The Walk

For 5 of the 6 years Indy and I have been together, I have participated in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Walk in Central Park with his family, who has been doing it for so long that they simply refer to it as, "The Walk."

Indy's mom is, as of this year, a TWENTY YEAR survivor of breast cancer!  She is one of the strongest, most inspiring people I know, and Indy and I wanted to try and make this 20-year celebration even more special for the family.

When you sign up for "The Walk" you give a donation and receive that year's t-shirt and a "race" number.  However, one of my favorite parts of "The Walk" is reading all the fun custom-team t-shirts that people make.  There are the standard boob-themed team names you see every year, "Save the TaTas" or "So-and-so's Breast Friends," but I'm always happy to see how much more creative people get as the years go on.  Here is a pretty great compilation of team names.  I think "The Rack Pack" and "Treasured Chests" are two of my favorites.

Well, Indy and I knew that we couldn't just pick any team name for our t-shirts as this was such a huge year for his mom.  And in a surprising move, we stayed away from all boob-related names and made it more about his mom, whose name is fun and unique already: Bess.

Whenever we discuss politics at Indy's parent's house, his mom says, "In my next life, I'm going to be the President of the United States!" she usually follows that up with, "I was the president of my middle school class! All my posters said, "Bess is the Best!"  So that's the team name we went with- but that's not all...

Indy's mom is a survivor for a reason- she's a bold, outgoing woman with a lot of spunk. To match her personality, she's got a signature look.  She has a big puff of jet-black curly hair, and is always wearing red- her lipstick, her finger nails, her glasses- red is definitely her color.  The best way I could describe Indy's mom's look is that of a Greek Bette Middler.  Here's a photo of them at walk a few years ago for you to get an idea:

 Feather boa and all!

So Indy put his super awesome graphic design skills to work and came up with this logo for our team t-shirts:

Indy designed it at work and showed me when he got home one day, and I LOVED it!  It's so simple, but spot-on.  We ordered 5 shirts for the 5 of us who walk every year- Indy, his parents, his aunt, and myself.  I have a feeling once they see it, they'll ask us to order more for the rest of the family (all 12 of them....this happens with a lot of things).

We ordered our t-shirts from Custom Ink.  The price was right and the turn-around was fantastic- I think it only took just over a week to get all the shirts in.  I would absolutely love to use them again for other custom t-shirt work.  Family reunions, team t-shirts, or just-because, this site will be used again.

"The Walk" was this passed Sunday, and I don't think I'm being biased when I say, we were the best looking team out there. =0)