Strongest Dad in the World...

This has been floating around the email world for some time now, so some of you may have seen it already. If not, grab the tissues people and make sure you watch the video at the end...


Strongest Dad in the World [From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

Those of you that know me know that I strive to be an outstanding father. I give my kids mulligans, work to pay for their firewalks, and take them onthe road with me whenever I can. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I 'm lame.Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles inmarathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchairbut also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and oncehauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right? And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick wasstrangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. `He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution.''But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followedthem around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boycommunicate."No way,'' Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lotwas going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? `Go Bruins!''And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and theschool organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.'' Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried."Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks.'' That day changed Rick's life. "Dad,'' he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabledanymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rickwere ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon ."No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive crowd and ran anyway,then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the followingyear. Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be abuzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think? Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way,'' he says.Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with acantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together. This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happensto be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time. ``No question about it,'' Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century.'' And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years agohe had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in away, Dick and Rick saved each other's life. Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston , and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland , Mass. , always find ways to be together. They givespeeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day. That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can neverbuy. "The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''I call this "never underestimate a fathers love" ~

Here's the video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ

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Home Cookin' ...

...theres nothing like it! Our church has been so good to us, this is our first home cooked meal since we've been in our new place! (which has only been 3 days...) but we needed it!!
Special thanks to the Hunter Family!
The place is coming along. Kitchen is finished, 2 more weeks and we'll have counter tops and a sink!! Then we can actually start cooking ourselves! Hurricane windows are in and the washer/dryer is being installed today! This weekend the knock down will get done and then its time to paint...yea! Finally it's on to the bathrooms (one at a time ofcourse) and all of those little cosmetic things and then we're done! Coming down to home stretch...

We'll keep you updated, and post all of the pictures when we're finished!!


Teddy and Teresa

xoxo