First blog in a while, and probably last for even longer...

Well, it's been a while since i last wrote on here... it's been a busy couple of months. So, a little recap of things that have happened since we last caught up... My lovely friends in Shotts held a big charity Frock Swap in Lanark Equestrian Hotel and also a bring and buy sale with all sorts of stalls (fish and chips, mobile nail-art, bouncy castle etc), both in May and raised a massive £850 for us! Muchos love guys! :D We also had several people all geared up for the Skydive (Julie, Kirsty, Tommy and Creelman) however the weather meant that this has been postponed until October - Im hoping to be there to support them! :) Michelle took part in a shark dive in Deep Sea World in June too. Cheers you brave, brave lass! :D We had our Music Against MND night in Edinburgh - some fantastic acts, an awesome raffle, some games and many, many drinks. I think it's fair to say a great time was had by all and we raised almost £600! I need to thank my lovely wee pal Flawson for all her organisational efforts to make this happen (who knew she had it in her!), as well as the usual crew (aoibh and Dr Coates) for ensuring all ran smoothly, all the acts who gave up their time to come entertain us, and of course, everyone who came along to support us! Here's a few quick pics of the night...

As im sure many of you know, we have finally reached our target of £11,400 - in fact we've not only reached it, we've also shot way past it... our justgiving page is sitting at £13,068.63 and we haven't yet included the money from my Shotts pals, or the skydives/shark dive... When we reached our total, Sara from MND Scotland asked if i would write a piece for their blog - it can be found here... http://machupicchu2012.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/the-mcadam-clan/ So.... We've finished the fundraising part... we're now focussing on the training part. Every time i write this blog i talk about how we need to get serious about training. As it happens, we're still all sitting on the sofa eating sweeties and drinking wine. But it is now only 10 weeks until we go (SCARY!) so today i went to the gym. Hopefully tomorrow (and for the next 10 weeks) i will manage to keep up this motivation!! :D There may be training updates on here over the next 10 weeks (if i remember!), however if not, we shall return in October for one final blog to let you all know how our trip of a lifetime went! Wish us luck!!! As always, my final words on here are huge thanks and much love to everyone who has helped us on our fundraising journey - whether it be attending events, organising for us, donating pennies or even just providing us with support (practical and emotional). There's no doubt that Mama 'Cads would have been so proud of everyone who has helped us along the way! The McAdam Clan really couldn't have done this without our fantastic friends and family! Muchos Love The McAdam Clan

Sponsored Cycle

Hi all, Just a quick blog to let you all know how the MND Scotland sponsored cycle organised by my mum's friends in Dundee went. The sponsored cycle was 30miles long - from Dundee to St Andrews and back. I didn't manage to go along (had no intention of cycling but would have been nice to see everyone off at the start line then drive to St Andrews for a cheeky ice cream!) but Papa 'Cad's was cycling and Shona went to offer support. Reports suggest that a great day was had by all, with even the weather holding out! :) Here are some photos of our cyclists

Big thanks and well done to everyone involved; organisers, cyclists, those who provided support/photographs and those who sponsored our cyclists! :) A massive £535 in sponsorship money has arrived on our JustGiving website so far! :D Now a little mention of our next two events.... As always we continue to try and throw the fundraising net as far as we can. So far we've maanged to cover Dundee, Edinburgh, Peebles and Biggar and this month we're hitting Lanark and Shotts! On 19th May some lovely friends of mine are holding a big Frock Swap at Lanark Racecourse's Scottish Equestrian Centre - This promises to be a brilliant event with free cocktail on arrival, games, quizzes, raffles (prizes include an IPad, riding lessons etc) and of course the actual frock swap.

Then on May 27th in St Pats Chapel hall (Shotts) there will be a bring and buy sale with stalls including a fish and chip van, mobile nail and beauty stall, bouncy castle, bric-a-brac and cake and candy!

As always i'll keep you all updated on our progress as and when it happens (or as soon after as i remember!) Muchos love The McAdam Clan

A few thank you's...

Just a quick note today (i'm getting ready for nightshift...) mainly just to say big thanks to a few folks.... - to Maureen and Gorden Allen for asking for donations at their Golden Wedding Anniversary party at the end of March - a massive £950 was raised for us through the kindness of their family and friends! :) We hope you all had a lovely night!! - to Mrs Sullivan (and Mr Sullivan, who we believe was also roped in!) for hand making so many lovely cards that were then sold by their daughter, Mandy (my mum's pal). Muchos love for all the hard work and effort that went in to making these - particularly once the demand grew for them - we're glad you didn't quite reach sweat-shop status! Also much love to most of NHS Tayside (mum's colleagues) who bought the cards and kept the up the demand! A huge £320 was raised!! :D - To Cousin Lisa for asking for donations at her big 40th in April. Lisa held a party in Peebles rugby club that was a fantastic night and included Irish Bingo and a bottle raffle (the McAdams came out well in this - 4 bottles of wine between Shona and I!!!) and raised a massive £680! - Also thanks to Nancy Fenton and her granddaughter Caitlin who have been involved in all the Peebles fundraisers and are truly the queens of the raffle! :D There will be more thanks to come over the next couple of months. Now a little update on up and coming events... May 5th (that's next weekend!!!) will see some brave folks, including Papa 'Cads do a sponsored cycle from Dundee to St Andrews - and back again! Here's hoping the weather holds out for you all and you get a chance to stop for a sneaky ice cream at the halfway mark! On May 19th we have a charity frock swap night arranged in Lanark at the Scottish Equestrian Hotel; complete with Frock Swapping, Catwalk, Raffle and auction. We're also having a table top sale in Shotts with various stalls on May 26th. There will be a beauty stall (pretty nails etc), fish and chips, cake and candy and various brik-a-braks and tombolas! Think car boot sale bargains, but indoors, safe from the rain!! :D June 22nd will be our final big fundraising night with "Music Against MND", a live music event in Old St Pauls Church, Edinburgh. There will be music from bands/acoustic acts and well as raffle, coin toss etc. And all for £5! Even better - it's bring your own booze so an incredibly cheap night out!! :D And finally, on June 23rd (hopefully with slight hangovers having attended "Music Against MND" the previous evening) a brave group of my pals shall be taking the plunge by skydiving in St Andrews! This will be our final fundraising event and hopefully by this date we'll have hit (or even exceeded) our target! And finally - just a big WootWoot!!!! to let you all know we've now hit the £10,000 mark - not much to go now!! As always we're so proud of, and grateful to, all our friends and family who have given their time and/or money to help us get this far. There's no way that 3 McAdams could have done this without you all! Muchos love The McAdam Clan xxx

