Our Day with an Olympic Champion

Peyton and I were able to meet one of the Olympians who created one of the greatest moments from the 2008 Beijing Olympics today. You may be thinking Michael Phelps but I am talking about the guy who made it possible for Phelps to win the eight gold medals. That's right, we met Jason Lezak today. If you don't know who that is just think about the men's 4x100 freestyle relay finals and the guy who swam the final leg and beat the French. He is from Irvine and went to El Camino Real (now Woodbury) from Kindergarten to sixth grade. This is the same school Peyton goes to now and so he came and did an assembly for the kids at her school. The Multipurpose room was decorated in red, white, and blue and filled with pictures from when he was a student in Irvine. Here are some of the pictures from the assembly.

The news was even there to cover this exciting event.
All of the kids had little American flags and they waved them around as he walked into the room with the Olympic theme song from NBC playing in the background.
Here he is with his 3rd grade teacher who still teaches at the school today. His old principal, kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers were all there in the audience. The kids were able to ask him any question they wanted to and it was so cute to hear what they wanted to know.

He let us touch all 3 of his medals and here is one of his gold medals.
Here is Peyton holding one of his gold medals.
He was so nice and took pictures with any of the kids who wanted one. He is wearing a medal that one of the little girls in the school made him. Here is a picture of him at his 6th grade graduation holding the award he won for best athlete. The guy on the right also won the award with him and he is in our ward here in Irvine. The funny thing is that his name is Michael Phelps (not the same one who won 8 gold medals!)

It was such a great day and one that I will never forget. It was amazing to hold a real gold medal and meet someone who is such a great athlete. He was so nice to all of the kids and I have been told by so many people that he is always this way and was this way growing up. Now both Peyton and Hailey want to be Olympic swimmers when they grow up. Hailey says, "I want to swim really fast and win a gold medal." Peyton says, "I want to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal so I can come back to this school and they can have an assembly for me." Aren't kids great.