A Day to Give Thanks

Thanksgiving is a wonderful day that hopefully we all celebrate. This Thanksgiving was a special one for myself at least. I was able to give back to the society which is always a good or right thing to do with our economy so low. My family and I received a letter which was for charity with the heading on it, "Give to Others" reading this interested me. We read this and believed it would be a good idea, all we had to do is serve 10-25 homeless people with a Thanksgiving meal. Yes, sounds kind of strange because we wouldn't even know who would be at our house, but at the end we decided to do a good deed. We sent the letter back accepting 15 homeless strangers to our house and celebrate Thanksgiving.

Thursday morning had came, I was awaken by the marvelous smell coming from downstairs in the kitchen. Everyone was cooking up a storm bright and early while the little ones ran around the house. Counting down the hours till these people arrived at our front door, I was particularly nervous just the fact that I'm use to having a normal Thanksgiving with my family and sharing our thanks among each other. The rest of the family started arriving around 4 o'clock with big smiles on their faces. My mother reminded them that the rest of the people would arrive around 5:30 so they needed to hurry and finish preparing all the tasty food. Some of the family didn't like the fact that we accepted the offer of feeding other people on our special family Thanksgiving, so they sat back and relaxed instead of helping everyone get ready.

5:30 p.m. had arrived and a door bell had rung. Silence was heard throughout the house. My mother stopped what she was doing and went over to the door and answered it. A beautiful young lady was the first one to speak and said "Good Afternoon, may we come in" my mother of course replying "Yes." While they entered our house they began to introduce themselves to everyone in a very respectful manner. This helping me realize that these people were completely normal and not one bit different then us. Everyone had met each other and the time had come to eat. Everyone was seating and we were beginning to get served. While at the table eating the strangers were experiencing something they had not been able to in years they said. The smiles on their faces were completely priceless, some even teared up. This made me feel proud of our decisions to help others and give thanks as one, the main reason of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was an unforgettable holiday this year. It was more then special, words couldn't describe it. If anyone ever has the opportunity to do such a thing you will never regret it and I highly recommend it!

Searching the web I found this website of something they do in Richmond, Va about the same as we did at our house but much larger.
http://www.thegivingheart.org/

Michael Phelps

Micheal Phelps was born in Maryland on June 30, 1985, Michael Phelps started swimming when he was seven years old. At the tender age of 15, he placed fifth in the 200-meter butterfly at the 2000 Olympics, where he was the youngest male to compete in the games since 1932. At the 2001 Spring Nationals in the United States, Phelps became the youngest man ever to break a world record in swimming, at the age of 15 years and 9 months. Phelps also became the first swimmer in history to break five individual world records at one meet, at the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona. At the age of 18, in 2003, Phelps won the Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States. But this year Phelps has achieved another great award, not another gold medal but the SI's Sportsman of the year.

Michael Phelps has been chosen as SI's Sportsman Of The Year. This is an honor that most people aren't fortunate to receive, this is basically the best athlete of the year! Some people might not know but there are 38 people nominated and only the best stand and you are placed on the front cover of Sports Illustrated. Michael Phelps has been privileged to win over all these other great athletes. Usain Bold, Eli Manning, The Ryder Cup Rookies, Kobe Bryant, and so many more. This is an amazing to win over so many such great athletes. Everyone knows how great Micheal Phelps performance was at this years Olympics at Beijing winning 8 medals in 8 races. He has won 14 career Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian. As of 2008, he also holds seven world record setting races in swimming. Phelps has 16 medals overall, 14 being gold and 2 being bronze. Phelps won 8 medals in the 2004 Summer Olympics and 8 in the 2008 Summer Olympics. He ties for the most individual gold medals with 5. Phelps also ranks 2 in the total career Olympian medals, after Soviet Gymnast Larissa Latynina with 18 overall 9 of them being gold. She done in a span of 3 different Olympic games. With this being said Phelps has an amazing change to becoming number 1.

I believe Michael Phelps has every right to be the winner of this award, he indeed is the best. He is the best and he has demonstrated this. We will be hearing more of Michael "The Baltimore Bullet" Phelps so keep a look out for this great young athlete.


http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/gallery/featured/GAL1148390/1/38/index.htm

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/magazine/specials/sportsman/2008/12/01/sportsman.2008/index.html?eref=T1