Book Launch Saturday!!

We finally got our books on Tuesday and Wednesday for the book signing this Saturday from 1 to 3pm at the Simcoe Branch of the Norfolk County Public Library. It is so weird to hold this book that has your name on it. I am very happy with it. It says what I want it to say. I hope it inspires others to do what they love and use it to help others, kind of like my crew helped me. I also hope the book will encourage anyone going through a tough time to keep battling and know that nothing is impossible.

Award winning author and my friend Deborah Ellis was amazing to work with. She made the entire process easy. It was fun to tell her my stories and work on getting my message out on paper. I have to thank another very good friend, His Honour, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, David Onley, whose wife, Ruth Ann, was originally from Simcoe and went to school with my grandma, for agreeing to write the foreword. I am incredibly honoured that he agreed to take the time to do this for me. It is incredible how well it suits the entire book.

I also have to thank all my crew and my family. All the work everyone is doing to promote this book and my upcoming swim is incredible. It all fits so perfectly with my logo and the AC water drop hitting the water and making ripples. The more of us who do good things for other people, the better place this world will be to live.

I am just a 4 foot 10 inch 16 year old girl who was able to accomplish something incredible because of all the help I have had for my 16 years of life. From that, we have been able to raise thousands of dollars for Camp Trillium, for kids and families who fight a much harder battle than a 27 hour swim across Lake Ontario. They are heroes. They never give up, and sometimes people do not really care. But I do, and I want to continue to help people.

God blessed me with this ability to swim for a long time, and He blessed me with a sister who helped me come up with the idea and convinced my parents to start marathon swimming for others. Not everyone can do this, but everyone can do something. My very good friend Shane Feldman, who is the founder of Count Me In Canada and one of the top 20 under 20 year olds in Canada, uses a saying that youth are not only the future, youth are the present. I want to challenge all youth out there to find something they love, work hard at it, do not stand for the word no, and use it to help others. The same goes for anyone else. Do something you love and find a way to help others with it.

I am doing my grade 10 literacy testing at school right now. It really is not that bad. I like to write, obviously, so it was pretty good. It is funny how nervous we all get for testing and things like this. I know I get so nervous right before I do speaking engagements. That may sound silly because I do so many, but I cannot help it. One thing I have found is that I can control it better and it does go away as I start speaking about my message. Next is the driver’s test. I cannot wait.

It is only four months until the Lake Erie attempt. I really want to thank my Norfolk Hammerhead teammates who keep coming out and training with me on my extra training days. I was not expecting it, but I sure do love it. Trent has been so amazing and is really working on my speed. Speaking of the Hammerheads, 5:30am practice comes fast, so I had better sign off. Thanks again for reading, and I hope to see everyone at my book launch Saturday.