My Powerlifter, Captain America

We have had a great weekend here.

The highlight of our weekend has to be that Joshua won 3 GOLD medals in Special Olympics on Saturday!

I guess if Joshua was writing this, he would say it was the "high light hash tag" of the weekend. :)

Clark had the ACT on Saturday morning. Jim and I talked about it and agreed that I should stay here. So, Jim, Joshua and I got up at 5, and Jim and Joshua were out the door by 5:35.

As in A.M.

As in, MAN, it's early!

The Powerlifting venue was about 2 hours and 15 minutes away from our home. Their plan was to stop for breakfast about 45 minutes up the road, but the Chick-Fil-A wasn't open yet. Joshua said, "uhhh...well...Chick didn't open til 6:30, and it was 6:19...so we just kept driving."

They ended up going through a drive-thru and sharing a breakfast biscuit. They made it to the competition venue safe and sound and ONE HOUR EARLY. They were not too thrilled about that...but Jim never could get confirmation on the time. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

I realize this is probably very boring, but I was SICK that I wasn't there to enjoy every minute of it, so I have to remember it by the details they shared.

For Joshua's competition, he wears this weight-lifting suit that he got when he went to the National Special Olympics games in 2006. It's one piece and red and very tight-fitting. It's supposed to be that way. All of the athletes, boys and girls...

But especially the boys...

And the girls...

Are strongly encouraged to wear shorts OVER their suit.

Trust me on this...we all want them to wear shorts over their suits.

Joshua also typically wears some sort of compression shirt under his weight-lifting suit as well. This year, Holly got him a "Captain America" shirt. It's tight-fitting and blue, with the big Captain America star on it.

HE. LOVES. IT.

Jim said the announcer guy kept announcing Joshua as Captain America. So cute!

Joshua weighed in at 119 pounds. He bench-pressed 150 pounds, and dead-lifted 200 pounds. He was 19 pounds short of lifting his own body weight. He is amazing!

He won 3 GOLD medals and was so happy! Clark's girlfriend and one of her friends were there for the awards ceremony. It was great to have them cheering for him and taking his picture.

After he got his medals, he changed into a shirt that Clark and Faith had gotten him.

I forgot to mention that before the meet, he was warming up wearing his "Anytime Fitness" shirt that the guy at the gym gave him. Jim took a picture of Joshua wearing the shirt...so he could show the guy from the gym.

If you're keeping up, that's 3 shirts...in about a 7 1/2 hour time-span.

It makes me happy that everyone is so kind to Joshua.

I stayed here with Clark. Since I was already up and around, I just stayed up until Clark got up...which was around 7 a.m. His ACT test was at 8 a.m.

And then I went back to bed and slept for 4 more hours I worked on answering some emails and did several loads of laundry and cleaned up my kitchen...real exciting stuff like that.

Clark got home and we had lunch...and then Jim and Joshua were home mid-afternoon. Jim had a nice nap, and then we all went to an early dinner and came home. Everyone was tired.

TRIED, if you will.

Today was our church's last Sunday at our downtown campus. We are moving to our new campus west of town, and leaving our old church buildings to be used as a ministry center for several other churches in town. The pastor and staff asked everyone to wear jeans and be ready to move items immediately following the service. I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I've worn PANTS...much less JEANS...to church on Sundays in the past 7 years or so.

NOTTHATTHERESANYTHINGWRONGWITHTHAT.

My kids certainly have worn jeans on occasion...it's just me. I love wearing dresses. I do. And probably the fact that I'm a stay-at-home wife and my days are mostly yoga-type pants and jeans, I like dressing up a little more for Sundays. It's the way I was raised.

But I wore jeans and the walls of the church did not fall down. Wonders never cease!

They let the visitors leave after the service, and then divided our congregation right down the middle. One half went to the new campus and ate lunch, while the other half emptied rooms and loaded stuff on the trailers. And men brought their pick-ups with trailers on the back. They lined up all the way around our church campus, as people loaded everything from books and silk trees...to tables, chairs, desks and sound equipment. When everything was loaded, the trucks took off to the new place...and our half of the congregation did, too...and then it was our turn to have our lunch while the other group unloaded.

It was awesome.

After lunch, we had a short choir practice...so the worship leader could check lights, sound, mics, etc. All the while, in the background, we could see people milling around...still helping. It was really neat. I got choked up at one point. As we were singing, this elderly gentlemen came walking through the sanctuary carrying a box. He stopped dead in his tracks, and I could see him...all the way at the back...singing along with us, "Great is Your faithfulness, O God. You use the weak to lead the strong..."

Amazing.

And, as I was typing this tonight, we have been having bad and stormy weather. All of a sudden, it was light outside and Jim said, "WOW! A double rainbow!" And the 3 of us bolted outside. We could see the entire rainbow, end-to-end...big and bright.

Like the rainbow scar on Clark's tummy...a reminder of God's great faithfulness.

"Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heaven, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies." Psalm 36:5