AND NOW…

FROM THE JOURNAL OF KATIE STEIDER

Wednesday July 31, 2002

Greetings from the University of Maryland! This morning I had a 6:30 am practice so please excuse my occasional yawns! (*YAWN*) Two days to go until my events and I am really excited about swimming them but of course nervous about the actual racing against so many older and faster than me. I will try my absolute hardest though.

Did you see us last night at the opening ceremonies? If you didn’t, we were the all-different color balloon people, not the green and purple grapes. People kept trying to pop us but I guess the temptation was just too great to pop balloons. There were tons of costumes like Indians, Air Force and Military personnel, grapes, hillbillies, Romans, and one team even dressed up as nerds, you know, broken glasses, plaid shirts, suspenders, and longs socks with short pants. My favorite costume though, was the Gatorade bottles. They had bright orange laundry baskets over their heads as the caps and put the Gatorade logo on the front of the cylindrical material structure that was the bottle. They even made up nicknames for themselves that could very well be the next Gatorade flavor.

The ceremony was short, a prayer, a none too lengthy speech, and, of course, the dancing to YMCA, but very well done and nice. After the ceremony, the Special Olympics swimmers swam. It was a very special moment as everyone clapped to help bring the swimmers into the wall. There was so much support.

Since we still had some balloons left on our shirts, our team popped each other by bumping together or poking each other with pins. I tried to save mine but I decided not to later and let one of my friends throw pins at them. The remaining balloons I set free into the wind! It was so fun although some popped in the heat before hand.

Well I gotta go to the National Zoo! Hip, hip, hooray! I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

T.T.F.N. Ta Ta For Now!

Tigger

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for more of…

FROM THE JOURNAL OF KATIE STEIDER