EE Newsletter: December 25, 2014 |
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Friends: Preparation for the
last racing events of the year began with some bike and run training on
November 9. We did this in the desert in order to get the older kids ready
for the HITS events in La Quinta. (There was also swim training by coach
Ben Hobbins but we don’t have photos.)
Nothing
like a good photobomb:
HITS
itself took place on December 7, and was a great success.
Some
of the kids had never done an open water swim
“Just show me where the water is.”
Natalie:
“Relax: We were well trained!” Garry
has his game face on coming out of the water. Kids
got pretty excited when these guys wandered into the area. Enrique,
who is becoming quite the athlete (more later), took second. The Tinsel Tri was on
December 14 in Hemet, CA. This is a fun event in which participants dress
up in all kinds of crazy costumes. A
little surprise from Mother Nature the night before, Speaking
of photobombs, leave it to Glenn:
Ian
moved up a few places with an aggressive swim: The
kids grabbed a ton of medals. Here’s Johanna with the mayor of Hemet: Enrique
discovered one of the side benefits of winning: Don Reilly and his son
Frank, founders and owners of Reilly Financial Services in San Diego, are
long-time donors to EE. Several years ago they started an annual tradition
of sending ten kids to Disneyland with tickets that let them go back and
forth between both parks, the original and California Adventure. It’s
always been a problem getting photos – who wants to stop the fun and
take any? – but this year April Buell managed to snag a couple.
On December 20 it was
on to the Santa Paws run in Palm Springs, a charity event benefiting Guide
Dogs of the Desert. It’s put on by our friend Molly Thorpe, who gives
every single athlete a Santa Claus suit to run in. So
there are St. Nicks and dogs all over the place. (These photos were taken
by Jacque Irons.)
But
here’s the big news: Enrique Campos was the overall winner of
***************** The last event of the
year is always the EE Awards & Recognition Party, and this year’s
was a lulu. We had a record crowd and Cherie gave out more well-deserved
awards than ever before.
Here are a couple of
highlights, but be sure to take a look at the whole gallery to get the
full story of what all of these kids accomplished this year. Cherie
gave brothers Ahris and Arian her 2014 Ironman World Championship medal Nik
Keller, who graduated UC San Diego last year and is now a working man, Longtime
EE supporter David Martin pledged support of Anthony Patterson’s And
speaking of higher education, a rare shot
"Thanks, as always. for the ongoing support that makes all of this possible. And a happy, healthy and safe holiday to you and your families."
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