Birthdays

September, in between everything else, is still our month with three birthdays in 6 days---Ben and then Gary and Jena back to back on the 23rd and the 24th.  It was hard to fit everything in and to get excited to celebrate with the two big fundraisers right before but luckily we had a plan and I had done some shopping early (a little bit too early because we got Jena an IPad and I still haven't found the cover I got for her and I just saw the croquet set I bought for Gary hidden in the garage...Surprise, Happy Birthday, again, honey.)

At the beginning of the year, I had scheduled our season tickets for the Hale Theatre show of "Tarzan" for Monday, Gary's birthday. A couple of months ago I decided to surprise Jena by inviting a couple of her friends to come to the play with us but not telling her.  I was able to have four tickets for Jena and three friends and then Gary and I and his mom sat up about 3 rows behind them.  So our plan was set.

Gary took Jena and Grandma Hall down and told Jena that I would meet them in Salt Lake at the restaurant.  I headed out and picked up three of her friends--Meggan, Kaili, and Kaitlyn.  Meggan and Kaili live in our neighborhood and Kaitlyn is one of her best friends and she lives in east Layton.  We arrived about 5 minutes before Jena and the rest.  We were wondering if Jena would even react.  Sometimes she can just take things in stride.  But it was perfect.  I wish that I had taken a picture of her face.  She came around the corner, smiled at me and then noticed one of her friends--she looked again and then got the biggest smile on her face and I don't think she stopped smiling the whole meal and the show.  We could see her face during the show (which was amazing by the way) and she was smiling and talking to her friends before the show and during the intermission.  It was a fun birthday for her.  (Yesterday she told me that her friends came for Dad's birthday and hers!  What nice friends!  :)  ).

Here is some pictures:

Kaitlyn, Jena, Kaili, and Meggan

Their "can-can"

Jena just kept on smiling

Waiting for the crowds to leave

Tarzan's adoptive parents

The girls with Tarzan who is wearing pants
and Jane

Gary had a fun evening as well.  Happy Birthday, Ben, Gary, and Jena!

BYU vs. Utah

It seems odd to have Utah and BYU play in September but the local bowling alley got into the spirit of the rivalry. Everyone was invited to wear their choice of team t-shirt and come, bowl and watch the game.

Gary and Jena headed over early and then I joined them at half time.  They had contests (which we didn't win) and we didn't win the game either (referring to BYU) but we still had fun.

We bleed blue!

Jena and Toni another employee of the bowling alley

Watching the game on the big screen and bowling

7th Annual Cooper Bowden Memorial Tournament

It was a beautiful day at the River Oaks golf course and we had over 100 golfers that day--more than any tournament in the past.  It is put on by a couple of companies to raise money for UDSF.  Here are our cute hosts and hostesses.

A little late start due to frost on the greens
but the weather was perfect

Jena is covered and comfortable

Tiffany got to hit in a ball.  Fun times

Tiffany

Ben

Shoe Shot

 

Jena, Jenae, Ben, Bret, Tiffany--our hosts

They raised around $10000 this year. I haven't seen the final totals as life continued to fly by.

It was great to have these two major fundraisers done so that we can move on to other projects with the foundation.  I was looking forward to catching up with my piles of stuff everywhere, cleaning my house, and starting the new projects on my list.  After spending so much time with trying to get donations it was like I had some free time at last!

You know that whole thing about life keeps coming....it does..in more  ways than one.

Fundraising

To be perfectly clear, Scott did not get his "salesmanship ways" from me.  He was a master salesman in the popcorn cub scout sales in Plano, Tx, back in the day and went I mentioned I was looking for some donations he immediately called his boss and got 8 coupons for Red Lobster.  It was torture for me to call or make a personal approach to business for donations.  I just don't travel in those circles or with that skill set.  I had lots of practice in August and September in behalf of both the Buddy Walk and the golf tournament.

At one point I was whining about it to myself during my prayers and I felt "What do you think missionary work is?"  Oh........then a couple of days later I was sharing my frustrations about my lack of skill in this area and Gary said, "What do you think missionary work is?"  Do we really have to make ALL of our weaknesses strong?"  Can't we make do with the things which are already strong for us?

I am 58 and have avoided a great deal of fundraising in the past by quickly volunteering for the tasks that I am more suited for (at least in my opinion.)  My goal was to make it my whole life.  Appartently there is another plan in place.

