Indoor Climbing: Check!

1st March Challenge Complete!

So guess what I did yesterday? I climbed (the equivalent) of the Empire State Building! :)

As per our previous post, we kicked off our Challenging CF activities with an indoor climbing challenge at Kilnworx. It was a lot harder than I expected and every single ounce of our bodies may be in pain today but the feeling we got when finishing the last of the 1000m was priceless! The team at Kilnworx was lovely and so helpful, I doubt we could've taken on this 'mountain' task without their support - see what I did there? Mountain, climbing #punlove. Massive thanks to Jin and everyone at Kilnworx, we're definitely hooked on indoor climbing now -as soon as the blisters heal! :)




This was before we actually started climbing, hence the painless smiles on our faces

 We've decided to start our first month of challenges as we mean to go on so March is a double whammy - we've got indoor skydiving booked for Wednesday 26th! As we wanted the indoor climb to prepare us for taking on Snowdon, this will hopefully help prepare for Georgie's ACTUAL SKYDIVE this summer. Hear that folks? She is going to jump out of an actual real life plane. Watch this space for more info on skydiving front.

 
In the meantime, here are the promised snaps of us 'dangling' from walls:
 

 

 

 

 

 







 

Despite the popular stereotype that climbing is a very glamorous sport, we've got first HAND experience proving the contrary #punlove



 

Thank you so much for your continued support, you've helped us reach 15% of our target but we've still got a long way to go. The next nine months will be packed full with new challenges - from the aforementioned skydiving to running and baking so stay tuned!

Much love,
Maria, Noni, Georgie (and Debbie!)

Support us here : http://www.justgiving.com/NutaMaria


 

March Challenge: Indoor Climbing

Challenge #1 - Indoor Climbing

Since March will soon be coming to an end it's time to get our first challenge underway and this month we've picked Indoor Climbing as a way of preparing for our Snowdon trek this summer. At 1,085 m Snowdon is the highest mountain in the UK outside of the Scottish Highlands. Trekking up this Welsh beauty is definitely on this year's to-do list but for our first challenge we're attempting something a bit more local. 



Crib Goch in Snowdonia National Park - doesn't look scary at all

On Saturday 22nd March we're going to attempt to climb 1000 m at Kilnworx - a nearby indoor climbing facility. The good news is that we'll be dividing the distance between 4 of us since our -not so little - sister Debbie is visiting this week, hooray! Debbie's turning 18 today so what better way to kickstart her birthday week than by making her climb 250 m the morning after her birthday party?! We figure if the likes of Prince Charles and small children can do it - just how hard can it be?




The likes of Prince Charles and small children climbing stuff indoors

 

Thanks to the lovely people at the CF Trust our fundraising materials came this week so we'll be looking all official while dangling aimlessly from walls on Saturday. Rest assured, I'll make sure we collect plenty of photographic evidence of the aforementioned dangling.  






Our 'kit' for the upcoming challenges, thank you CF Trust for supplying us with materials

This is going to be a completely new experience for us and since it's the very first in our series of challenges we are relying on your support to get us off to a good start. If you'd like to sponsor us and encourage us to keep going make sure to visit our JustGiving page and make a donation. As a very wise supermarket once said: Every little helps!

 

Thank you for rooting for us, we're so very grateful. Make sure to keep checking the blog since we've got another mini challenge in store for next week *eek* and loads more to come over the coming moths!

 

Much love,

Maria, Noni and Georgie

Support us here : http://www.justgiving.com/NutaMaria

What this is all about

Who are we?

The caring, slightly ‘nuts’ aunties of the world’s sweetest little boy who happens to have CF- and their best friend Georgie.




Blow up your No Party Balloon
http://noparty.cysticfibrosis.org.uk/



Why are we doing this?

We’re doing this for Silvan, for his lungs, his airways, his digestive system - for his heart of absolute gold. For all the other people battling CF every day.  We are doing this because we will never be ready to accept that this disease can win. They can find a cure, we just have to make sure we do our part to support them until they do.

What is CF?

CF is a genetic life-threatening super mean disease and it starts wreaking havoc at birth - it gradually attacks your lungs and digestive system. The lungs become clogged with thick sticky mucus leading to infections, inflammation and limited lung capacity. Your pancreas doesn't work well either, which means food cannot be digested or absorbed properly. It’s degenerative, so it never gets better - only worse as you grow older. Read more about CF here.

How are we doing this?

We are planning on doing a combination of challenges every month until the end of 2014. We will attempt to run, climb, bike, swim, bake, paint, skydive, sing, give up stuff and most likely make complete fools of ourselves along the way - but we will do whatever it takes to reach our £1,000 fundraising target. We'll be posting updates on each challenge on this blog every month so keep coming back to check on us!

  

How can you help? 

 Support us here : http://www.justgiving.com/NutaMaria

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Thank you for your support!

Much love,

Maria, Noni and Georgie

Our Story

We’ve never fundraised before and although we try to be charitable people in general - we realised today that that isn’t enough. It’s time to do something, anything to contribute toward beating Cystic Fibrosis for good.



Silvan - tiny baby edition

I didn’t know what CF was until Silvan was born in 2002. He is the oldest of our nephews and when we found out Ina was pregnant we were all beyond excited! She was the first to realize something was wrong and her clever doctor brain and maternal instincts must have really kicked in when she started spotting the symptoms in her newborn baby boy despite the fact that CF cases were pretty much unheard of in our hometown.

Although we had no prior knowledge of CF, when Silvan was a baby we learned to incorporate his treatments into our lives and it soon became the norm. The aerosol treatments, physio, his vest sessions to help clear his lungs as well as dozens of pancreatic enzymes, vitamins and supplements Silvan needs to take with every meal in order to digest food and retain a healthy weight.

Silvan is 11 now and although his normal is so different to what you’d expect of a budding teen - he still amazes us every day with his kind spirit, wisdom beyond his years and infectious sense of humour. He is the best thing to ever happen to our family and we refuse to let CF hold his little body hostage and affect his future in such a big way.

Silvan - handsome 11 year old edition

We need to find a cure - for Silvan and for all the other thousands of people living with CF. The best we can do is try and contribute toward the war the CF Trust is waging against this horrid disease and pray that they find a cure sooner rather than later.  

This year has to be the year we take action and do something - this is why Noni, Georgie and I have decided to put our efforts into raising money for the CF Trust. Over the next 10 months we’re going to run, climb, bake, skydive, swim and anything else we can think of if it helps bring us closer to our £1,000 target. I'll even chop my hair off if it'll help!

Fundraising is new to all three of us so we’ll probably stumble across the way but bear with us, follow our journey and most importantly - give generously and support our efforts of trying to kick CF to the curb! Use our justgiving page for donations - they’ll go straight to the CF Trust and subscribe to our blog for progress updates on our monthly challenges. Stay tuned, it's gonna be an exciting 10 months! :)

Much love,

Maria, Noni and Georgie