We were so excited to win one of Cosmopolitan's amazing awards last week for being Ultimate Friends! Inspired by our fundraising and awareness raising in the name of breast cancer Cosmo felt we deserved one of their preestigious awards.

We were excited to meet some of our ultimate stars on the night, including the amazing Aleisha and the lovely Vernon Kay.

The next morning we were treated to breakfast at Downing Street and met the wonderful Kim Cattrall, who knew our names, oh yes!

You can see us on Cosmo's video clip of the evening at: http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/your-life/ultimate-women-of-the-year-awards-2008/special and we've also done a photo shoot for December's issue of Cosmo (currently on sale!)

The Black Tie & Beautiful Ball 2 was another huge success and, although money is still being counted, we have raised another £15,000 for Breast Cancer Campaign.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of the evening and to all ball goers we hope you had another great night!

You can view and buy official photos online until end November 08 - http://www.onlinepictureproof.com/sarahcookphotography/albums/events

Love,

Emma & Laura & the Ball Committee xxxx

Udate on 20 March. How we have walked! We've 'slide-walked' over ice, climbed and clambered over really old and crumbly parts of the Wall and now zip-wired over a lake and very high up! No one can say we've not earned every penny of our sponsor money. We were so worn out yesterday that we had to sleep between arriving back from an 11k walk and enjoying a Chinese banquet - yes another one! We're having a wonderful and exhausting time. We love China.

We're still excited and nervous with fingers firmly crossed that we reach our target of raising over £20,000 to battle breast cancer - we're so nearly there.

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has sponsored us so far, and to those of you who have passed our website link to friends and family - and there's still time for anyone who'd like to add some sponsorship.

Yes we're really here and we love China. We're all fired up and ready for THE WALL! There's still time to sponsor us and to pass our sponsor details to your friends. We've very nearly raised our target to 20,000 - hooray.

We are over the moon at how much we have already raised - largely thanks to our generous supporters and sponsors. We have already raised more than £17,000 - amazing!

We would love to increase the impact we are having on breast cancer research by smashing the £20,000 mark by China - please help us!

It's easy...

Send round the just giving link to anyone and everyone you think might be interested in sponsoring us.

We're also open to corporate sponsorship ideas. Do you know a company who would sponsor us to wear their t-shirts on the Great Wall for example?

Help us do our bit to make breast cancer a curable disease, 'cos it's not nice and it needs to be stopped.

Em & Laura xx

You may well question what training we've been doing to prepare us for the Great Wall adventure on 15 March and we can honestly say we're well under way with our preparations. Both of us have splashed a load of (our own!) cash on flash walking gear to look the part and we're planning a trip to the Chinese Emabassy later this week to see if we can actually get a visa.

There has even been a bit of physical training going on. Laura has been busy wearing in her sister's walking boots to her own foot shape and Emma's brought some brand new walking boots that feel like slippers (not sure she'll still be thinking that after a full day's Wall walking!) Emma dragged her mum and David walking in the Chipstead Valley for a impressive 3 hours of challenging terrain last weekend. Ending up at the Ramblers Rest for a fabulous pub lunch!

Emma's delighted with this effort, as she's been a bit down about her leg and back injury and was beginning to panic about being better for China. All is well now though and she even has some leg strengthening exercises from the hospital to support her training.

As China fast approaches and we're wearing in those wlaking boots, we can't help but think back to the gliz and glammour of last year's ball. So once again, here's the photos to help us remember. And to those of you who have joined the facebook group requesting us to do it again, let's hope there's some good news soon...

Last year's ball photos...