I do have to say that if I do need to learn this skill in behalf of my future mission service with Gary then I better work harder at learning how to do it.  I will have opportunities to practice for the next two years.

Without a camera,

I am not sure I could catch up with the blog.  So much has happened in some many different ways that it has been crazy around here (I am sure I say that often in my life....) oh, well, update on our crazy days on September.....

We get home from our almost perfect trip to Oregon and it was back to work on preparing for the upcoming Buddy Walk on September 14, the Cooper Bowden Memorial Golf Tournament on Sept. 20, birthdays for Ben, Gary and Jena, and another Buddy Walk up north in Logan on September 28.  In between that good stuff we also had Stake conference and then General Conference.  AND Jena had two appointments at Primary's--cardiologist and orthodontist, and a dentist appointment AND on top of that Ben was to move from his apartment in Sunset where he was living with a roommate to a 1 bedroom in Layton near his cousin Adam.  An over Full few weeks--doable but busy.....

Well, it started well--we got some donations and sponsorships from some unexpected company to help our Buddy Walk donation totals.  I was asked to be interviewed on Channel 4 at the 6:00 a.m. program life (I am sure you were all up watching TV at that time of day...NOT and thank goodness!)
Plus we had some other spots during the week.



Jena with her friend Kaitlyn Richardson

FRIDAY NIGHT brought the Annual Pasta party with the Special Olympic Comets.  Even though she couldn't swim the next day due to the Buddy Walk.  In the past we always went with the Special Olympics but this year it became more important to support the Utah Down Syndrome Foundation.  We appreciate all of you and your support of us (and thank you notes will be in the mail after we have a chance to breathe and start catching up.)


SATURDAY MORNING was bright and early as we needed to set up for the Buddy Walk and it was down in South Jordan.  Tosha came with me and Gary, Scott, and Jena arrived together later and then Jessica.  I do not know what I would have done without Tosha, Jessica, and Gary helping registering people throughout the day.  It was nuts.  Two people cancelled for health reasons and it made things extra busy.  Gary took the last donations and t-shirt buys at 12:45 or so.

Busy from the start

My Registration Helpers

Tosha...she barely left this spot all morning.

Jessica on the side

The purpose of the Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome is to raise money for our foundation to use through the next year to meet the mission and vision of the foundation to improve the quality of life for individuals with Down syndrome and their families.  Money is raised by either registering as a walker for a certain team or by just make a straight donation.  We had a small team but good donations.

Here is what a Buddy Walk looks like:



Several Youth groups helped with different activities.
Here they are setting up the finish line.

A family provided a completed carnival

For one hour Gary got to drive people from the parking lot over to the park---
fun job and his sweet reward for being such a great spouse.

A boy and his cousin for his support
"Logan's heroes"

What does a Buddy Walk Look like?  Just in case you didn't catch the afternoon news on Fox 13 or on Chnanel 4, here is your own look at Buddy Walk--Salt Lake style?

This man ('St. George to") holding hands with his wife in this picture is part of a sub-set story.  He and his son Bob who is 25 and has Down syndrome walked from the St. George Temple to the Salt Lake Temple and entered the Temple grounds on the morning of the walk and then join us to do our mile walk.  They got some news coverage the week before as well.  They did it is short walks usually between 1-5 miles at first and then would head home and walk again a couple of days later.  They started in February of this year.  Quite an achievement for both of them.  We were very proud and enjoyed marking their progress on our face book page.

Whitley's Warriors came in pink this year.

Eisenhower Junior High cheerleaders and the Student body officers came to support the walk.
One of their cheerleaders has Down syndrome.

All types of super heroes showed up.

Eat More Chickin was the message from the cow

We never got a picture with our whole team since we were
all helping in different ways.  Scott, Jolynn Beckstrand, Tosha, Jessica
and Jena in the middle

Clean-up time

And just in time as it started to rain as we were just finishing up cleaning up the park.  We had almost 1000 people attending counting our awesome volunteers.  I think we raised over $30000 counting some in-kind donations.

That night we had a sweet meeting with our Stake Conference.  The adult Saturday night meeting is on of the great meetings of the Church.  If I made goals about such things I would put that on my Church bucket list (but I don't have one of those--just to be clear.)

Middle Day of this month fell of Sunday with our Stake Conference.  We have great members in our stake--both speakers were from our ward and then the three Stake President members spoke.  Excellent across the board.

Then I went home and slept for a very long time.  It had been a busy week, but good.