special olympics 2014...

Today was Special Olympics and once again Grace participated through her amazing school.  It was our second year, you can read about last year here.  This year was just as emotional for me as last year.  I'm so glad I was able to go and watch Grace participate.  It is amazing to see all the people who volunteer to make this day special for all the participants.

Grace once again didn't really want to run the race but she did.  Here are Lindsey and another volunteer walking her up to the start.

As they were trying to get her to line up, it made me think of horse racing where they can't convince the horse to get in the gate.

But finally she lined up at the start.

And she's off.  She had two volunteers with her this year.  I'm not sure if that helped or hurt Grace in the race.  But she finished, even though she fell.

Here she is with her participant's ribbon.

We sat in the stands for the opening ceremonies.  It was so cute, Grace sat on my lap and kept grabbing my face so we were cheek to cheek.  It was clear she was happy to see mommy today.  Once again the opening ceremonies made me tear up, but since I knew what to expect it wasn't as overwhelming as last year.  While we waited for her second event, we walked around the stadium and checked out some of the other events.  It was really full of people and loud, but Grace did really well with it all.

We ran into a friend from church.  Grace was super glad to see Heather, who sometimes hangs out with her at different church events.

Here she is with Ms. Regina her primary teacher (I told you, you would make the blog Regina!.  I hope you like the picture.)

Grace was literally dragging me around by the hand today, it is her newest trick.  If she wants to go somewhere she attempts to pull you in that direction.  Well, we were supposed to be waiting with her class to move on.  Since we needed to stay where we were, I resisted her pulling me and so she sat down.

So, after a short break on the ground.  We moved to Grace's next event, the tennis ball throw.  

Here she is with Lauren, getting ready to toss the tennis ball.  Grace loves to throw things at home, in fact we have to duck a lot, so she did really well with this event.

All smiles after getting her second ribbon for participating.  She was acting super silly today.

The class went back to their classroom after their events.  So after walking Grace back to her school, I headed home.  

I want to say a special thank you to all who help our special girl every day.  You can never know how much our family appreciates you and what a blessing it is to know Grace is not only well cared for but loved at her school.  Thank You!