For the 1st time in our marriage and the 2nd time since we’ve been together, Cody went away for a weekend. He graciously accompanied my little brother to a Tennis Camp in Dallas. For those that don’t know, my little brother, Anthony/Tony, is special needs {he’s an high functioning Autistic 22 year old}. Lucky for our family, we recently found a day camp that he can attend, The Raj Hope Foundation. On this particular weekend they arranged for the group to go to Dallas to train with professional tennis players and stay at the country club {so cool}!
Here is Cody’s rendition of his weekend:
The day started with us piling into the Raj Foundation bus and I could only image the fun we were going to have. As Bruce, Ashlynn, Jenny, Tony, and I head out, I was thinking I would need to “entertain,” but that wasn’t anywhere near the situation!! Ashlynn fell right to sleep, Jenny was jamming on her ipod, and Tony read a book. This let me and Bruce {Ashlynns dad} able to get to know one another. About an hour outside of Dallas the words “Dairy Queen ice cream,” woke Ashlynn up, the iPod turned off, and Tony closed his book. Everyone got to stretch their legs, enjoy some ice cream, me a burger, and Tony some tacos, haha. Once we got to the Hotel and inside our room, we found ourselves in basically a nice one bedroom apartment with a kitchenette!! The first think we had to do once we got there, was participate in a "Skills," class, which taught the kids/adults the basics of tennis
After skills class and some R&R, we met in the lobby for dinner at Salt Grass (remember Tony and I just ate less than 2 hours ago!) Tony had to have the shrimp and I got a chicken fried steak. It was delicious!
Now Saturday morning has come around and its free breakfast so we take advantage of it J. Eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, you name it!! Tony had to get fueled for his 1st day of Tennis, which was playing singles, and he was looking very stylish in his new fedora.
If you’ve never been to a special Olympics… GO!! It is the most fun you will ever have! Your face will hurt from smiling and laughing with everyone. After the end of day 1 and couple of hard loses we head back to the hotel where the kids had a choice of swimming or going to a dance. Tony wanted to swim so we head over to pool with a few other kids. After a good hour of soaking it up in the hot tub he want to go over to the dance to, “check it out.” Now this is something you have to go to see as well. These kids have some moves, haha.
All great things come to an end and the dance did at 10 L, so we head back to our hotel room to get ready for bed since we had to wake up early. Unfortunately, Tony didn’t take his medication until 10:30 at night, the side effect… DROWSINESS!! I woke Tony up after my shower at 6:15, he sat straight up but still had his eyes closed. At 6:20 he was laid back down and covered back up! I yelled, “TONY!” He popped his head up (eyes still closed). He reluctantly plated his feet onto the floor, yes, eyes still closed, haha. Now that I have him out of the bed and getting ready I can start getting all our stuff together so we can leave. He goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth but I don’t hear anything, for a long time... HE IS SLEEPING STANDING UP!! Hahaha… Once we finally started moving around and got out of the room, we ate some breakfast and then headed to the tennis courts where it is a doubles day. After waking Tony up from the couch in the club house he went out to play his doubles match.
With another day full of fun, laughs, and with a couple more tough loses, we headed back to the hotel to change for the award ceremony, dinner, and raffle.
We were served delicious burgers and fries while Miss Texas Universal Dream Queen, the guest speaker, gave a speech on being true to yourself. The kids loved her! After her speech, she helped call out the tickets for the raffle, and wouldn’t you know it, Tony had his ticket called!! As he walked up to collect his prize he, of course, has Miss Texas stop calling out numbers so she can take a picture with him, haha. {smooth move Anthony!}.
It was such a great weekend and I would do it again in a heartbeat!!
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