Camp Sunshine Dreams

Steve attended Camp Sunshine Dreams as a child. Camp Sunshine Dreams is for children who have cancer and their siblings. I think that it is a special/wonderful camp for two reasons:

1. It allows the kids to be kids, and not patients or siblings of patients. They get to be normal kids for a week and do normal kid things.
2. The camp also provides an opportunity for the kids to talk about how cancer has affected their lives. It is a place to talk about the emotions they experience and not have them be mocked or misunderstood.

I was almost 7 months pregnant, but I survived, and I had a great time. I am blessed for the service I gave. Thank you Camp Sunshine Dreams for letting me come! What an amazing time.

I was a co-counselor of 9-10 year old girls (7 of them) and Steve was a co-counselor in a cabin of 14-15 year old boys (6 of them).

Peanut and my group.

Steve and Bleach's group.

There was a dance on Thursday and some (okay, maybe all) of my girls got a little silly trying to find dates. By Thursday afternoon they decided they didn't need dates - except for the one girl who already had one! I already had a date. The theme of camp this year was their 25th celebration, so we had a costume party.

One of my girls and her date.

My date and I dancing!

There are so many more memories, but to keep this short, I won't include them all. However, I have to mention Spirit Stick. The campers carve on the Spirit Stick and talk about their experience with cancer and then on the last night the shavings are put into the campfire. The ashes are saved and then those ashes are used to start the next year's fire.
The ashes are symbolic of remembering and keeping our memories alive while also releasing them and letting ourselves move on.

Here is a link to the Camp Sunshine Dreams website. Check it out! http://www.campsunshinedreams.com