The 1st Day of April
Today started with the pleasant surprise of my son crawling over my face as I awoke to sunlight in bed (my morning off). If you’re a parent, you know how precious these moments are. If you’re not a parent, trust me when I tell you that it’s priceless to be with your children in the morning.
When I arrived at the Chamber, we had the pleasure of pulling a great April Fool’s prank on Kim Martinez as part of her birthday gift (courtesy of Team 1000). We can only hope that Kim liked it since she was the only one cranking out push-ups and burpees when instructed. Everyone else did jumping jacks no matter what was called 
An hour later, I arrived at King Middle School to talk to a class of teenagers about exercise and goals, as well as to share some of my life experiences with them. It was a profound moment for me. It’s incredible to communicate through movement because it can bridge the gap between age and culture.
(The wonderful teachers of King Middle School)
My afternoon was filled with excitement too. 2008 Olympic alternate Annie Shiraishi was training alongside Olympic hopeful Michael Eldred. It’s always fun to watch these two train; they’re perfectionists when it comes to form and technique. Thomas is doing great work with them.
The evening rounded off with Ross, Kristin, Craig, Rob and the rest of the Kettlebell Crew showing some serious progress on the KB snatch. They’ve committed to earning an official WKC ranking at the next meet. I’m ecstatic about this.
Finally, I just received news that Sarah Baughn is the official winner of the ReBoot Weight Loss Challenge!
Congrats Sarah (second from left) on winning your free month. We are extremely proud of Sarah and all of the ReBoot participants for their recent accomplishments which include fat loss and strength gains!
Best,
Steven
That’s no April Fools joke….well except for Kim! Happy Birthday Kim! Congrats to you Steve on a great day. Sorry we missed KB class, we had the babysitter blues.
A great post Steve! Life is good.
Thanks Renee and Jill. It was a wonderful day
Congratulations Sarah and ReBoot participants! What an accomplishment!
Congratulations Sarah!! I am very proud of all of you ReBooters!!! I know how hard you have worked keep it up!
Thanks for coming for coming to our class and showing your equipment to us,and showing us some moves. I heard that you were paralyzed when you were 12 year old. Your story was very interesting and i enjoyed your speech. Thanks for coming to our class and putting our teachers on your website.
DEAR STEVEN
Thank you for coming to my class. Also thank you for showing us all those toys. Those were very very cool, my favorite one was the one with the wheel.Your story was awesome. My favorite part was the one where you said that you shot a free throw and you fell down. It was funny at first but than i felt bad.
EMAUJ
Dear Steven Thank you for coming to our class, I would like to come to the e Ice Chamber sometime with my class. I like how when we talked about how your personal life you didn’t get mad. All the stuff you did we liked it because it was very hard for you. And i can imagine how hard for you because you couldn’t move your whole body. You are a role model for some students and even some teachers and me. Thanks for everything and you’re the best. And thanks for showing us all those toys and levitating.
I feel bad for Steven because he was not able to walk for a long time.
I felt amazed to meet him and see that he could walk again.
I know how it feels to be different from others. I like stuff other kids my age don’t like.
I want to say thank you Steven for visiting our class and telling us your amazing story.
DEAR STEVEN, from Dasaun It was very nice of you to come to our school, given your busy schedule. You must have had millions of other people waiting in line to hear your workout stories. It gave a little hope to me that I could one day be that healthy. So thank you. You were a good inspiration and you did hardest work. It must have been brutal for those months and years, but you came out on top. You have become an inspiration to thoues who have felt pain worse than I do.
To my new friends at King Middle School,
Thank YOU for letting me talk to you and sharing my stories with you. You all are very inspirational to me because of your circumstances and obstacles. I enjoyed getting to know every one of you and would love to hear about your progress in the future. Do you ever wonder where you will be and what you will be doing in twenty years? Start thinking about it today and I’ll follow up with you in the year 2029.
Your friend,
Steven
Dear Steven,
Thank you for coming to class on Wednesday, April 1, 2009. I was very impressed with your story. The story was a sad thing plus I had a story like that – it was about me. I broke my arm. And thank you for bringing your equipment. I like the wheel mover.
Dear Steven, it was nice to meet you. You have made me realize that you are not any muscle man from 24 Hours. NO, you are very special to me and my fellow class mates. I hope not to go through something like what you went through and I hope you don’t go through it ever again. Your story was a shock to me knowing that you could have died. What I do on my spare time is i snowboard at Heavenly. It was a pleasure to meet you and I hope to see you soon. sincerely Rodrigo
Dear Steven, Thank you for coming to my classroom.I really like your story because it helped me know why it is so important to stay healthy and work out. Thank you for showing us how to be safe with the toys. Something you don’t know about me is I can run really really fast. Once again thank you for coming to show us some of your parlor tricks!!! You helped me learn one thing and that was to never give up.
Dear Steven, Thank you for coming to our class and showing some of your tricks. We were glad that you came. We hope you come again some day. I like your tricks and your personality. I like your story and your sentences. When are we going to get our shirts?
Ummm Steve, does Ronnell know what he has to do in order to earn a T-shirt?????
Seriously, reading the posts from the kids just broke my heart. You really are one of the coolest people on the planet.
Les
“…one of the coolest people on the planet.” So grammatically incorrect, and yet, I can’t figure out how to correct it. “…one of the coolest persons on the planet.”????
Anne Trumbore (1000) HELP!!!!
Les
Les,
These kids don’t have to do anything to get t-shirts