Along for the Ride of a Lifetime: Let the Adventure Begin: An Illustrated Blog

Friday March 11: Welcome and Introductions

Making New Friends

Our First Session: Disability Pride

Getting to Know One Another

Ice Breaker with Fruit Snacks

We learned about everyone's likes and dislikes using fruit snacks. One color represented favorite foods, another favorite places to travel, and the last one represented hobbies.

Deep in Thought

Saturday March 12: Networking, Judging, Painting, and Fun Times

Saturday was packed full of various activities ranging from a networking session with Ms. Wheelchair America 2016, Dr. Alette Coble-Temple to two judging sessions that were akin to a very official job interview and an advocacy session to a paint therapy session to a "Blessing Bags" experience even to a pajama party for the adults for a little stress relief before the "big" day. It was a welcome retreat from the events of the day, especially the intense interviews with the judges. They were nice enough and they tried to make it as relaxed as they could. It was just a lot questions to think about and process. The question that really stumped me was, "If you had 1 minute on CNN, what would you say?" and I couldn't think of anything under pressure ;-).

The Judges

Preparing for Our Interviews

Found out I'm not much of a painter, but I still had fun doing it ;-)

The Little Miss contestants, however, are quite the artists ;-)

Filling "Blessing Bags"

We had the privilege to fill bags with hygiene items to be handed out to those in need. Since then, I have heard that one of the bags went to a woman who came to the shelter with nothing and another went to a woman and her 3 sons who lost everything in a fire. I feel so blessed and grateful to have been a part of that as a reminder to shift the focus off of what I'm going through and, instead, think of others as more important than myself!

Sunday, March 13: The Crowning

We also gained a future MWKS supporter that day as my niece Hannah received her crown from MWA 2016. My nerves were so frazzled that morning I could hardly eat, but it was all worth it in the end! :-)