Birthday #payitforward

Wil: "Today is my birthday and every year I give away a Nutcracker to kick off the holiday season. This one is for you, Merry Christmas!"
Others: "is it a bomb?" "Why?" "What do I owe you?" "Thank you" "For me?" "You are so sweet, Merry Christmas to you too!" "A Nutcracker? (Squeals) "That's awesome man"

Wil has an amazing nutcracker collection. A few years back a young couple was admiring the nutcrackers at the store and the young hubby said "we can't afford that right now." Wil and I made eye contact and we knew... he stalked them and I hurried to purchase the one they were looking at. Me throwing cash at the cashier and he's texting me from the parking lot. Sprinting to them in their red beat up pick up truck we hand them the nutcracker and say Merry Christmas, pay it forward someday when you can....She cries and he shakes Wil's hand...

So every year we give away a nutcracker on his birthday. This year we thought about giving away 17 for his 17th birthday but some wonderful teachers at school collected 50! So we donated lots to the kids at the cancer center and between several stops to puke he handed out nutcrackers to strangers (Including four different little boys) who were overjoyed with the Christmas spirit.

Thank you to the amazing teachers (friends, especially Nikkole Briggs who organized this awesome surprise) who made Wil's day AMAZING and gave him (and me) so many memories!!! I can not express how grateful the people who were on the receiving end were of these precious gifts. #payitforward #wilswarriors #wilwins

More nutcracker pictures

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Sorry that I have not updated here as I can not do it from my phone. Wil was in the hospital 2 weeks in April and then on his Make a Wish trip the first week of May. Please follow Wil's story on facebook "Wil Ohler's fight with leukemia #wilswarriors" https://www.facebook.com/Wil-Ohlers-fight-with-leukemia-wilswarriors-174102950041537/

5/25/2017 So, Wil is resting at home. It was a bit of struggle balancing him as he walked from the car all the way to the upstairs bedroom, but we made it! None of us were ready for him to leave the "safety" of the hospital. There you have a whole team of nurses with all that equipment to monitor him, so it was nerve wrecking thinking of bringing him home with nothing to help keep an eye on his vitals. After nearly a week of watching machines and carefully watching his pulse, checking his oxygen, and monitoring his heart rate it was hard to fathom going cold turkey. We joked that it was like bringing home your first baby. You can't believe they're just letting you walk out with this fragile young human. Scary. As of today, he's still in a lot of pain, his port continues to bleed, he's had a bloody nose, his bones ache, his back is sore, and is bored already :) However, sleeping in a nice big soft bed has helped...those hospital beds are definitely not built...

Cardinals Fantasy Camp 2018

"Sports is all I've known." - Wil Ohler Cardinals Fantasy Camp 2018 I will never be able to truly explain what this trip meant to me, but I do know what Wil misses most of all about soccer is the relationships. He is a very talented, competitive athlete who was/is wide open on most occasions. He loves everything about sports and soccer in particular. He has more random sports stats and facts in his head than should really be possible. But what he misses the most is the bonding (laughing, jaw jacking, rough housing, inside jokes, etc) that happens when you are part of a team. He just didn't really know it until it was gone and he got to have a small bit of that back on this trip. I will be forever grateful to Dr Rob and the Cardinals, every former Cardinals legend in attendance and every camper who attended who ALL took time to give Wil words of encouragement (as well as donate lots of money for research for teenage Leukemia). A few things about traveling with a c...

ALL in for Wil

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