Where There's a WILL, There's a Way! (2012)

We had a great weekend raising awareness and funds to support our favorite hospital - Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Kids.

We changed things up a bit this year and cancelled our pre-party on Saturday.

Events began bright and early Sunday morning.  R headed to the start line for the Dallas Marathon.

Lovie & Cookie set up our tent and banner (with lots of help from the Hills!)  & Will & Ellie I just got to show up.

This was the first year that the marathon has gone by TSRHC.  We were so excited to have our hospital on the route and hoped it would be more meaningful for the runners as well - since the marathon benefits Scottish Rite.

Lots of patients came down to watch and several other patient families were in the yard along with staff from the hospital and board members and a fun band, appropriately named, "Doctor, Doctor!"

We had a super close up viewing of the elite runners!

Will & Ellie made signs for Daddy & for the other runners.

Will's sign says, "Thank you for running for me."

I don't know these people but I thought their signs were hilarious.

Apparently some were not so family friendly but I didn't actually realize that until several hours later when I was quoting them out loud to my husband and he explained to his rather naive wife what the meanings were.

They were very creative.

Go, Runners, Go!

 We also had a great viewing spot to watch many of our team as they came by!

Claire & Ryan are newly engaged.  She is a long time friend (on this blog a lot!) & OT at the hospital.  Ryan is a pedi ortho surgeon.

They recently asked me to be a bridesmaid (yay!) & Will to be their ring bearer!!!  (YAHOOO!!!)

Ryan flew in from KY for the race.

(Ok. Maybe he flew in to see his finance.  But I'm sure the race was almost as important to him.)

More Will runners!

Go Steven R & Ken W!

Will was pretty sure he was going to run the whole thing.  In fact, whenever he was asked about the race, he insisted he was going to be running a marathon on Sunday morning.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that a few hundred yards does not quite equal 26.2 miles.

He ran with his Daddy around the hospital portion of the race.

(He insisted on not wearing his prosthetics as he is much faster without them.)

It's kind of like extreme barefoot running.

(I just noticed that random guy clapping for my kiddo.  Makes me really proud.  And kind of weepy.)

Man, I love this race.

Something that was really cool was frequently, runners would actually stop and come behind the blockades to high-five Will.

Wow.

Just wow!

We didn't know them but they made an effort to high five my kiddo.

 And lots and lots of runners slowed down to high five him from the side lines.

yay!  More Will runners!

Go Hills!!!

We don't know this guy.  But he was running his first marathon and stopped to ask us if he could take a picture with Will.

Have I mentioned that I love this race?  It does so much to raise awareness and really celebrate our kiddos.

Thanks, random people, for stopping to celebrate my child.  Thank you for seeing him.  Thank you for high fives and smiles and cheers.  Thank you for running for kids with differences.

You encouraged this mama's heart.

a little game of frisbee with Lovie

(because marathons are kind of long.)

Unfortunately, we were unable to see all of our runners from our viewing point at mile 5.5.  (Sorry we missed you, Joy!!  Thanks for running!)

We did see some faces we weren't expecting.  And it was super fun to finally meet in real life and hug a blog friend - Paula!

We headed to the finish line and met up with some of our team there-

Wow!  That's a lot of medals!

Thanks for running for Will & the kids of Scottish Rite Hospital!

We appreciate you!

At the EXPO center on Saturday, Will was filmed to be featured in the race broadcast as one of the "Legacy Stories."  He was featured in 2007 as a 3 month old so they wanted to re-run his original story with a little follow up to how he is doing now.

They quickly filmed him running and he gladly showed off.

After the cameras were gone, the race director of the marathon, Marcus, spotted us and challenged Will to a race.

Will accepted that challenge.

And I filmed it.

Enjoy!

Will vs Marcus (Dallas Marathon Race Director)

Also - I don't have final numbers yet... but I believe we raised DOUBLE our goal of $5,139!

Pretty sure we raised nearly $12,000!!!

THANK YOU!!!