Training for Machu Picchu...

Hello everyone!

Another wee update! We've got a couple events in the pipeline over the next few months - we're on the final countdown now... 4 months to complete our fundraising and we've only got 25% (around £3000) to go! How exciting!!!

on May 5th a team of eager cyclists will be cycling from Dundee to St Andrews and back (26miles) to raise money for MND Scotland. My mum's nursey friend Janice is the brains behind this one. We've just got the sponsor forms printed out so it's all go now! If i had a bike, im sure i'd be joining in...

On 22nd June we are having another event in Edinburgh. So far we know where it shall be. That is all. My lovely pals Flawson and Aoibheann are on the case organising this - and have told me i need to do nothing but turn up... thats the sort of event i love most! :D I think the idea is some sort of music/acoustic night, but more on this as and when i know! At the moment i'm still largely in the dark!

And of course, we have our take the plunge day on the 23rd June, so far we have 6 signed up for skydive - Julie Glasgow, Gillian Comrie, Aoibheann Keogh, Kirsty Malone, Tommy Malone and Craig Creelman and my Inchture pal Amanda MacBean is going underwater to do the shark dive! Muchos love to you guys for doing something scary to help us raise money! There's still time to sign up - just go here!

http://www.mndscotland.org.uk/fundraising/new-year/

So fundraising efforts are entering the final phases, whereas training has just begun! I joined the gym about a month ago and so far i've been managing to go a bit - i've been doing some running, and some core, strength and cardio classes! Though still need to up my training in order to get my fitness up to scratch. But there's plenty time, so i'm just going to stick at it (i hope!).

As well as a little gymming and a little running, i've also been on a few wee walking expeditions around Edinburgh. I've seen a few strange sights, got lost, got wet and had sore feet more than once! Here are a few photos from my training walks...

Hiding in the trees at Roslin Glen

Down Roslin Glen

Russell doing a spot of climbing...

Me on a style up the Pentland Hills

Russell and Angus

Angus spotted the sheep!

At the top of a hill in the wind and rain...

After sliding down the hill on my bum!

Glencorse Reservoir

Aoibh on a windy Pentland walk

Windswept

Highland coo having a wee drink...

me on a wee bridge

Unicyclist coming down the Pentland hills - Madness!!!

Pentlands

Me and Gus

Looking over Edinburgh

Me on a style, at lothianburn golf course

Peebles

Heya!

So we've been busy with the fundraising the past few weeks and i thought i'd tell you a little of what we'd been up to in Peebles...

On Saturday 18th February myself, Shona and Russell headed down to Peebles to take part in the Tesco bag-pack. We met Cousin Donna there along with Nancy and Caitlin. We donned the MND t-shirts, got our collection buckets out and off we went! Russell had also made up 100 info sheets to hand out - they were gone within the hour!

The bag packing was fun - i started off small, at the 10 items or less aisle and therefore packed almost nothing for the first hour. Meanwhile everyone else was slogging away on the big aisles.... Cousin Lisa and Lynn joined us and Donna, Russell, Shona and I escaped off to the chippy for a tasty lunch! :)

Full of food (almost in a food coma) we returned to Tesco. It turns out some people are funny about getting their bags packed. Russell got a row at one point and more than once as i was packing bags the owner of said bags was unpacking them and re-packing them as i was going! (this may be more to do with my bag-packing skills than anything else though).

All in all we had a brilliant day - lots of support and lots of fun! :D We left Peebles at the back of 4 with heavy buckets and two massive bags of change donated by Auntie Moira and Granny Peebles! Shona and I took a couple buckets each and we spent the evening counting the pennies! A massive £435.99 was raised for our efforts! :D :D

Here are a few pics of our day...

So, after our bag packing success Shona and I returned to Peebles the following Saturday morning to attend our charity coffee morning at the Peebles Rugby Club organised by Cousin Lisa. We had a lovely day - there was a HUGE bake sale, a raffle, a tombola and plenty of coffee, tea and biscuits provided by our lovely servers. The coffee morning was a massive success - it opened at 10am and by around 10.20am we were totally full! Shona and I luckily didnt have much of a role to play during the coffee morning - we were allowed to just mingle and buy cake! However, the raffle was so busy that we got roped into writing, tearing and folding raffle tickets - turns out this is not a fun job!! The support we received was amazing - at 12pm when the coffee morning was finished we counted the cash and Lisa was able to announce to everyone that we'd raised a massive £1233.61!!! Several tears were shed.... We were also given some fantastic news that Peebles Rugby Club are going to make MND Scotland their charity of the year!! Fun and games over, we packed up, had a celebratory drink and went off for a lovely lunch!!

Here are some pics from our day...

Finally, we'd just like to say a massive thanks to Peebles Tesco, Peebles rugby club, everyone who volunteered their time to help us at both events and everyone who came along/donated! Muchos love to you all!!!

The McAdam Clan
xxx