First, Zach, you are doing soooo amazing and we are all proud of you back here in Norfolk!!!  I can't wait for 4 years from now because you will rule!!!  I've had another eventful couple of days:)  You've likely noticed my "Why Lake Ontario?" paragraph on my Home Page.  People have been asking why that lake and not the one right here.  Well, read my paragraph and click on the link and you will see why:-)  I've had a few more sponsors the last couple of days.  I have to thank Mr. Dewdney and the St.Williams Lions for contacting us and for their generous gift!  Also, you'll see we've had to add a Platinum Sponsor level.  To that level has been added Bridge Yacht in Port Dover!  Mr. Laevens is one of the nicest people I have ever met and I have to thank him from the bottom of my heart for taking care of all my Zodiac needs!  Your kindness is amazing and I hope you don't mind me saying so publically, as I know how humble of a man you are!!!  Thank you so much and I really look forward to working with the people at Bridge Yacht:)  I think I have my 'on the water' crew all lined up now.  I just have to confirm a couple of more people, and yes Roddy, you're in!!!! That's all for now!  Bye!

This post is for my "Big Brother" Michael Heath who last night qualified for the paralympic games in London, England in the 100 Breaststroke!  I don't know if any of you happened to see it on SN last night, but he was amazing!  Way to go Mike!  It's been a long journey and I hope you and your mom have a great time in London!!!  TTYS:)

I know, I know, it's been too long since my last post!!!  Things are so crazy that the days just fly by!  This week I got to meet with Donna from the Port Dover Maple Leaf.  We had a nice interview and then she took a picture of me at the beach!  Speaking of which, what an incredible week of weather last week!  You should have seen all the people on the beach Tuesday when they took my picture, and the snow fences are still up!!!  Wednesday I was at CD 98.9 making my first 3 commercials ever:0  It was actually pretty cool and I wasn't near as nervous as when I was on with Gerry and Sheana!  I think it's because I knew that I wasn't live. They should be coming out on the radio very soon!  I cannot go any further without mentioning Zach Zona who is also part of the NHAC swim team and is at Olympic Trials in Montreal!!!  He is incredible and I had a great time over March break when only he and I were working out at the pool together!!!  GO ZACH GO!!!  I'm still in the pool 12 hours a week, but I wish I was in twice as long I love it sooooo much:)  Sunday I ran a 15k in about an hour and 15 minutes!  I had a great time and that's greatly thanks to my North Shore Runner family!!!  Yesterday (Monday) I was off to Brampton again to see Patty, my physiotherapist at Kings Cross.  She says my back has improved a lot in two weeks, so now she's added more excercises:0  We also met Mr. Thomas from the City of Toronto at Marilyn Bell Park yesterday.  What an incredibly nice man!  I appreciate all he is doing to help with my swim!!!  He has a 12 year old son with cancer and has been to Camp Trillium, so he really gets it!!!  He's getting it set up for me to promote Camp Trillium and my swim at Nathan Phillips Square outside city hall in Toronto one day this summer!  I guess this is what everyone meant by this "having a life of it's own"!!!!  I never thought I'd be promoting in Toronto, or even that anyone in Toronto would care what I was doing!!!  Mr.Thomas has so many contacts and I just hope we don't lean on him too much because he can help Camp Trillium so much through this!!!  We also went and saw Mr. Parras at the Canadian National Exhibition yesterday too!  He was very kind and is going to work with the CNE marketing to see if they can come up with a way to help!  At the very least he says they will put a link from the CNE website to mine!  So, can you say overwhelming?!?!  It's only two months into this and it so crazy!  What will it be like by August 17th???  I'm still only half way to my sponsorship needs, but a few other businesses have promised to help out.  Also Christine is working her magic too, so hopefully we'll see that rise soon and we can really move on fund raising for Camp Trillium!  Already we have had $2200 given for Trillium plus the pledge by Bachmanns!  It's a long way from my $30,000 goal, but there is lots of time yet:)

