Saturdays in June - Round 1

Through an amazing set of circumstances, every week in June in completely booked - in fact, the closer we get to July, we start to not only fill the weekend but spill over into Thursday and Friday. I'll be so glad for July - so far we only have 2 big events scheduled. 

Family Connect Center - Run for the Kids

I'm fortunate enough to sit on the Board of Directors for the Family Connection Center. They provide services to help low and middle income 

 families become more self-sufficient through job and parenting

training, nursery support, education, therapy, and  food bank support. Anyway, as money from federal and state grants become less and less available, we've started moving to holding public 

events to raise money. So this Saturday we held our first 'fun run' (it's not necessarily as fun as it sounds... ). But it was open to walkers, runners, strollers, and even bikers

The weather ended up being cold and a little miserable - at least until we were wrapping up the end, after the raffle. 

The turn around was great for volunteers - and mild to moderate 

for participants. But my feeling is it's better to work out the kinks when you have 50 people than 200 people. And we made enough money to cover

our costs and add some support to the nursery that provides crisis and respite care in Bountiful. So we've set our date for next year. 

-+- Cole definitely had the right idea - bundled up and being pushed around -+-

-+- This girl in the crutches is with the Bountiful Youth Council and while not able to run or walk today, did a really awesome job calling out the winning tickets. Just the kind of good energy we needed -+-

-+- Here's Shawn hanging around with our Executive Director (standing) waiting for his raffle ticket to be drawn -+-

-+- You can only just barely make it out, but the guy in the blue shirt j

ust barely beat me out of the spiffy bike and helmet next to him. Oh well, maybe another time-+-

Breakfast with the Family

After the Fun Run, we met with Tami, Jay, Nick, Shaylee, Chad, Tracey, and DJ at a little bakery in Bountiful (Paradise Bakery). 

At our last visit in Feb, Tami and I had been talking about meeting Tracy and DJ (Cole's 2nd and 3rd counsin, respectively) this year since DJ has the same Hydrocephalus diagnosis as Cole.

It was great to see all of DJ's energy and happy and loving attitude and discuss the progress he continues to make (he just recently

graduated from elementary school and received a standing ovation from his school!!)

We were glad we got to see Nick and Shaylee. They had a cold the last time Jay was in town

and so couldn't join in with the visit. We spent a fair amount of time just visiting on happening between our last visit and making plans for the big party in August with both families - birth and adoptive, our second annual event. If you're around, we hope you'll stop by. 

Hydrocephalus Parents Group - Fiesta

Apparently we were call worn out because we completely forgot to take ANY pictures -- duh. It was a really nice time. The national hydrocephalus association paid for most of the meal and the parents just brought a few things to supplement Costa Vida - yummy. Mostly it was relaxing. We sat and talked to other families. Some were new and some we just got reacquainted with over dinner and the 'ice breaker' games. Not my personal favorite, but they were fun as long as we were winning. We're looking forward to other activities with this group in June, July, and again in September (with the second annual Hydrocephalus Walk - watch for emails about Team Cooper).