Special Olympics :)

As most of you know, my brother has Down Syndrome and Autism. He is currently in high school in a severe-profound special needs class. Last week, he got to participate in the Special Olympics, which was held just down the street from us at the high school that I graduated from, which I must say, they have done a wonderful job of fixing it up since the tornado torn it apart last year.

We took the kids out bright and early to support him. First, there was a parade. Sadly, there were not as many people out for the Special Olympics parade as there are for the other parades our town throws. Granted, it was a weekday morning, so I'm sure that had something to do with it. Either way, it was a neat parade, and the kids got TONS of candy lol. Also, a lady came, and gave the girls flags, which they LOVED playing with.

Brentley really enjoyed the parade. He just sat quietly, watching everything go by. Grace was a little scared of the marching bands. There were three in the parade; one from each of the high schools in the county.

After the parade, we went to the high school, where they had the opening ceremonies, and then began the events.

Here we are waiting for the events to start. Brentley was playing with the flag.

 I only got a couple of pictures of Cody (my brother) doing his events because my camera died :( I wasn't really happy with the way they did it. My brother's first activity was a little race. He can walk for a short period of time, but prefers his wheelcahir. He didn't want to get out of his wheelchair. You can kind of tell that the two women are struggling with him. So, what did they do? Another woman grabs his wheelchair and ran it to one end, then when he got to it, and tried to grab it, she took off with it again. It was like a dog chasing a bone. People were laughing, but I really didn't find it funny.

The other thing that I wasn't too thrilled about was that they actually placed them. Like 1st, 2nd. 3rd. I don't think that was right at all. These kids do the best that they can. I think they should all get ribbons and medals of the same standing. Especially since they didn't even do it fairly. My brother threw the ball the furthest in one of his events, but the lady that was supposed to call it wasn't paying attention, so she gave him second place. It was like she didn't want to be there or something.

In the end, my brother seemed to enjoy it. We didn't get to stay the whole day because Brentley wasn't feeling well (turns out he had a virus called roseola infantum), but we did get to see all of Cody's activities, so that was good.