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.