White Rock Marathon Weekend - Friday

Our hotel had an outdoor heated pool. Will loved night swimming - especially since the big Reunion Tower ball was right over our heads!

Playing hide and seek at dinner Friday night kept him occuppied... and took some serious creativity on his table mates' part to look for him... when it was quite obvious where he was hiding.

As soon as we got to Dallas Friday morning, we headed for Texas Scottish Rite Children's Hospital for the "Autograph Party."

We have so much fun every year at this party!

Will came dressed as Santa & it felt like the paparazi as various photographers/news people/etc took pictures & filmed him. He was totally in character as he said "ho ho ho - Happy Christmas Day!"

Here he is getting autographs from some patient champions & also some elite athletes -

the guy in the gray shirt is Rudy Garcia-Tolson - bilateral amputee (wears prosthetics on both legs) who has 2 GOLD medals from the Bejing Olympics in swimming! He also just completed an Ironman triathalon last month & set a record as the first amputee to do so!

The little boy to the left of Rudy is Cody - a little friend of Will's who has been on Oprah & Ellen & is hilarious! Cody is a double amputee (legs). (fyi - for reference, Will is considered a "quad congenital amputee")

To the right of Cody, is Justin Meadors. Justin was injured riding a motorcycle and could hardly be described as being "confined" to a wheelchair. He is an elite athlete & raced in a wheelchair in the marathon.

Will is going to have such a cool, sports themed room with all of his professional, elite athletess autographs!

That would be Will in the Santa suit.

He demonstrated his running skills for the elite athletes- including the Kenyans who won...

I'm sure he will be so proud someday of how he showed off to them! :)

High fives & more autographs

Shaking hands with Dick Beardsley- winner of the 1982 Boston Marathon with a 2:02 finish! A big time celebrity elite athlete!

Flirting & posing with Jak (she is also a TSRHC patient & was jr. race director 2 years ago when Will was a patient champion.)

This precious girl is fast becoming friends with Will. They were cabinmates at camp this past summer & played together at the Nick Vujicic event last week. They had a blast playing chase & tickle & train at Scottish Rite Friday morning. Reena is also a patient & is 11 months older than Will. She has hand differences & is absolutely precious!

(Just wait til you see the cute pic I have of them on Saturday!)

The Santas...

Will loved seeing another Santa & especially liked his beard.

Will doesn't really have any concept of Santa yet other than someone fun to dress up as at this time of year. He doesn't understand the whole presents thing from some random man in red but he has heard girls ask him for dolls (when he is dressed up as SC) so now whenever anyone asks him what he wants from Santa, he says "a doll."

More Race Pics coming soon!!!