Wow.

While we haven't yet reached our overall Team Athena fundraising goal of $7500, three of us on the team have met our individual goals. Kim met her goal of $1000 a week or so ago and Alyssa and I met our goals of $2500 this week! Alyssa actually raised her goal to $3000 and I am confident that she can reach it before the Challenge. I have kept mine at $2500 because I sort of can't believe that I actually reached my goal. Anything above $2500 is very sweet icing on the cake.

All of us on Team Athena are deeply appreciative of your kindness and your support. If you haven't received a quick email thank you from me, rest assured that EVERYONE who donates to me (or Alyssa, because I will make sure she does it) will receive a specially designed thank you card after we complete the LIVESTRONG Challenge on August 23rd. I am a proper southern lady and my mom would be horrified if she thought we weren't going to properly thank you all with a handwritten thank you note.

You might notice that it's been a little quiet around here. We've had a busy couple of weeks and it's been hard to get in some good rides, but we're looking to change that this weekend. We're going to Alyssa's mom and dad's house in Lewes, DE tonight with our friends and we are planning to get in a long ride on Sunday. We might try to ride some on Saturday, but that time will mostly be spent galavanting and having fun with Rebecca and Karen and their adorable daughter, Sammy. Alyssa is trying to psych me up for a very hilly ride next weekend, but I'm feeling some nervousness about it. It's a group ride with all women and I think it will be a real challenge. I need that, but I also don't want to slow anyone else down. The reality is that when we ride with more people, I'm much less of a pansy because I don't want to embarrass myself, but this ride sounds hard. There is a stop for ice cream in the middle of it, though. Embarrassment or ice cream? It's a tough call.

In other news, we bought a replacement camera for the one that was broken in the C&O Canal Towpath debacle a few weeks ago. I'm hoping I'll be able to keep this one from a similar fate and bring back lots of interesting pictures from our rides.

I booked our hotel room for Philly today.

More after the weekend!