Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Walk Now for Autism Speaks and Halloween!

We went to Phoenix for the Halloween weekend to participate in Walk Now for Autism Speaks, and it was great! Thanks again to everyone who supported us with donations to our walk sites. Between Stew and I we raised over $2000.00 with your help for genetic research into the causes and possible cure for autism. Go Team Tallulah!

They girls had a great time. We stayed at Lu's favorite hotel in Phoenix, Hilton's The Pointe at Tapitio Cliffs which has an awesome water village for the girls to swim in. We ate at our favorite restaurant, Stingray's for sushi and got to see Auntie Anya for dinner. Then on Saturday we went straight to the Tempe Lake Park, found some parking, met up with Kayla and went in to enjoy the festivities.



Lu was a bit overwhelmed by all that was going on, but particularly liked the dance troupes and the assistive dogs. We spent most of the two hours before the walk watching Lu dance along with the girls and petting dogs. Unfortunately we didn't make it to too many of the vendor tents around, but such is life.




The walk itself was lovely, out onto one bridge over the water, down and around awhile on the other bank, and then back over another bridge and back to the park. Myffy rode in the stroller the whole time, but Lu actually did quite a bit of walking with us at first. After the first bridge she started to tire and then we took turns carrying her and encouraging her to walk a bit more. I think if she hadn't done quite so much dancing and running around to get back to the dogs she might have actually made it the whole way!

After the walk we went to Kayla's family's house for an awesome BBQ, the most amazing Halloween cookies I've ever seen and some good conversation. Then we loaded the girls into the car and they were asleep almost before we pulled out of the driveway.


We went back to the hotel, all rested up a bit, went for another awesome swim, and then put the girls into the Halloween costumes I got thinking we'd be trick or treating in Flagstaff (warmer costumes) and took them out to dinner.







Luckily all the staff at Stingray's were dressed up too and everyone appreciated the girls' costumes, which was nice since we didn't actually have anywhere to take them for real trick or treating. But no matter! They were happy and satisfied and next year we'll try to figure out somewhere for them to go trick or treating!

(BTW, Myffy is an elephant and Lu is a bunny)

1 comment:

Teddy said...

Hello Jen! Oh, I'm so happy you guys had such a great time down there. We really wanted to go but Race had a special speaking part at church. He did so awesome! Do you think they'll have another one in April for Autism month?