Exile Island – the Wish Kids Edition

Today was quite a day!

Our family took part in an event put on by the Children’s Wish Foundation.

It was a “Survivor” type event, called Exile Island, that took place at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and it was AMAZING!

Every “Wish” child was partnered with a “Sponsor” who’s goal was to raise money for the Children’s Wish Foundation. The day was filled with activities and challenges that the “Wish” Child & Family and “Sponsor” worked together on to complete and possible win!

Our kids were all excited about today, mostly because they got to skip school to be apart of today’s activities. I think that they would have been more excited about the day had they known exactly how fun this event was going to be. We showed up at 11:30am and registered as a “Wish Family”.

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Registering

After registering, we headed over to the lunch table to snag a few DELICIOUS sandwiches that were made by Marmalady Catering! AMAZING!

The Opening Ceremony was hosted by Tamara Taggart who is absolutely lovely and after it was finished, the events began.

Each team was responsible to make a flag to represent themselves and seeing as we are headed out on a Caribbean Cruise to Disney’s Castaway Cay……the kids decided that we should be called “the Castaways”

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Our Team Flag – The Castaway’s

The Wish Kids were all introduced and then called up to bang the official GONG! How fun is that?

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Just after Geli rang the GONG!

Our Sponsor was the lovely, Andrea Shaw of the TwentyTen Group.

It was an absolute pleasure to be partnered with her. She was kind and loving and so SO sweet with our entire family. She made today so much fun for all of our family and we are so grateful for all she has done in raising money for the Children’s Wish Foundation. It’s hard to fully express the gratitude that I feel and so a simple heartfelt Thank You will have to suffice.

I’m realizing now that I don’t have a picture of our family and Andrea and I’m hoping that I can get a hold of one because I know that there was one taken by the event photographer……now to figure out how to get my hands on it?!?

This was such a great event and our WHOLE family had a great time…from the adults all the way down to the youngest member of our family.

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Judah…..although I think he was probably more excited about the balloon rather than the day’s activities.

After one of the challenges, the team was supposed to decorate a t-shirt and here was our team’s contribution.

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Here is photographic proof that I was actually AT this event. I spent a good part of the day holding Judah and corralling Siah but I stopped for a quick moment for a shot of Siah and myself.

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One of the events was a Scavenger Hunt and as part of it, you needed to dig through this kiddie pool full of crumpled newspaper to find certain items….

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During the Scavenger Hunt

Siah had been eyeing the pool up for most of the day. He was SO EXCITED when the event was over and the pool had been dragged off to the side and the had the opportunity to jump in for himself…..

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And SERIOUSLY…..what event would be complete without a Dance Party…

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Jeremy has some MOVES! He’s pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

The little boys were up and down the stairs of the Vancouver Art Gallery a million times and I got so sick of yelling at Siah to get down off the Lions….apparently they are a HUGE climbing attraction for little kids.

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The Last challenge of the Day was a Food Challenge….where the teams were required to whip up some Whipped Cream…..BY HAND!

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and the Andrea, our sponsor, had to find gummy worms in the bottom of the pie….without the use of her hands. YUCK!

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She is such a trooper….

It was a LONG, FUN-FILLED, Action Packed, AMAZING Day. It was a day that we will not soon forget. Everyone is so completely worn out from the excitement of the day, but in a good way….

A HUGE THANK YOU to Children’s Wish for putting on the Exile Island Event and for helping to make Wishes come true. And another HUGE THANK YOU to ANDREA for all her hard work and support.

It was so touching to be apart of this event and to see all the special, inspiring Wish Children. To know first hand the impact that getting a wish makes, is huge! To see all these people working together to make these wishes a reality is something that I will never forget.

If you are interested, you can go to their website and donate now!

To see the Wish Kids, to hear their stories, to witness their challenges and to see that in spite of any hardships that they go through that their spirits are so very VERY strong….well, it’s all so very VERY touching and so very rewarding to be apart of making these wishes come true!

We are SO looking forward to going on Angelica’s Wish Trip at the end of this month. After the event today we were given a huge box full of stuff for our cruise…

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But, I think that this post is long enough and so I’ll post about the Wish Trip Box in another post.

I apologize for the crappy iPhone photos, but with my hands full this afternoon, it was this or nothing and I preferred this to Nothing! If you are interested in seeing the whole set from today, then you can click here.

Author: Patricia Culley

I'm the ringmaster of my own circus. Just trying to stay one step ahead of the monkeys.

7 thoughts on “Exile Island – the Wish Kids Edition”

  1. WoW! Looks like an amazing day. Andrea seems pretty awesome. And looks like everybody had a great time. So happy for you all to have something special like this after all you have been thru.

  2. Dear Patti,Jon, Geli and all Gelli you are looking so great with that big Box in your arms. So happy for you all and the wonderful plans for your Wish Trip. Patti I did not forget your birthday even tho it seems like it. We are getting ready to leave for Romania ,Grandpa is having back problems from his accident ,Things have been a little hecktick. We love you all and pray you wull have a wonderful time Much love Grandpa and Grandma R

  3. hey patti jon geli have a great time on your wish trip to where you are going. hope weather is great full of sonshines and good memories. Glad it is family time just you guys alone. when is your birthday patti? if i missed it happy belated birthday. Adjusting to having regular steady part time job. looking forward to seeing your future holiday photos. take care Debra PS please say hi to your mom for me.

  4. hey patti yeah swimming suit shopping does sucks in september. before i had to look for black summer shorts for dragon boat race in middle of september and there were no ladies black shorts so i ended up with men black swimming shorts it was the only black available. bad timing to find summer stuff in september after the summer sale ends. now i use men swimming shorts as swimming suit with diving shirt as top. happy swimming.

  5. YEAH! That looks like SOOOO much fun! I am so very glad that you all had an amazing fun-filled day. All of your kids are very cute! Patti, you and Jon are doing such an incredible job of raising such wonderful kids…even in the midst of the storm, you are still praising the Lord… Having been a part of the Make A Wish organization here in Billings for the last few years, I can attest to the importance of the organizations out there, but more importantly the wish families who continue to give the rest of us reason to hope, to endure and to live a fulfilled life. May God bless you more than you can imagine on your cruise…enjoy and relax!

  6. will the cruise ship come to victoria? i can see cruise ship from my apt window 10 – 15 minutes walk from home.

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