Beginnings of a Super Summer

 This weekend was the start of a very busy and fun filled summer for Maddy.  Let's face it, last summer was pretty darn sucky!  We have started track season and she had her first tournament this weekend.

We are always so amazed at the number of wonderful volunteers who come each year and make the tournaments a great experience for the kiddos.  Katie is also a great volunteer at church and you can see we love her LOTS!

After Maddy went to the staging area and she was paired up with the girls in her heat she was MOST unhappy.  She was in the same grouping as the girl who beat her twice last year.  I explained to Maddy that she needed to be in the grouping that would give her a challenge to make her a better runner.  We reviewed everything we had been practicing and I reminded her of the endurance training we had done so she would have energy at the end of the race to "BURST" to the finish line.

In practice she was a pretty consistent 18-20 seconds in the 100M dash.  We set the goal at the race for her to try to run it in 16 seconds.  She ran it in 16.5 seconds and was a good 2 seconds in front of the girl who had beat her last year.  She was over the moon happy with herself.  This was her first gold in an individual event.  If you want to see the video of her and me being an excited Mom check it out on my Facebook page.

After the tournament we had about 2 hours to rush home, toss Maddy in the shower and head to the Dress for Barbara Event.  This is a non profit that provides prom dresses to girls who can't afford them.  They set up a special time for all the special needs girls at church to get free dresses, jewelery and make up hints.  Everyone one of the ladies was open, loving and pampered the girls with love and let them try on as many dresses as they wanted.  There were about 200 dresses there and I think Maddy would have tried them all on if I had let her.  She did try on about 10 dresses.  Pictures are below. Her best friend Sarah was there as well and they loved asking each other about their thoughts on each dress.

Maddy decided on the Blue dress and she loves it so much she had to put it on when we got home to show her Dad and all the neighbors.

Days like this remind me of all the love for others still exists and how lucky I am to have Miss Maddy.