Monday, September 28, 2009

Route 66 Rendezvous

The Route 66 Rendezvous 5K Race was held in San Bernardino on a beautiful Saturday morning! It was an honor for Alyson to be there helping cheer on all the racers as well as encourage them prior to the race.





Alyson even got her picture taken with "Chipper"!

As the runners completed their race, the top winners were awarded in each division. However, everyone is a winner for simply finishing! It was slightly humid that day, thus making running conditions a little more difficult than normal.



Congratulations to all the runners - adults and kids - who participated in this year's race! The Ms. Wheelchair California program looks forward to seeing you again next year!


Friday, September 11, 2009

Greek Festival by the Sea


Labor Day Weekend, the Ms. Wheelchair California program had the opportunity to be a part of the wonderful festivities of the Long Beach "Greek Festival By the Sea" at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church. Thousands of people attended to enjoy the live music, dancing, delicious food, art, jewelry, and much, much more!

I signed a lot of autographs and had two great helpers that gave me an "official tour" of the entire festival. One was the niece of the director who put the whole festival together! They were so sweet, and eventually wanted me to try my luck at darts so that I could hopefully win a prize!

Here I am getting ready to aim at the balloons. You have three darts and have to hit a balloon each time in order to win a prize. I was only allowed to throw one (the other girls wanted to throw one, too).

Ready, set, fire!! And I hit it! Hooray!!

The girls were so sweet and allowed me to pick out what ever framed picture I wanted. Of all the fantastic fair-type prizes to choose from, I chose a lovely framed picture of Marilyn Monroe. As you can see, it was such a hot day! My pictures start getting not as pretty as we go because we were all sweating so much! But, it didn't keep the little girls from admiring my crown and sash and waiting in line to take pictures with me!

I even got my picture taken with Nathan Honda of the Long Beach Fire Department!
And then the cutest little girl who happened to be a double amputee was searching everywhere to get a picture with me when she finally saw me. It broke my heart that she didn't have the proper assistive devices to get around as freely as she should be afforded, but her spirits and smile were certainly contagious. She was precious!

However, once the belly dancers started, no one seemed to even take notice at Ms. Wheelchair California! Ha!
Larry and I (from Kiwanis) sold roses to a lot of the attendees in order to raise money for the Rose Parade. We made a great team and were very convincing as we sold rose after rose!

After a long day of amazing food, fun music, and fantastic people, we were all tired and ready to go home after this fun day in the sun. Here is Larry posing with one of the roses and then me with my state coordinator, Ruthee Goldkorn. Hooray for a great day in Long Beach!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Ms. Wheelchair America Video's - Speech and Top 5

Now, for the moment you've all been waiting for! Here are the video's of my Platform Speech on Friday evening and then the announcement of Top 5 and being awarded 2nd Runner Up on Saturday evening. I'm still smiling about my experience at Ms. Wheelchair America, and I look forward to keeping in touch with so many of the wonderful women I met this past week. Enjoy!


Ms. Wheelchair America - Platform Speech "Connective Healing"




Ms. Wheelchair America - Top 5 announced and me being awarded the honor of 2nd Runner Up!