The week of the 18th through 22nd the kids were in a Vacation Bible School (VBS) at a local Church that our Church had partnered with. After the Tour For Kids Jennifer and her friend Vivianna headed over the Peace Lutheran Church to set up for PandaMania. They were going to teach the kindergarten kids from 9-noon each day for the next week.
Each morning for all 3 of them were out of the house just after 8am and didn’t get home until almost 1 each day. The kids has a great time learning about Jesus and the Bible and coming home and sharing their lessons with us. Ryley seems to be starting to understand; he is remembering the stories and maybe even starting to apply some of the lessons he is learning. Karlee is still at the stage where she enjoys meeting other people and making new friends, but she is understanding some of the lessons too.Jennifer realized that limiting Karlee’s exposure to sick kids is a lot harder when she is
volunteering. When she is leading the class it is very hard to pull Karlee out when she gets to stay. She also found out the people will send their sick kids to just about anything and don’t have any regard for the other kids and teachers. This is going to impact some of Jennifer’s ability to volunteer with some of the activities Karlee is in this coming year. Fortunately Karlee didn’t catch anything during the week.
Thursday night they had a bring your parents night when we all went and watched each group do a little presentation. After that they showed us around the Church and showed us some of the stuff they had done. The kids really enjoyed VBS and I think we will send them back again next year.
The next week was camp week for both kids. Monday morning we headed to the Glamorgan community association to be there just before 9am. When we got there we took Karlee into the community centre and she disappeared very quickly. She knew a couple of other kids there and at least one of the volunteers so she didn’t have any issues leaving us. Ryley had to wait until 10am for his bus to leave to take him to Camp Kindle. He quickly found a few other guys his age to go and play with on the playground while we got him registered and checked in. It was a very enjoyable morning chatting with all the other parents while we waited. There really is a special bond between all the parents that have gone through cancer. It is also very uplifting to hear about all the kids that have beat cancer and are now happy, normal kids. This time I knew how Ryley would react to the bus getting ready to leave so we called him over before they started to line up and said goodbye to him. Again he had no issues leaving us and heading out to Camp Kindle. Jennifer went back at 3pm to pick up Karlee after her first day and she just loved it. They had a busy and fun program set up for them the entire week. She had such exciting days that she fell asleep in the car on the way home every day! She made a pair of little friends and they were inseparable all week!
Thursday morning when we dropped Karlee off we dropped her off with all her stuff to stay overnight at Camp Kindle. After lunch they brought in the bus and loaded all the little kids up and headed out to camp. This was kind of weird as it was the first time ever that both kids were out of the house overnight and we were both home. We went out for a drink and some munchies and then went and saw Transformers 3 in 3D. Thankfully we had a coupon for the movie so only paid the extra for 3D because we both would have been disappointed if we had paid full price to see that movie.
Friday morning we were out of the house fairly early and heading out to Camp Kindle to pick up Karlee. We arrived about 10:30 and headed up to the main lodge even though we knew Karlee was at the music hall. We didn’t want to interrupt anything they were doing so we thought we would go hang out with the other parents. Of course Sharlene had other plans. As soon as she saw us walking up the road she told Karlee we were coming so they waited and waited. Due to the way the building is located you can watch us walk up, but when the road Ys you can not see it. Finally they hopped in a golf cart and came up to see us. Karlee was very happy to see us, where as Ryley was too busy playing to notice we were there.We went down to the music hall with Karlee and found out she had a good, if little late, night. They had a camp fire and she even managed to have supper, wait 2 hours, have chemo, wait another hour and then have snack. Sharlene and the volunteers did an incredible job of making sure she was able to enjoy snack. After the fire Ryley gave her a big hug before he headed up to bed and Karlee got to watch a movie. She liked being with the big kids out at camp. We joined everyone for lunch and then we said goodbye to Ryley and headed for Bergen.
We spent the night in Bergen with Frances and Roland at their chalet and had a great night. Karlee played with their dog (technically Amy’s dog) Jazz, got to drive Roland’s golf cart and went for a big walk around the estates. We sat around the fire, drank some beer and had a great big dinner. We were up early the next morning to go and get Ryley from Camp Kindle.
He had a great time and even got an award for the motivation he provided to another camper on the climbing wall. Several of the volunteers and Ryley himself said he really enjoyed the dance this year and loved seeing DJ Fish again. He made more new friends again and reconnected with some of the campers from last year. Next year camp is going to be a new experience again with them undertaking $4 million in renovations. The old dorm that is starting to fall down is being removed and they are building a new main lodge and another dorm. There is going to be some very exciting changes including a new pool if everything works out correctly.
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