United Way Golf Tournament

Seven years ago, not long after coming on full-time at ConocoPhillips, Randy was approached by a friend, Sid Bassett, (who was also influential in getting Randy into ConocoPhillips) to head up the United Way Golf Tournament. Sid was too busy and he knew Randy was a golfer and could do a great job. Little did he know that he was giving Randy his favorite project to date. This tournament became Randy's "baby". Seven years ago, the tournament was one afternoon, and raised $7,000. Last year, he turned it into a 2 1/2 day tournament and raised $105,000. Each year I have been blown away with the increase of people, money and respect he is given with the work he does. However, it was also told to us last year that this year would be Randy's last year to head up the event. The company would like people to know Randy by other things than the golf tournament. It was bittersweet, but we understand that he has so much more to offer and can create greatness wherever he focuses his talents.

I have only heard second-hand at how great his tournaments are, but this being his final year, I decided to take a look at it myself! Ashton and I came up two different days to have lunch with Randy and hang out at the golf course. The first day he was playing a couple rounds with a group so he told us to hang out up by the club house and he would be pulling up in a red cart. I wasn't sure what kind of cart he was in since I knew the course only had white carts. I was thinking maybe an old beverage cart or something. I knew they were low on golf carts so I figured he would just take whatever they had that worked since he needed something to ride around in to oversee everything. But I guess they brought in a cart just for Randy! Super cute! I wanted to take it home with us so bad! Our neighbor actually has a golf cart and rides it around sometimes and will even take our kids around the neighborhood on it. Anyway, I just had to take a picture of it!

Ashton and I did a lot of hanging around. She got pretty comfortable out there! And of course she was the talk of the tournament- everyone thought she was so cute! Her favorite thing to do was swing on the swings under the trees and play games on my phone. The weather was beautiful! The past two years we were supposed to have gotten rain every day of the tournament. The kids and I have truly learned the meaning of faith as we have prayed so hard for the rain to not stop daddy's tournament. Last year it rained in all the surrounding towns except Bartlesville, and as they were packing up the last day it started pouring. This year it rained as they set up, and one evening we had a major thunderstorm, but the days were sunny! My faith has truly been strengthened and I tried to use it as a teaching tool for my children as well. But back to the tournament, not alot of people knew who I was so I overheard a lot of conversations. Everyone was saying how amazed they were and how it was the best tournament they had ever been to. It was great to hear all the positive feedback. Those who I was introduced to told me first-hand how great Randy is at this and how he should make it his profession. I'm very proud of my husband.

So Randy's seventh and final year of heading up the golf tournament is now over... without a hitch! It takes a lot out of him. It's basically a week of set-up, golfing, receptions, banquets and us not seeing him (with the exception of Ashton and I who got to go up to the golf course) and then a weekend for him to recover from lack of sleep and heat exhaustion. This year he expanded, yet again, the tournament (as it sells out before opening up to the public!) This year it was three full days and they raised $160,000!! Quite a run, my dear! I have loved watching you create this prestigious event. It has become the talk of the town and I'm so proud of you! I know you can achieve anything and I will always be right there supporting and rooting you on! Love you so much!

Coraling the Kids

Just a few more pictures of the kids in the coral. Is it a coral? I don't know! I think it's the area where you break horses... what do I know! I just had my camera and was taking pictures- here's Avery!

Now- Austin and Tanner probably need to be in this place! Those crazy boys... crazy but so darn cute!

We had to wake up Addie to go out there and it took her a while to warm up. But she got her smile going finally!

And our little AJ McKay! You can see just how dirty they were getting if you look at her shirt! But it was worth it! A great night with great friends and family!

Home on the Range...

We hadn't seen Robert's son Hudson for a long time so it was great to be around him again. He has gotten so big and talks so clearly for a little 2 year old!

Hudson and Ashton are only 3 weeks apart in age, so she was super excited to have a friend around. They got along great. There was a cat out on the property that had a mouse in its mouth which they thought was fascinating- but really it was super disgusting.

Here's Austin just hanging out drinking his rootbeer. Austin Brown kept teasing him that he was named after him. There is a story behind that but I'm not going to get into it... :-)

And here are the cousins... we were trying to keep them all coralled (I think that's how you spell it and how you say it! I'm not a country girl so I don't know for sure). Actually they found this place by themselves and stayed in it all night. They were so dusty from the rocks when we got home!

The After-Party

Robert and Jenny put together a little barbecue out at Loafman's land for those who came in from out of town. It was a nice night out in the country. Robert and Jenny traveled up late Friday night from Houston (a 9 hour drive) to be a part of this day and left early Sunday morning. They brought a lot of big ticket items for the silent auction and Randy and I really appreciate all they did to help out!

Austin Brown and Lincoln Kent are two of Roberts friends who came out and cooked for us! Neither of them live in Bartlesville anymore so it meant alot for them to sacrifice this day for us. Lincoln played in the tournament and Austin brought the really big ticket item for the raffle, a gun of some sort. :-) I'm not a gun person but it brought in the most money!

Ryan was also a huge help Friday and Saturday getting everything set up, and we really appreciate Jessica taking the kids full time so he could help out! The Reheis' also came out to the barbecue, Gary played in the morning round of the tournament.

We were all exhausted by this point of the day but it was a great way to unwind. I hadn't seen my kids all day so we had picked them up and they enjoyed hanging out in the country where they were free to roam!

Julie John Benefit Golf Tournament

Back in December 2009, we found out that Randy's sister Julie had a tumor in her jaw that needed to be removed. She was pregnant at the time and it was decided by the doctors at MD Anderson of Houston that she could wait until after the baby was born to have her surgery. On July 9th Julie had her surgery which consisted of the removal of 3/4 of her jaw and taking bone out of her leg to make a new jaw. We knew the bills would be outrageous, but once we found out that she had to have $25,000 upfront to ever get teeth back we knew we had to do something. Randy and I decided to put on a golf tournament on her behalf.

We were hoping for 18-24 teams and shooting for the moon with the goal of $10,000. Never did we expect what we were blessed with! We had an outpouring of love from our community, family and friends. People who didn't know Julie but knew members of our family, and even people who didn't know any of us were donating money for our cause. We ended up with 47 teams so we had two shot-gun starts, amazing raffle prizes, silent auction prizes and door prizes from donations and a great lunch which was also donated.

We had a HUGE number of volunteers that we could have never done without. I hate to start naming people because I would forget someone, but I'm so indebted to each of them for their time and efforts into making this a successful event! A lot of volunteers went above and beyond what we could have ever asked for and they have been such great examples to me of service! We had some volunteers who stayed all day at the golf course with us (including Avery who got very comfortable on the golfcart) and we truly appreciate the sacrifice of their Saturday. What we didn't expect was after each round of golf and the winners were announced, we had 3/4 of the golfers return their winnings so it could go back into the money raised for Julie. It was an overwhelming feeling.

I'm so proud of my husband and all his hard work that he put in to this tournament for his sister. The whole John family (and some of my family as well because I couldn't have done this without my mom, Jordan and Jen) came together for a special young woman. Through the help of everyone, we were able to raise $20,000 to help with the bills Julie has and will acquire. We found out just this past week that Julie did have cancer. The doctors feel as if they got it all but she will now be treated as a cancer patient and will be returning to MD Anderson every 2 months for scans of her jaw and lungs. She has a long road ahead of her but I hope she will always know how much she is loved by so many!