SPECIAL OLYMPICS

Friday was Special Olympics for our county. It was held about 30 miles away on the campus of our local jr. college. I work at a grade school as an aid working with kindergarten through 2nd grade special education kids, and I LOVE it! The kids had been training for weeks to participate in their events: running and softball throw.
So when I arrived at school on Friday morning I hurriedly made all of us staff "coach" name tags before the kids arrived, then it was quick trips to the bathroom and getting everyone plus all our stuff loaded onto the bus. On the bus ride over the little girl who was sitting next me unbuckled my seat and her seat belt each about 90 times in 20ish minutes and I finally had to hold her buckle so she couldn't touch the button. I spent the rest of the time entertaining her by singing our color songs...over and over..."y-e-l-l-o-w spells yellow, y-e-l-l-o-w spells yellow, it's like the early morning sun when the day has just begun...." and so on.
When we arrived roughly 20 mins late because of traffic we had to head right into opening ceremonies which was in their main gym. They announced our school and the crowd went wild...it was so cool. Then the kids walked down the line of police officers and other VIP's and gave high fives (I had to tell the girl I was with: "high five, high five, high five, high five..." for each person otherwise she wouldn't do it). Opening ceremonies was amazing. They had a young adult girl with downs syndrome sing the national anthem, she did such an great job and the crowd went wild! She loved it.
When opening ceremonies was over we headed to the track because our girls raced in one of the first races. One of the races where three of our girl students raced was hilarious because there was nobody they knew at the finish like so the just kept going....and the teacher from our class room had to take off after them....one girl didn't stop until she got to the other side of the track where another race was going on and she arrived at the wall of people getting the racers ready. The girl that I was with raced by herself because she was in her own category. It was so cute because she was slow but because she was racing against herself she got to burst through the ribbon at the end of the race and she was sooooooo excited. After her races we headed back to meet the rest of our group for lunch.
After lunch since the little girl I was in charge of had run two races instead of throwing soft ball (she was unable to do it) we headed for "tent city" where she was able to play games, get her picture taken on a motorcycle, visit the petting zoo and hold a bunny (she was squealing with delight it was so exciting), and get a free ice cream bar! Later when all of the other kids joined us they went over to the booth of a local radio station that was playing music and did some dancing with other and some more severely handicapped athletes, so cute! They all loved it and I had a great time too even though I was worn out from all the sunshine and fun in the sun.