Seattle and More

August 23, 2012 Kyle Pease

My good buddy Ben, who also chairs the board for the Kyle Pease Foundation, asked me to go to Seattle and watch his team participate in an ultimate frisbee tournament. This was also a good opportunity for me to see one of my aides, Carla, who I have not seen in nine months since she has been on rotation for her PT school there. I was also able to reconnect with my friends, Noa and Julie, who I had not seen in over 11 years.

I met Noa and Julie at a United Cerebral Palsy camp in Connecticut when I was 14. This camp was one of the first times I was away from home, and Noa took me under his wing. We developed an awesome friendship. I went to their wedding and visited them a couple times in Boston when Noa was in med school.

Back to Seattle...I was in my manuel wheelchair, so Noa had to transfer me quite a bit. There was a lot of laughs and a lot of screeching the first couple times. But by the end he was a pro's pro. We saw some major attractions of Seattle such as the Space Needle, a tour of Safeco Field, and, of course, Gas Works, a beautiful public park. It was so good to see everybody. It was just like old times.

This past weekend was also exciting for my Foundation as our Board of Directors got together for a weekend retreat. We’ve made a lot of strides since our inception a year and a half ago and it’s been on display a lot over the past few months; we’ve had a number of kids participating in various races locally under KPF and just last month sent Christina Young to the National Junior Disabilities Championships . With our weekend retreat, we spent time getting to know each other better and worked with a third party facilitator to help us focus our efforts and make sure we’re operating in the most efficient way possible. We’re already seeing some great results and are excited about the growth of the Foundation. More to come soon!!

We are about to enter the fall portion of our season, which started this past Saturday with a nice little 4 miler. I was actually second place male in the 25-29 category and 5th place overall!!! No wheelchair division needed! After that, we will take some more time off while Brent does his Louisville Ironman. Please wish him well as he has trained for this for almost a year. I know he will do great. I will be tweeting live from Louisville, so make sure you are following Walking With KPeasey on Twitter. Thanks again for all of your support.

-KPeasey