Chick-fil-A Night is TOMORROW!

We are excited to see everyone at Chick-fil-A in Surprise (corner of Bell and Grand) tomorrow night.  It's going to be a lot of fun and who can forget the great food?!  We will be there from 4-8pm.  Please remember to print out/bring a flier with you so we get credit for your presence!  We can't wait to see everyone.

Chick-fil-A Night

We are so excited to invite everyone to the Chick-fil-A on the corner of Bell & Grand (in front of the Target) in Surprise, AZ on Wednesday, May 30th from 4-8pm.  Eric will be there signing autographs and T-shirts which will be available for sale for $15.  Here is a picture of the shirt-

We will also be handing out red, white and blue star bracelets and temporary USA tattoos for the kids.

Even better than the fun is the food!  Chick-fil-A is donating 20% of all the sales of food, drink and desserts that come in from people who have this flier:

Print out, share with a friend, and bring in with you to Chick-fil-A

Please feel free to share this flier with anyone and everyone, we look forward to seeing you all there!

Scentsy Fundraiser

I'm so excited to start our first fundraiser and am very grateful for our consultant Cenia Nielsen and all her help.  The fundraiser starts today Monday, May 14th and goes for two weeks until May 28th.  Here are some details on how you can help us (we get 20% of the total sales!) and get some INCREDIBLE products in return.

Ordering online:  You can go directly to Cenia's Scentsy website and see the products available there.  Just click on her link "buy from party" for Eric Bennett-Paralympics to begin shopping.  Products will be sent directly to you and is perfect for those friends and family who don't live nearby but would still like to support us.

Ordering through Eric or me:  Eric and I both have fundraiser flyers we would be happy to share one with you.  We also have scent samples if you want to take a sniff or two.  Payment will be required upon ordering and your order will be processed after closing.  Your product will be delivered to us and we'll make sure to deliver it to you as soon as it arrives.  One benefit to this is you won't have to pay shipping.

I love the Scentsy product and have several in my house and one in my classroom.  I'm also excited to announce a new branch from the Scentsy company called Velata.  They took their idea of warmers and turned them into a fun fondue pot!  You can also visit Cenia's Velata website to purchase the brand new product (it launched May 1st!) and have it shipped to you directly.  Or as with Scentsy, Eric and I have order forms and brochures you can browse and order through us as well.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or email Cenia at cenia.nielsen@yahoo.com.  Thanks so much for helping us and enjoying two wonderful products.

We're back...

...and London bound!  A couple of weeks ago Eric qualified to compete in the London 2012 Paralympics in archery.  He is the first US Paralympic archer to go in the Standing Recurve class.  He is also the first to have gone to the Paralympic games in two different disciplines after having switched from a compound bow to a recurve.   Eric is excited to go because this was his one and only chance to shoot a recurve in the Paralympics, as the rules change at the end of the year. 


It's been a whirlwind of a couple weeks as we've celebrated, read press releases and tried to figure out how to make this trip possible for him and me.  We have such a short amount of time before he'll actually leave.  The Paralympic opening ceremonies are on August 29, 2012--just over 3 months away!!!   And it doesn't help that it will be the third week of school for the both of us.  But who passes up an opportunity like this? NOT ME! 

Here's a link to one of the press releases since he made the team if you would like to read it.  Here's another article that featured him preparing for the trials.  It is personally one of my favorite articles written about him.

Fundraising efforts are beginning and we would appreciate any contributions.  I'm starting a Scentsy fundraiser on Monday and will post details then.  We are also hoping to have the help from local business and we have talked about a dinner/auction and a car wash.  It's going to be a great summer preparing to go to London.  It's my goal to keep this blog updated with all of Eric's accomplishments and our progress toward London 2012!

First Round of Eliminations Postponed

Just as I get the schedule all figured out, they postpone the first round of eliminations. I was able to chat with Eric once he got back to the hotel and he said that a dark black cloud rolled in just as they were getting ready to start scoring that looked like a tornado. They decided they better play it safe and get everyone on buses and back to the hotel. There is no indication yet of when he will shoot next. The waiting game begins. I'm starting to think this is harder on me being home than it is for him there! :)

We Have A Bracket

Finally! I've been checking all day to see the elimination bracket Eric would be placed in. Here's the link.

http://www.archery.org/UserFiles/Document/Results/Results/2011/11_PWC_Turin/IEFCMO.pdf

He has a bye the first round and the second round should go by easily for him. He will shoot the second round at 17:35 today, which is 8:35 our time. Don't forget about the live scoring! :)

Then he will most likey face Bartos, the #17 seed next in the 1/16 round. Eric said he's never even heard of him, so Bartos doesn't know what's going to hit him! That head to head won't take place until Saturday morning at 9:30am, so 12:30am our time. Then the rest of the eliminations (1/8, 1/4 & 1/2) will follow in succession.

The gold medal match will be Sunday morning at 11:00am, so for us it is the early hour of 2am! You know I'll be up watching (even if I am in the mountains of Payson at girls camp!)

In all of the talk about the head to head eliminations, I haven't even mentioned that the USA team is ranked 2nd and will be competing against other teams on Friday. To compete in the team round, a country must have 3 competitors in a certain division. Then they combine those 3 scores for a total and rank them. We are 2nd out of all the teams. The team round will be from 11:25-13:25 on Friday...so 2:25-4:25am for us. Gotta love the time difference! Eric feels, and I agree 100%, that they have a really good chance of medaling as a team.

Okay, I think that does it for how the competition plays out from here. Let me know if I missed anything or if you have any questions. :)

Qualifying Round Updated

I was able to instant message Eric a bit after his qualifying round. He was really bummed about how it all turned out. I knew something went wrong in the 50 meter round since he stopped giving me updates. :) So that's when I turned to the live scoring, which is really handy! This is what Eric had to say about what happened during the 50 meter round.

"Well I was on the left and the guy on my target was on the right. He is in a wheelchair. After lunch he positioned himself toward the center squeezing me to the left. Because of that I was turned wrong. So, on the very first arrow I was worried that I was going to bump into him. As a result I was thinking about not bumping him and I was lined up wrong. When I drew back I didn't check which target I was aimed at because I was thinking of being in his way. Shot a ten on his target."

The head to head eliminations start tomorrow, but there's not a schedule posted as of yet. Remember you can go to archery.org and they have a link on their main page to watch the live scoring. It's pretty fun to follow the progress and the "refresh" button get's pushed a lot! :) If I find out a time, I will be sure to pass it along. It will more than likely be in the middle of the night, but I think it's worth sacrificing the sleep! ;)