Special Olympics

This past weekend Rachel and I spent in Wichita at the state swimming and track meet. Rachel rode the chartered bus and I rode in a 12 passenger van that was very quite! Friday Rachel swam her 2 events and took the bronze medal in both of them. That evening was opening ceremonies and they had the parade of athletes. Rachel was picked to help hold our banner as the team was announced. They had a live band from Houston that played about five or six songs and then they had a huge fireworks display. This display was absolutely wonderful. Best fireworks show I have seen. It was a late night and we had an early morning and everyone was tired. Saturday started off very stormy with lots of rain and some pretty good sized hail. The track meet was delayed about 2 hours and they cancelled all the field events but the tennis ball throw. Rachel got a silver medal in this event. Now the track part we only got ribbons as running is not our favorite or strongest events. They have what they call Olympic Village and it is filled with games of all sorts. Each athlete is given a card that is punched at each game. Depending how you do on the game as to how many punches you get. No matter what you at least get 1 punch. Then you turn these cards in for prizes. Well they had this big slide that Rachel just loved and she went on it over and over and over. She didn't care that she only got 1 punch and it was taking forever to fill her card of 50 punches. I finally convinced her to do something else so she could at least fill her card up. The day was almost over and I knew that when it was time to pick a prize she would want a big one not a small one. She ended up with another recorder and a princess wand. I told her she could not play it on the bus as it would be taken away from her. The evening ended with a banquet and a dance. On Sunday there are only relays and some long walking events, but just like Saturday the storms came again delaying things for about an hour. So they only ran the relays. Rachel's team was in 2nd place when the batton was handed to the anchor boy. He was passed by everyone but one team so her team took 6th place. I was so proud of Rachel as she ran her little heart out. All in all it was a pretty good weekend and Rachel had lots of fun.