Lucas Camilo

We are a week away from heading out on our big summer adventure – an epic tour in a wheelchair accessible RV through the Canadian Rockies and western Montana to visit dinosaur fossil sites, museums and national parks. Here’s what Lucas just wrote this about it:

i am going to montana and canada alberta too
i am going to take my van to vancoover and then swap to this RV 26 ft.
swap means to swich and i just thout that that would make it very very
funny .
i am also going to glacher to find dinosaur fosils

We’ve never done anything like this before so we’re a little nervous and don’t really know how its going to go. But with airplane travel no longer a possibility for our family, traveling in a wheelchair accessible RV (which are exclusively rented from one place outside of Vancouver BC) is pretty much the only way to reach a town like Drumheller, Alberta, aka the Dinosaur Capital of the World. And needless to say, Lucas is excited! In fact, he’s agreed to write a daily travel blog so look out for that starting next week. He may also set up a Twitter account and live tweet our dinosaur discoveries.

If you’re curious what our rig looks like and what route we’re going to take (more than 2000 miles!) then check out the awesome youtube video below, as well as the Google map we created of our imminent journey. Oh yeah, and we’re getting team t-shirts with our respective ankylosaur nicknames on the back (Ida’s version is pictured here.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7uRHnmTyeg

Lucas wrote a couple blog posts about his experiences at the Seattle Aquarium “Furry & Feathered Friends” camp this week:

i went to that aqareum camp cause there is 2 more days of it .
we of course had fun .
just theese cute cute cute otter things that we did .
i wrote that cause otters are really really really cute .
i wrote 3 reallys cause i wrote 3 cutes .
also sam did a otter rap for me

i went to that camp AGAIN!
we had fun with seals today.
we made our own stufed one .
we also got to train pretend people ones where we swiched placees on
seal and trainer .
we had fun cause that was one of the 4 rules on the camp code .

We have been making the most of summer, despite the fact that Seattle’s typically cool June-uary trickled into July.  (Burke’s 4th of July party on the river got moved to our backyard when the forecast was a high of 59 and drizzle.  We still had fun in the backyard, though.)  We took the family to the zoo and Lucas fed a giraffe!  We got everyone out blueberry picking – even wheeled Lucas under the bushes and he plunked berries into a bucket in his lap. 

This Sunday the sun finally came out and it was glorious!  We went to the best ever paved, ADA accessible hike in the mountains — Gold Creek Pond.  The view was so stunning that Lucas started gushing.  If you can’t quite make it out in the video, he says “my heart is beating so fast it’s so beautiful.”

Lucas’s latest blog post – part of his mission this summer to write at least one post a week!

My Adventure to the Science Center
By Lucas
Today I went to the Science Center.
I got to see a cockroach.
It was a Madagascar hissssssssing cockroach.
There were ants you had to hit a button.
we also saw
tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
nnnnnnnnnny.
beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz .
and we found a dinosaur egg that we just not now put it in water

Lucas is back to blogging.  He was going to write to tell you thank you soooo much for your donations to his walk & roll a thon at his school.  Lucas had fun driving his power chair and rolling around the track with his friends, and was the biggest fundraiser in his whole school!  So thank you all for your support.

But before we got around to writing thank you notes, summer vacation was here.  So Lucas has moved on to writing about his exciting summer adventures.  Here’s his latest writing:

wednesday me and my family and my grandma went to a pig sangtiwary .
we saw a lot of pigs of course .
i got to get down and pet one .
i also saw a pig named amie a 700 pound pig .
now that is realy pig .
judie was the owner.

You might wonder if that’s “realy pig” is a typo, but no.  When we asked him, he told us it’s a pun.

If you wonder what a pig sangtiwary is, check out their web page.

You may remember some of our blog posts from two years ago about organizing to make our neighborhood park more accessible. Well, at the beginning of June, the newly renovated Mt. Baker Park was officially opened for play, and Lucas’s statement after his first foray says it all: “I don’t like it… I loovveee it!”

A week after it was opened the city held a public ribbon cutting ceremony and invited Krista to speak. Unfortunately it was during a yoga class that she teaches, and also right in the middle of the school day, so neither Krista or Lucas (the two heroes of the accessibility changes made to the park) could be present. So Ida and I stepped up on their behalf and spoke at the ceremony. In particular, we highlighted the fact that just because a park is more friendly for kids with disabilities didn’t mean that it’s less fun for kids without disabilities. To the contrary, the accessibility changes make it a better place for all.

Many of you blog readers wrote to the city in an effort to pressure them to craft an accessible play area that went beyond basic ADA requirements. In particular, Krista’s draft letter called for:

•  Paved or hard-packed rubber pathways from sidewalks to the play equipment
• Hard-packed rubber surfaces as at least part of the surface under play equipment
• Ramps up onto the play equipment so that people who cannot climb stairs can play with family, friends, and peers
• Accessible swings, including a bucket swing
• Components on the play structures that are designed specifically for wheelchair users and non-disabled children to play together, such as the Sway-Fun glider.

We’re happy to say that almost all of these things are present in the new park. Still, the truth is that the new play area is far from perfect, with some bark dust in places that makes it hard to get around in a wheelchair, only one actually play structure that you can roll right on to, and then of course there’s the newly sanitized zip line (which was the biggest point of contention in the public meetings, but not because of anything to do with accessibility.)

But none of that seemed to bother Lucas. In our first visit to the park he was overjoyed to check out all the new structures and swings, and we’ve been back multiple times since then. We’re proud of our role in the new Mt. Baker park look forward to hanging out with Seattle-area friends there this summer!

Lucas is back to writing his own blog posts.  As you can imagine, we couldn’t be prouder of our kid’s first fundraising letter!  Thanks for any sponsorship — or come out and walk & roll with us on June 16 to raise funds for Lucas’s school.  Details on how to sponsor below.

dear friends.
will you please give me money for my school walk & roll a thon in a couple days .
will you please sponsor me .
my goal is to rase 400 dollers .
i like my school .
beacuase of math my aid mister julius & my surface pro
thank you .
love lucas.

To sponsor Lucas, you can either donate online here, or send a check written out to Orca PTSA to us, 3145 35th Ave S, Seattle 98144.  The event is coming up, so if you want to send a check please stick it in the mail soon.  Thank you!

We spent the long weekend on Whidbey Island with extended family. It was the first time Ida has been up to the island since becoming so much more mobile, and she enjoyed crawling around on the beach and torturing Nonna’s dog Bruno. Lucas had a great time too, especially playing the Galaxy Bowling game on the tablet with his cousins, as well as dancing around outside while the bubble machine blasted.  Watching Lucas do video-bowling with his cousins was awesome for us since its often hard to find activities that they can do together for a sustained amount of time. We also made it to our friend’s farm which was great since both Ida and Lucas are such animal lovers. Check out some pics and video below…