Jayla is launched!

This has been an exciting week for our family!  On Monday, we participated in Jayla's official launch event to introduce her to the community as Missouri's Champion child.  It was a great event, and she had so much fun.  Her launch event was hosted at the Columbia Regional Airport in honor of the title sponsor, Delta Air Lines.  Central Missouri Aviation was kind enough to lend us some hangar space.  They are the company that provides services to the Cystic Fibrosis Center at MU for their monthly flight for outreach clinic in Springfield.  Steve Wendling, a local pilot, lent us use of his plane and another local pilot, Travis St. John, volunteered his time so Jayla and I took off as the launch event began.

Mr.  St. John took us up and circled over our hometown (30 minutes away).  Jayla was able to pick out some landmarks before we circled back for her big entrance. 

                   Here we are walking to the plane!


The plane taxied up to the hangar and she was greeted with flowers from her Dad and hugs from TJ, the Children's Hospital mascot, before being escorted down the red carpet amid heartfelt applause.  She felt so special and loved the flight so much!

 Jayla on the plane.  She was so excited!

TJ directed the plane in to the hangar!

Jayla received flowers from her Dad when she disembarked from the plane

... and she got a big hug from TJ!

 

The actual launch event included a ribbon cutting by the Chamber of Commerce and speeches from representatives at the hospital including Jayla's doctor.  We so appreciated her speaking as it is way outside of her comfort zone.  She did a great job!  We also got to see the final version of the miracle video that was produced to tell Jayla's story.  We've been doing lots of filming over the last couple of weeks, so it was really fun to see the finished product! 

TJ and Jayla with Dr. Ner

 We were also treated to a fashion show featuring Chico's.  The models were friends of Jayla's! 

Jayla got to work the red carpet too!

 After that, we all enjoyed TJ cupcakes and CMN Hospitals balloon cookies.

It was a really wonderful day, and Jayla felt so special.  It warmed my heart to see so many people come out and cheer for her.  Representative Riddle has invited us to the capitol next week and Jayla has also been invited to a local golf club for lessons and to a stable to learn how to ride a horse, so she's very excited about all the activities that are coming up.

There was also some great coverage leading up to her launch event.  Several media sources want to do stories on her going forward but the Columbia Tribune and The Eagle (one of our Radiothon partner stations) both did nice articles.  The Fulton Sun did a great front page article!

There were lots of great pictures from the launch event.  Thank you to Caitlin McGrath of McGrath Photography, and Justin Kelley and Andrea Fox from the university for all the amazing pictures!  It's hard to pick just a few, but I did my best!