March Break is pretty well over and what a week I've had! I was at Tri-County Insurance on Wednesday morning and met some more wonderful people!  Mr. Keagan introduced me and also called CD 98.9 so that together we can make some bi-weekly or so advertisements!  I'm nervous about it, but with the excitement that the folks at Mckiee and Farrar and Tri-County have shown, how can I not be also looking forward to it!  We start recording those in the next week or so!  Wednesday I went to Kings Cross Physio in Brampton.  Coach Lisa wanted me to get an assessment done just to see where I`m at.  Apparently I do have some small issues still with my shoulder/back area, but nothing that will stop me from conquering Lake Ontario!  I have some strengthening exercises and I go back in a week and a half and will get more then.  This place is incredible!  They have a pool with currents!  They even asked if they could put up one of my posters!  Thursday I got to meet Gerry and Shaena at CD 98.9!  Yes I know I sounded nervous on the radio--well, actually I was!  It wasn't that bad though.  It sure was neat to see the inside of their radio station!  Gerry and Shaena are so nice too!  Perhaps I'll get to go back on, some other time down the road!  I also got an e-mail from Mr. Hill of the Friendship Festival this week and the Simcoe Rotary Club has made me their Parade Marshall for this year's festival!  Neat eh?!  Also they gave me a 10'X10' spot so I can promote the swim and Camp Trillium at the Friendship Festival in August (two weeks before the swim)!  We did some door to door work looking for sponsors this week too.  I hate doing that, but we need the sponsors to do this.  It's not the most fun thing to do because all these companies and businesses are always asked to give to charities and I don't think everyone is too happy to see me come in the door.  There are some that are incredible though and really want to help!  This is really about showing everyone about Norfolk and Tillsonburg and area so the more local sponsorship the better!  I can't wait until we get our $15000 in sponsorship so we just need to focus entirely on the funds for Camp Trillium:)  Another awesome thing that happened is my friend Christine who works for Bachmann Personal Injury Law says that BacHmann's are going to match up to $1000 what the area schools raise for Camp Trillium through my swim!!!!!  Now that kind of community effort is what will make it so I can reach my $30000 goal for Camp Trillium!!!  Thank you so much to Bachmann Personal Injury Law and the local schools who get involved with this challenge!!!  There are more sponsors on the horizon and I'll update you on them as they officially sign on.  I cannot do this without all of you!  Finally, I also had a birthday party on Saturday night to Sunday!  I really enjoyed myself girls, with practises and working out I don't get much time with my friends to hang out! It was great hanging out with all of u Helen.B,Helen.T, Kristin.S, Brianne,Courtlynne,Abi, Love you all and thanks for coming over!  I know this is long, and I likely should have wrote earlier, so I'll sign off for now:)

Well, I can now legally swim across Lake Ontario (the FINA and SSO rule is you must be 14 to do so)!!!  What a great day I had with my Aunt Lisa and her sister in-law Lisa!  We went shopping in Brantford for my birthday! It was awsome! I had SO much fun!!!It's also March break so no school.  It gives me time to work on learning the 107 Members of Provincial Parliament by name, face, riding, seat, etc., etc. for my time as a Page at Queen's Park!  Actually, I'm not doing too bad at it!  Anyhow, back to what else is new with my journey across Lake Ontario.  We're still working hard on the boats.  We've got nothing solid yet, but we may have a chance for the Zodiacs we need!  The big boats we are still looking for.  We have feelers out there but nothing yet!  Amazing how much there is to this!  It's a lot of work and I really thank those behind the scene who are doing so much of the leg work.  Sponsorships are still coming in but are slowing down some.  I'm about 1/2 way to what I need to know I have enough to finance the swim.  Still pretty good in just over a month!  Also, already over $1500 has come in for Camp Trillium!  A long way from my $30,000 goal, but it is a start!  I have another speech at Tri-County Insurance in Waterford tomorrow morning and Gerry Hamill from the CD 98.9 morning show called me to be on their show this Thursday at 8:45 am!  I AM SO NERVOUS!!!! But I am so excited! I have never done anything like this ever before! It's really cool. Got to go for now... Bye!

Well, as many of you will see, gramma and I are on the front page of the "Simcoe Reformer". Its so weird having all my friends saying how I'm on the front page of the newspaper! I can sometimes be pretty shy and talking to reporters that I don't really know always makes me nervous....but the thing I always am more shy about is when people are talking to me about the newspaper article! It's been a pretty good week so far swimming and running wise. But...i've been sick and swimming and running while being sick is really hard, but I love both so much I just can't stop going....even if i'm sick! :P Sometimes at running I think I talk the person i'm running with ear off! I talk SO much when I run! (that's how I forget about how tired I am and stuff like that!) Tonight I swam and ran... I still am only swimming about 11-12 hours a week, running 2 and I have dryland 3 hours a week. Also this week at swimming we had the swimathon. That's when you swim for an hour straight and see how many lengths you can do! It's really fun beacause everyone joins into it.... from the oldest group to the little kids! It's so cute seeing how happy they are when they get out of the water and go tell their parents how many they did! :) They get so proud of themselves! Also after we got like a buffet! It was pretty awsome! There was SO much food! There were fruit cabbobs, cheese and crackers, cookies and a bunch of other stuff! It was alot of fun all in all! Now I think i'm going to go because i'm sick and i'm tired so i will blog again soon.....
Love all of you! Thanks to all of those who have sponsored me! ( I probably won't stop thanking you! :) )