My brother Erik has been doing Special Olympics since he was 8, and he is now 24. That’s 16 years! When he was younger he did more sports than he does now. He used to do track, baseball, bowling, basketball, maybe soccer, and he did swimming a couple of times. Now, he just sticks with doing bowling and basketball, because they are his two favorite. I love the fact that he does basketball because basketball is my favorite sport. It gives us something in common. Swimming wasn’t his fun for him because he just likes to swim around, not swim against someone else in a race. He isn’t too much of a competitive person.

Erik is actually really good at bowling and got a gold medal this year. I like watching him in this sport because he is good. Basketball though, is his number one, favorite sport. The team he is on practices in Lynden at the middle school on Saturdays from 4-6 in the afternoon. I go along to help volunteer. Erik’s team is the top level of three teams. You could sort of compare it to our Varsity vs. J.V. and C-teams. They are a really good team, and win basically all of their games, which is nice because then they go to state. To get to state, they need a gold medal. Previous years, it was if they got gold, silver, or bronze medals then they could go. I love being able to go to Erik’s state games because it is held in Wenatchee. Wenatchee is nice because it is not too far away, but far enough. Driving four hours to stay from Friday night to Sunday night can be a lot of fun, and relaxing and it actually goes by fairly quickly. His games are spread out between Saturday and Sunday depending on teams winning/losing.


When they get gold medals Erik is always so happy, which makes everyone around him happy too. Even if he doesn’t play the whole game, he still gets chances to shoot the ball. Whenever he makes a basket, it is like the highlight of the day for him because he doesn’t stop talking about it. When we go to church the following week, he always has his new medal on so he can show it off to all the people there.

Since we go just about every year, and then sometimes during the summer, we got to know this lady who works at the Mongolian grill. We always stop there to eat once we get to Wenatchee. At first, she worked at the restaurant next to our hotel and then got a job at the grill. It’s always fun meeting people and becoming friends with them when you go somewhere new.