Walk for Williams

We held a Walk for Williams Syndrome here in Lafayette on May 5th. We have been lucky enough to participate in a walk every year since Dallin was diagnosed with Williams Syndrome over 2 years ago. This year was different though because we were actually involved in the planning and hosting of the walk, rather than just attendants. You may recall that another local family has a daughter with WS and Dallin was on the news with her last year. Dallin and Kendal are in the same class in preschool so they get to see each other often. When Kendal's mom asked me if we wanted to help her put on a walk here in Lafayette, I knew we had to do it. There was a lot of work and planning that went into it, but the walk was a great success. Our goal was to raise $2500 and we got almost twice that amount! Not bad for our little city. We had a lot of people come and I hope we raised a lot of awareness.

Dallin loved that so many people were there and was excited to see old friends from last year.

Mckay and Kendal's dad held the banner as we walked around the park.

Dallin and Kendal rode right behind the banner in a wagon.

They were laughing and having a good time while we walked. They started a "game" where Dallin would make noises and Kendal would laugh hysterically. Oh the joys of being 3 years old. 

Here's a picture of all the people with WS and their families.

 

Connor was sleeping so he's not in this picture, but I promise he was there.

He spent most of the day just like this in his stroller.

We had a free lunch provided by many local restaurants and sponsors.

 Two of the fingers broke on my cookie, but it still looked pretty cool.

 Andy the Armadillo from Texas Roadhouse came to take pictures with the kids.

Dallin was uninterested. He looked at Andy for a few seconds and then walked away.

There was a face painter. Dallin wouldn't keep his head up.

Frito Lay donated 500 bags of chips. Dallin ate a few bags himself.

We had a raffle drawing and a silent auction. Dallin got to pull out a few names for the raffle.

This was one of my projects for the walk: making the donation box.

 The 4 sides of the box had pictures of people with WS.

A police car stopped by and the officer let the kids sit in the car, turn on the lights and look around.

 We told Dallin this was the only time he was allowed to be in a police car.

 (Anyone notice that Connor is wearing the same outfit that Dallin wore at his first walk? I may have planned that...)

 We had such a great time. We are so lucky to have many wonderful friends and family that support us and love our son.