Celebrating Jordan's birthday for Camp No Limits

Jordan's birthday is 46 days away! I know that sounds silly for us to start counting down so early... But Jordan and I were talking about her birthday and the many things we could do for it. She's never had a real party at our house since we're often out of town for the holidays when her birthday sneaks up on us on December 29th. Jordan tells me she wants to have a Winter the Dolphin birthday party. I figure we'll watch the Dolphin Tale movie with her friends (it comes out on DVD on December 20th), color pictures of dolphins and maybe come up with some kind of craft project that involves dolphin necklaces or something like that. Jordan told me she wants to invite people from all across the country, but since that's not really possible, we talked about raising money for our favorite non-profit: Camp No Limits.The camp has been an incredible source of fun and learning about life as a limb different kid. Jordan has met fabulous limb different kids who have become her mentors. Jordan has also had a chance to see how to stay strong and healthy. The camp is awesome support for her brother Cameron because he has a place to talk about what it's like to be a sibling to a limb different sister. He gets angry about it sometimes and it's so great he has somewhere he can go where he feels safe and supported by other "all bits" siblings. Camp isn't cheap. It takes a lot to operate the program. We attend the camp in Missouri while there are camps all over the place: Maine (the original location), Maryland, Idaho, California and Florida (where camp is underway later this week). I know there are efforts to expand the camp into other states as well. Here are posts from our first camp in 2009 and second camp in 2010.Camp costs $350 per kid in 2011 and I'm guessing the price will go up again in 2012. Since we don't know how much it will cost next year, Jordan and I are going to try to raise money for two kids at the $350 rate. We're looking for your support to help raise $700 for the Missouri Camp No Limits through the No Limits Loss Foundation. This will help two more kids attend camp in June 2012. We're raising money on Crowdrise - it's considered one of the best non-profit fundraising sites in the country. Feel free to check out our fundraising page! (By the way - when you pay, it mentions an optional operation fee - you can click on it and change it to more or less based on what you can afford. Do not feel pressured to pay the extra few dollars if you don't want to pay the extra cost.) Even better? It's getting close to the end of the year where you need to make sure you donate enough money to help make up for your taxes. You'll get a receipt that you can save when you work on your taxes next year. Not convinced yet? The Crowdrise folks have a bunch of really cool promotions you can participate in if you donate to our cause (or any cause on their website).

Thanks for your consideration and Jordan is really excited about this online birthday celebration. She and I plan to put together a video later this week or next week to talk more about Camp No Limits and why it's so awesome.

In the meantime, enjoy this slideshow of pictures I put together at the end of camp this past summer: