SCHOOL  Fall 2007
The beginning of 3rd grade was great for Gray.  Mrs. Hager was starting her 4th year as Gray’s aide.  Gray also had William Wood, one of his best buddies, in his class!  His teacher was Ms. Stiene, who showed Gray (and Mom and Dad) that it’s time to be responsible.  She was always a lot of fun and had a gift of story telling. Gray came in 2nd place with his summer reading program, Red Ribbon Reading.  He read 100 hours and raised the most money in the 3rd grade!  He won lots of cool prizes and even got to take the place of the assistant principal, Ms. Eybl, for the day.

The school year proved to be very busy with all of Gray’s after school activities:  chess club, power soccer, kumon, and physical therapy.  He saved time on the weekends to see friends, go to the movies, bowl, go to faith formation, enjoy the Panthers and Bobcats, cheer on some monster trucks, see a few plays at Children’s Theatre, and last but not least, play Gamecube when he had the chance.

GAM!
Gam, Gray’s Great Grandmother, moved to Charlotte a few months out of the year and Gray loves spending time with her, especially if it involves cheeseburgers and ice cream!

LEARNING EXPRESS!
We had our fall Learning Express fundraiser again this year.  A huge Thank You goes out to Peter at Learning Express in Stonecrest for allowing us the opportunity to make money from his wonderful toy store!  Thank you also to the people who shopped there in honor of Gray and raised over $300 for  Gray’s Gang.

SMASHING KICKOFF!
On October 27th, 2007, we participated in our last Gray’s Gang SMAshing Kickoff fundraiser.  It was our 9th year at N.C. State and we are eternally grateful to Maria Stone for all the blood, sweat, and tears she put into making the event a smashing success!  It was a beautiful day and very humbling to see everyone  who always comes each year to support Gray and our family and is Gray’s “Gang” fighting with us to find a cure.  We raised $27,000 which brings our grand total raised to cure SMA to over $150,000! Thank you so much to Maria and everyone else who plays a part in the success of Gray’s Gang!  We will find a cure!

NEW WEBSITE!
We have a new webpage that was created by Lindsay Thalinger.
It’s wonderfully accessible and so new and hip!  Thanks so much to Lindsay and all of her hard work she put into making the page so perfect.

BIRTHDAY!
Gray celebrated his 9th birthday with a few friends seeing a movie, eating pizza and cake. They also played Gamecube way too late (for Mom and Dad). 

CHRISTMAS 2007!
Christmas break was fabulous this year because Gray was not sick…….at all. We had not experienced a “sick free” Christmas break in a few years!  It was such a blessing.  We were very thankful for our health.  During the Christmas break, we went to our annual gingerbread house workshop down at Spirit Square.  It is so much fun to create your own house and check out other families designs.  MDA had a Christmas party which Gray was excited to attend and see his friends from MDA camp.  MDA put on a nice brunch and Gray got to catch up with a couple of friends from camp.  Mike and I got to catch up with another family, the Taylors, who have a son, Alex.  Alex is 15 and has SMA.  Sadly, we learned that Alex caught pneumonia in March and passed away.  We continuously have the Taylors in our thoughts and prayers.

We also saw the play The Christmas Doll.  Gray, Riley and Mike were surprised at how much they enjoyed the play!  Mike even stayed awake. I knew I would enjoy it when I purchased the tickets!  Southeastern Consulting Engineers treated Gray and Riley to Christmas music sung by the Rockapellas.  The music really got everyone in the Christmas spirit.

SPEIGHT VISIT!
Spring brought the Speights for a visit.  Griffin and Jess brought their X-box and Gray prayed for rain.  It did indeed rain the whole time they visited.  Gray had a great time with the boys…..inside. 

SCHOOL PLAY!
Gray’s 3rd grade play at Selwyn was fantastic.  It was called “The Good Ole 1890’s”.   Gray was an 1890’s gentleman.  It was surprisingly entertaining.  We saw a few more Children’s Theatre plays:  School House Rocks was our favorite, but we also enjoyed The Wizard of Oz, and Surviving the Applewhites.

Summer 2008!
The summer started out with a bang at the Wii Super Smash Brothers tournament at the library.  It was for teens, but our local branch said that Gray could participate.  Gray lost in the 2nd round and even got a portion of his “arm” in the Charlotte Observer (picture).   Gray loved the whole idea of being in a “gaming” tournament!
We road tripped to Boston in June for the FSMA conference.  While we were in Boston, we caught up with Dr. Schroth and other familiar faces.   FSMA now has a new logo and useful information which we benefited from this year.  As a special treat, we got to witness the victory parade for the NBA Champions Boston Celtics.
We went on a ducky tour and saw Boston by land and by sea.  We toured the Massachusetts coast, north of Boston, and pit-stopped in Salem to learn about the witch trials.  Riley and Gray rode 15 hours in our van to and from Boston and were angels!  Gray read 13 of those hours each way!  He will read the rest of the Harry Potter series and Eragon Series this summer. 
Gray loved his visits from Aunt Rosie and Uncle Joe and Aunt KK this past summer.  Gray also started seeing Dr. Bowker, who is a chiropractor in town.  Gray has mouth contractures which limit his mouth opening and Dr. Bowker is seeing him 3 times a week to work on this problem.  There has been lots of progress and Gray’s mouth is opening at least twice what it was when we first visited in June!   Thank you Dr. Bowker!  
In July, Gray and I went to a law firm to talk about MDA camp and hopefully raise some funds for the camp.  Gray let me do all of the talking, which was definitely not the plan!

