Hi Guys!

What a great weekend we had here in Southern California. The weather was nice, the sun was out in December and I went to lunch down near San Diego with Bonner Paddock and John Quinn, two very inspiring people who have Cerebral Palsy. I feel lucky to know them! For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bonner, he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise money for kids with disabilities and is now on track to be the first person with CP to do an Iron Man! John wrote a book about his struggle to keep his CP a secret in the Navy, and has ran several marathons as well! To find out more about their stories, see my Resources to the right of this post and you can buy John’s book and donate to Bonners cause.   Both Bonner and John are great examples of living life without limits. It makes me want to get out there and challenge myself physically…. maybe I’ll come up with somethin one of these days :p I had a very nice time talking with John about how he has dealt with CP and his world travels from his time in the Navy. It was great to get a chance to catch up with Bonner on his Iron Man training too! I think it’s awesome we all can relate to each other with our CP and really support one another in the present, and in our future adventures and causes. Thanks to John and Bonner for a fun afternoon, I look forward to next time!

As for tomorrow, if all goes as planned I’m going to stop by UCP-OC in the morning to talk about the Friday Night Club for teens and catch up with Elizabeth the Marketing Director at the center! I think it will be a great opportunity to get the word out to local teens who have a disability and would be interested in joining the fun. The night that I went to was a great experience for me because I still havent met that many teens with CP, so I look forward to more of these nights where I get to connect with others like me. It will also be a great way to spread awareness to the community and show that disabled teens like to have fun and socialize just like everyone else!I feel like that fact sometimes gets lost at first glance with some disabled teens, because maybe we don’t move or speak the same way a normal teen does or but that’s why awareness is so important and the Friday Night Club at the center is a great example of that.

Well that’s all for now, I’m off to wrap some Christmas gifts…so fun! I hope you all had a great weekend and get to relax a little over the holidays. Happy Holidays!

Stay cool TeenCPers–Katy