here:http://alenasbrokenheart.blogspot.com/2012/05/wanna-get-to-know-alena-and-find-new.html

Wanna get to know Alena and find a new way to help Alena?

Alena loves to read!

First of all thank you to the families who have donated through the paypal donate link on this page and thank you to the families donating items to be sold via craigslist or consignment.

I got a phone call from a friend today suggesting to me that I could open a Marriot Rewards account and people could "donate" their points to Alena's cause so we could use them for free hotel nights. The nights are 20,000 points per night but i'm sure with all the people who love Alena we can get there especially if you tell your friends as well. If you or someone you know stays at a hotel for business I bet they have a rewards account, if they do and its a marriot you can help Alena!!  You can donate your points to Alena by calling Andrea at 801-468-4000 ext 5857 and filing out a form in writing and sending it back to them, our personal rewards account number is 202188389. Please email Tom and let him know when you've donated points since he is trying to keep tally. The hotel is 20,000 points per night and we already have 27,000 points!! That's one nights stay for us!! A big thank you to the C and K family for helping to set this up for Alena.

I also thought you might like to get to know Alena so here's her Q&A

Alena's birthday is September 6, 2006 (She's 5.5 yrs old)

She has one brother who is 21 months and she adores him!

Alena's favorite color is pink or purple or sometimes blue.

Alena loves Hello Kitty, Olivia the pig, and Elmo.

 Alena's favorite activities include reading, pretend play with her baby dolls and running around with her brother.

Alena is currently finishing up preschool but will be a big girl in kindergarten next year.



If you have any other questions about Alena or our family please post them in the comments and I will answer them in a new post!!

Tickets! Auctions! Stuff for Sale!

Our one way tickets to Oakland/San Francisco! We drove out to Mesa airport saturday and stood in line for 1.5 hours so that we could get the best deal from this particular airline (allegiant). Although we stood in line for-ev-er i'm so glad we have them and am feeling much more safe and confident about our trip. I have booked our car and hotel as well and they are looking to be about what I estimated in an earlier post.


Deborah from "Mini Me Woolies" was able to raise 37.79 and is going to round it up to a nice even 40 dollars for Alena's trip. Thank you so much Deborah!!


I met with the W family over the weekend and our children played and had a blast at chick fil a. We need to get together again in the future *wink*. They were so gracious as to donate 200 dollars to Alena's fund!!


We also got together with the V family shortly to pick up some stuff to list on craigslist/ebay and they also gave us 44 dollars towards Alena's fundraiser. Thank you V family we really don't see you often enough!

I also want to thank my sister in law who has offered to make up Alena some hospital gown/shirt/pajamas so that she can wear her own clothing and not need to worry about her excema bothering her. 

Now I wanted to throw out my links to the things I have listed on ebay/craigslist! Please share with your friends and family and bid/buy to support Alena.

Fossil Handbag

Vera Bradley purse and matching wallet


NWT bridesmaids dress

NWT david's bridal bridesmaids dress

NWT Neiman Marcus dress 

Baby slings


Triple Stroller

NWT super nice women's slacks


Adult Hockey Equipment

Golf Bag with one Club


8 cup espresso maker

Kids Car Valet


Thanks for All of your support we are now at 1384 with 1616 to still raise!

Remember to join us on our facebook group, subscribe to the feed, and follow this blog to keep up with our hectic journey!

Auctions!! and another donation!

I know I have mentioned this but the auctions go live tomorrow night!! 

The lovely owner of "Mini Me Woolies", a part of "The Waldorf Dollhouse" congo on hyenacart has donated a doll shawl to be auctioned off starting friday. You can find the auctions here and here All the proceeds from the auctions are going to be donated as well as the proceeds from the pattern to create the doll shawl available by pdf download through Ravelry which is only 1.99 and very cute!! A big thank you for Deborah from Mini Me Woolies for her support of Alena and our family!!

We also received a donation in the mail today for 350.00 Thank you very much to the R family (i'm not sure if you want to be recognized if you do please message me and I will revise this)


So we now have 1100.00 and we need to raise 1900 to reach our goal!!

Remember any proceeds beyond what we need and use on our trip will be donated to a local charity for children with heart defects.

A auction fundraiser and a donation

The lovely owner of "Mini Me Woolies", a part of "The Waldorf Dollhouse" congo on hyenacart has donated a doll shawl to be auctioned off starting friday. You can find the auction here. The yarn used to create the shawl is even the awareness colors for Down syndrome!! All the proceeds from the auction are going to be donated as well as the proceeds from the pattern to create the doll shawl available by pdf download through Ravelry which is only 1.99 and very cute!!

I also want to share a small (but big) update: Today I received a 350.00 check in the mail from a lovely new friend who wishes to remain anonymous. We still want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts and hope you see this.

So with that donation our goal sits like this

3000.00 goal moneys

money raised:
350.00 anonymous check
400.00 from selling dirtbike

2250.00 left to raise

A good start and a estimate of how much we need!

We are excited can you tell? Today we sold the dirt bike ! YAY! We had an old Husaberg 500cc monster of a dirt bike sitting in our shed for about ten years and we decided to sell it to help with Alena's travel fees. Some of the money we made from it needs to go towards fixing up my husbands street bike so that we can save some money on gas when he drives it instead of the honking big blue whale of a truck to work. I figured out that my goal is around 2600 dollars for the trip and that is including most of the things we need. Like I have said if i make any  money above and beyond what we need for this trip we will be donating it to a local heart fund although I'm not sure which one yet.

Back to the point of the post all in all money to go towards Alena's travel expenses will be 400 dollars.... Not a bad start I think.


The breakdown of the needed funds (all approx amounts which change depending on circumstances):

• 440.00 Airplane tickets using Allegiant Airlines
• 120.00 fees for baggage
• 670.00 for Rental car from Alamo that we will all fit in (My dad is coming to help with Teague while     Alena is in the ICU)
• up to 1400.00 for hotel depending on when/if we get into the Ronald McDonald house and the length of Alena's stay (if she's in the hospital for more than a week it will be more)
• We will also need money for food although I am not counting that in my total since I have no clue how much we need.

So altogether  around 2630.00 not including food. We will aim for an even 3000.00 so we can have food expenses covered.

So since we already have 400.00 that would be 2600.00 to still raise.


I also started a group on Facebook for Alena called Alena's Broken Heart Club, please feel free to request to be added to it as I will more than likely be posting updates to that page more often.