Almost made me cry

Things have been so super busy with TRAC right around the corner and RFKC kicking off this week.

I seriously don't have the words to express my gratitude so I'm going to ramble and hope in the end it makes sense.

All the bags and pillowcases have been absolutely lovely. I'm having such a great time seeing all your creations and knowing there will be some very happy ladies and gents out there who get to take these things home!

But I have some bad news: The format of TRAC this year has changed.

We can only make TRAC happen if we have adult volunteers to attend camp; be counselors to those young people who suffer and hurt. Unfortunately, this year we just didn't have enough men willing to take on that role and since we didn't have many young boys attending anyway, we have decided to merge our boys camp with another one in Scottsdale. The boys will still be able to attend camp (as there are two here in the valley) but it will not be with us. It was a tough decision, but the right one. What that means to you is all the drawstring bags donated will need to be put in storage for next year's camp, where we will hope there will be more attendees. If you do not want your bag to be stored away, please let me know and I can have it sent back to you.

Thankfully, we were able to keep the girls' camp, which means our pajama party is a go! This week a friend came over to help me finish painting all the TRAC pants and I started preparations for our training in two weeks. Our director is at RFKC this week, so it's my responsibility to get final preparations in place. It's loads of work, but it's the kind I want to do; the kind that gives me joy in knowing I am helping other people. So, if I'm a little MIA for the next couple weeks, you'll know why.

The letters and notes you've sent along with these gifts have been tremendous. I'm so happy you all have enjoyed helping out as much as I have! I have had a couple people ask to see pictures of the girls when they get their gifts, and I just want you to know I may not be able to accommodate, as much as I would love to. There are certain legalities involved in a camp of this nature and one of the requirements is that we must not take pictures of camper's faces. As you might imagine, that makes pictures taking difficult so we often don't take many at camp. And, since I have a baby here at home, I will not be attending camp this year so I can't take the pictures for them (you know, since bloggers are so creative with their picture taking and all...) I will do my best to convince the counselors to snap a few pictures of the beds before the girls arrive and, if they can manage it, a few more that I will legally be able to share on the blog.

Things have been emotional this week, what with having to forego our boys camp, getting all these great and wonderful messages and gifts for the kids, receiving the Retro Flowers template from a friend "just because", and, well, just everything else.

That's all. I told you it wouldn't be eloquent or well thought out. Just some blurbs I've been mulling over that needed to be shared.