BEACH and more summer fun
We spent some family time at the beach this summer.  Gray loved going out into the ocean when the waters were calm.  We were blessed to be able to spend fun beach days with grandparents too. 
In addition, Gray did Chess Camp with two of his friends, Peter and Nicholas.  How wonderful to get to go to camp with friends!
Gray was also asked to join a boy’s book club.  He loved going because the boys were very entertaining and so was the discussion about the book. 

MDA CAMP!
MDA camp was Gray’s most anticipated activity this summer.  This 2nd annual camp lived up to its expectation.  Gray had such a blast.  He had a wonderful counselor this year, Rob Colvert.  Rob is a fireman who is married with a 2-year old little girl.  He took a week out of his life to volunteer to be a counselor at camp so that kids like Gray can go to camp.  They had so much fun!  It was not quite as hard this year letting Gray out of my sight for a week.  Gray had the attitude of a teenager when I came to pick him up.  He was too cool to hang out with his mom and sent Mae Mae, his grandmother, and me ahead without him. 

WATERSKIING!
Gray waterskied this summer through the Adaptive Sports program.  It was wonderful and scary (for the parents).  Gray loved it and kept asking to go faster.

Fall 2008
4th Grade started at the end of August, much to Gray’s dismay.  He likes school, but summer just seemed too short!  His 4th grade teacher is Mrs. Smith, which he was happy to hear.  He has some good friends in his class this year.  Gray was not happy to hear that Ms. Hager, his aide for the last four years, would not be his aide this year.  She has moved to a different position, so Gray still gets to see her at school.  Gray has a male aide, Mr. Smith (yes, his teacher is Mrs. Smith!) No relation, although their 1st names rhyme (Kandy and Andy)  Hee Hee.  Gray was very sad not to have Mrs. Hager for his aide, but now that Mr. Smith has been “broken in”, Gray is very happy once again.  It is a treat to have a male aide for Gray. 

School started with lots of after school activities and not all of them were fun!  Gray still sees Dr. Bowker  twice a week for his mouth.  Gray has started seeing Dr. Gazak once a week and Gray has Physical Therapy once a week.  So, that’s 4 doctor’s visits weekly….add in Chess Club, Kumon, Math Olympiads and we are very busy.  Gray is still getting honor roll certificates for Kumon in math and loves the challenge.  Gray came in 2nd place again for his summer fundraiser for Selwyn, Red Ribbon Reading.  Gray read 127 hours this summer.  He raised the most money again in his grade.  He has the honor of shadowing Ms. Ebyl, the assistant principal, for the day and got lots of cool prizes along with a Wendy’s special lunch with Ms. Mintz, the principal.  Way to go Gray!
Now that Gray is in 4th grade, he becomes eligible for the youth group at St. Gabriel’s.  He has been to several functions and enjoys some independence there.  He also loves his youth group leaders, Miss Denise and Miss Lisa.

Gray’s 10th birthday was lots of fun. He invited a few friends to go to the movies, eat pizza, play his new Wii, and sleep over.  On Gray’s actual birthday, the 19th  of October, the Panthers played at home and Gray and Mike went to the game.  It was a beautiful day and the Panthers won…Whoo Hoo!

GRAY’S GANG 2009
We have started working on a new Gray’s Gang event.  Maria Stone is going to receive a very deserved and needed break from planning the event for the past 9 years!  Thank you so much Maria.  We decided that it would be better if the event took place in Charlotte so Gray’s friends from school, neighborhood, and church can all be included.  We have put together an amazing “executive board” for the event.
It’s going to be a Walk and Roll on April 25, 2009.  Please put the event on your calendars!
We are excited to get Gray more involved and to raise money for SMA.

NEW LOGO
 Rod Johnson is helping us change the Gray’s Gang logo.  Since Gray is 10 we thought it would be a good time to get something that would start to match his attitude in the upcoming teen years!  We have just decided on the final version and HUGE thanks go out to Rod for lending his expertise to us to make a logo change possible!!!! 

Gray has been so very healthy and blessed over this past year!  We are very, very thankful and praise God daily for that blessing.
Thanks to everyone who continues to keep him in your thoughts and prayers.  We are so very blessed.