Birthday Challenge!

My sincerest apologies for the delay in getting these uploaded. I have no excuse other than our family passing around "the sickies" the past week and a half. True to typical form, Ben ends up with a "birthday month" culminating in our family's annual visit to the Woolly Worm Festival this weekend in Banner elk, North Carolina. Our friends Rita & Peter Steidle have some furry critters in training for our three race teams so we're all getting excited!

I mentioned earlier in another post how special this year's Challenge Day was for our family. Not only was it a wonderful occasion to reflect upon having our son and brother reach 10 years of age but this was the first time Joan, Jessie, & my mother were able to attend special Olympics with him. They were not disappointed!

The following are just a few of the photos they captured from their trip to Bob Jones University. Once again I want to commend and thank those folks for welcoming the kids of the Washington Center to their campus. It is an amazing experience and I would encourage all of our readers to either attend or volunteer for one of these some day.

After the opening ceremony MeMa (my mom) yells so loud that she gets Ben's attention. He looked directly at his family and they got this response! Andrea, one of his new friends poses with him.

Let the games begin! Andrea and Brittany help facilitate Ben's activities.

As you can see Ben had a blast!

Ben has a need for speed.

The faster the better for Ben.

Ben receives his bling!

Parents and BJU students cheer the athletes during the Parade of Champions!