today is race day

i woke up this morning at the bright hour of 6:00am. ordinarily getting up this early would make me groan. today i rose and reminded myself that today was race day. the race day. the day we had been talking about, thinking about, hoping for, and praying for. today was Aiden's Run. Aiden is a sweet little boy who has MPS, Hunter's Syndrome. the challenges his family faces are great. the financial needs this family has in one year just because of medical bills far exceeds what most of us make in five years time.

so i went through my house waking my family. i laid in bed with monkey and princess, who had a sleepover. i stroked their hair and spoke softly reminding them that today was the day. i laid there thanking God that my kids are healthy. i laid there praying for God to have His hand in this day.

with that, i prepared my family for the day. we dressed in our support Aiden t-shirts. monkey and i donned our cub scout uniforms as we were working the registration and water tables with our cub scout pack. away we went with all the energy that God had given us at the early hour to help Aiden.

we got the race ready. we posted signs. we prepared the raffle. our kids played with all of the others, Aiden included. we put out water and boxes of fruit. we readied the place and ourselves for this little race to help Aiden and his family.

oh my, God really did have His hand in this day. when we started the planning, we hoped for 100 runners. going into today, we had 210 pre-registered runners. on site, we had 57 more runners register. 267 people came out and paid money to run 3.1 miles all for this little boy and his family.

this day gave athlete boy the opportunity to run his first ever 5K. he is built to be a runner. we have to be careful with the distance we allow him to run because he is still growing and we don't want to damage his growth plates. 5K is the longest race we will allow him to race right now. he was ready and, he is a fast runner. needless to say, athlete boy won his age division. i am so proud. i am also reminded how blessed i am to have healthy children.

as for the rest of my gang, they got involved as well. princess ran the kids race(half mile). she is proud to have her kiddie medal. monkey helped pass out water to all the runners. monkey and i along with some of the other scouts ran the last 2/3 mile of the race after the last runner/walker passed. as for husband, he ran the 5K race too. he finished right on 30 minutes.

this was a wonderful family day. i am reminded of the blessing that i have with healthy children. i am also reminded that the limitations that others have do not define who they are. while Aiden is sick and the race was for his benefit, he is just a little boy with challenges. he is a little boy with a great big smile.

to learn more about how you can help aiden and his family visit http://www.supportaiden.com/.