Run for Katie

I'm going to do a little profile for each of the runners on our Run for Katie fundraising team.  You can read about Misty here.  Tonight I'm going to tell you about Travis.

His official photo!

Travis is one of the attorneys in my office, and I've only known him for about a year.  I'll be honest - when I first met him I wasn't so sure I was going to like him.  He was very quiet, didn't really say much, and I couldn't really understand why everyone in my office liked him so much.  I should have known better, because I quickly realized they were right, and he's one of my absolute favorite people.

Travis has been married to his wife Caroline for nine years.  They have two boys I could eat with a spoon. Carter is 3 and Hank is almost 6 months.  You know how sometimes you like either the husband or the wife, but not both?  Not the case with Travis and Caroline.  I adore his wife as much as him.  They are such a wonderful family - their boys are adorable and so sweet.  Little Carter is hilarious and smart, and I could snuggle Hank all day.  Travis and Caroline are both smart, fun, kind, generous, and funny.  Travis is a great dad, and he really loves his sweet family.

Travis was an Assistant District Attorney with the 16th Judicial district for the state of Tennessee for several years.  He's now a private practice attorney.  We work in a small office with four attorneys and three support positions.  Everyone in the office is close and we have a bit of a family atmosphere.  Travis has only been at our office since March, and he quickly fit right in.  He's smart, and he's a great attorney.  He does a lot of probate work, which means he gets a lot of older clients.  I've never seen someone love an old person like Travis does!  I think he has a crush on every woman over 80 in town who needs to have a will done.  And trust me - they all love him too!

Travis does a lot of volunteer work for various organizations.  He's a loaned executive to the United Way campaign, is the president of the Rutherford County University of Tennessee Alumni Association, and has done work for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and other local charities.

Travis has been running for about seven years.  He's run tons of 5ks and 10ks - too many to keep track of.  He's also run six half marathons, including the Chicago Spring Half Marathon, the Middle Half (twice), the Music City Half Marathon.  Travis also ran the Ragnar Relay last year on the Bumpshack Racing Team.  Ragnar is a 196 mile relay from Chattanooga to Nashville, and the Bumpshack team came in 32 overall, out of 160 teams.

I didn't need to ask Travis why he would run on our Run for Katie fundraising team - Travis is the person who came up with the idea!  I will never forget Travis' reaction when I told him that Chris and I were thinking about adopting.  He said, "I think you need to sleep on it.  For about 18 years."  I will also never forget what he later said; the more we discussed it and he realized we were serious Travis said, "I know I said to sleep on it for 18 years, and I still think you should.  However, if you decide this is something you want to do, I will be your biggest supporter."  And he has been.

Travis was the first person, outside of my parents and my sister, to sign up to follow this blog. . . and I'm quite sure it's probably the only one he follows.  He sits in my office every day and listens to me talk about Katie Ruth.  He looks at her photos without complaining.  He talks about fundraising with me whenever I want to discuss it.  He thinks of prizes we could have donated or people we could talk to about participating.  He listened to my list of names when we couldn't decide on one.  When I asked him to email one of his contacts and ask if he would donate a prize he did it immediately and even picked up the prize.  He has absolutely done what he said he would, and he, as well as everyone else I work with, has been a huge support through this process.

Travis is not running in our fundraiser to win a trip to Florida.  While I'm quite certain Travis would love to go on vacation, Travis could pay for a trip to Florida if he wanted to.  He's running to help us.  He's running to help us raise money to bring our little girl home.  The generosity of people continues to amaze me throughout this process, and Travis is no exception to that.  I'm very thankful for Travis' support and friendship.