Family Camp for Adoptive Families

Children’s Bridge, the agency I used to adopt Mustang, had its first ever family camp for adoptive families this spring, the first weekend in June. I thought it would be a good opportunity for both Mustang and Button to connect with other adopted kids (especially Mustang). As CB has only just started its Ethiopia adoption program, there weren’t any other kids from Ethiopia there (but there was someone from the Ethiopian community in Toronto). But there were lots of Asian kids – Chinese girls and both girls and boys from Korea and Vietnam.

We shared a cabin with three other families, including two Chinese girls about Mustang’s age or a bit older, and one boy from Vietnam, I think a year younger than Mustang.


The kids both spent some time catching frogs at the pond/lake/marsh near our cabin.





It was about a 3 to 4-hour drive to get to the camp, so I picked Mustang up from school at noon (she didn’t mind!) and we headed off. We made several stops along the way, one to run around a field and catch butterflies, and one for ice cream and “supper,” resulting in the whole trip taking close to six hours!!

The only downside to the weekend was that the mosquitoes and blackflies were horrendous. Even slathering Mustang with bug juice didn’t help much; she (our official bug-magnet) ended up with hundreds of bites around her ears and on her face and neck. Of course, she couldn’t stop scratching and everything got a bit infected and provoked some eczema, leaving her cheek very inflamed and sore and it took a full six weeks for everything to clear up. I started giving her some antihistamines to lessen the skin irritation and itch, and kept it up all summer since she is prone to bug bites and eczema. Just stopped a couple of weeks ago (mid-Sept) when most of the biting bugs had disappeared.