Wednesday - Day Four

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We woke up and drove to Chicago on Wednesday. We had tickets to see the Chicago Cubs play the AZ Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field. Before we went to the game, however, we stopped to have lunch at an authentic Chicago Deep Dish Pizzeria. We had probably the best day yet on our trip because we had a chance meeting with Max’s buddy, Scott!! Through Facebook, I found out that his family was in Chicago. I shot a text to him Tuesday night to see if they were still going to be in town on Wednesday, which they were!! We made plans to meet for lunch so Max and Scott could meet face-to-face. It was SUCH a cool thing to see them lay eyes on each other for the first time. We’ve emailed, sent videos, and texts to Scott for a couple of years, but have never met in person. For those who don’t know about Scott, we belong to an organization called “I Run for Michael.” It pairs runners/athletes with people with physical disabilities which make it hard for them to participate fully in athletics. The idea is that the able-bodied buddy keeps their handi-capable buddy in mind as they train for races, etc. Then, they send their buddy a medal or some kind of souvenir from their races. Scott is a Spartan racer so he has sent us several really cool medals. We kind of hit the jackpot with Scott because he just goes the extra mile. He sends Max birthday and Christmas presents based on Max’s interests at the time. He even sent a video to Max from Disneyworld one time. Max was Merida from the Disney movie, “Brave,” for Halloween a few years ago. Scott tracked down Merida in Disneyworld and sent Max a personal message straight from her!! It was priceless to see Max’s reaction as we viewed it over and over!! Anyway – to meet him in person was a real treat for us and for the meeting to be so NOT planned just made it even more special. We got to meet his lovely wife and son as well. They were all wonderful and we can’t wait for a longer visit next time!





After we finished our delicious pizza and special visit, we took a little driving tour of downtown Chicago. I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous and on-edge about driving in a city before. It was worse than LA/Southern California! Those people are cray-cray!! We managed to see some great things from the van, though, and didn’t get in an accident. So, I call it a win.



We headed to Wrigley Field in plenty of time to take in the atmosphere before we watched the Cubs take on the Arizona Diamondbacks. After the night before, when the Cubbies had an EPIC game, we were looking forward to watching another exciting match-up. Unfortunately, the Cubs didn’t do as well on Wednesday night, but it was still amazing to be AT WRIGLEY FIELD and take in the atmosphere. I have to say that their ADA team (yes, they actually have an entire TEAM of people whose only job is to care for their disabled visitors!) was extremely helpful, caring, and attentive. I was blown away at the way they took care of us, especially Max. They checked in constantly to see if we needed anything and made sure we were having a good time. In addition, Madeline, the usher in our section, took an interest in Jacob and Charlie and throughout the game, shared some of the “secrets” of Wrigley Field – which just added to the excitement and “fun-factor” for the boys. It was really marvelous.





We made the 2 hour drive back to the hotel and rolled in about 12:30am. Even with the time difference (2 hours ahead of West Coast time), it was REALLY late for Max, but he was amazing. He kept it together for the whole time, but he completely crashed the minute we got him into bed that night!! Needless to say we all slept in Thursday morning.

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