KCC - otherwise known as the "best" week of the summer

Last week was, what is known around our house as...the BEST week of the summer. Korean Culture Camp.
The kids wait all year for camp, they count down and are in heaven all week. They were too excited to sleep on Sunday night and Jimmy even told us "I'd trade Christmas and my birthday if I could go to KCC ALL year long!"

What's all the excitement? KCC is a camp full of their friends and kids just like them. 97% of the kids are Korean, either adopted from Korea or children from parents who were adopted from Korea, so they have families that dont necessary look like them. They have 2 cultures and share a similar history. (The 3% of the kids that arent Korean? blondies that are their siblings:)).

This year, over 500 people were at camp, 350+ campers and 150+ helpers. This camp has been running for 30+ years and many of the kids that attend are 2nd generation. VERY cool.

They get to spend the week learning about Korean cooking, culture, language, Tae Kwon Do, dancing, food and what it means to be adopted. They even take self esteem class (Jimmy's favorite class) and play baseball at every "recess".

Lunch everyday is a hysterical event. Tom is 1 of the 2 main cooks and volunteers his time for the whole week. They go through an amazing amount of sugar, soy sauce, garlic and hot pepper. Tracy volunteers in the kitchen on Wednesday and its fun to see the kids come thorugh the line with Korean food stacked HIGH on their plate AND they come back for seconds. Easily, lunch is the favorite part of the day and thanks to the planning of the kitchen staff, all leftovers can be brought home by the kitchen volunteers. We now have a freezer full of spicy meat, yum!

Its also a great week to reconnect with the families that we met when we were going through the adptions of each of the kids. We see friends we only see 1 time/year and even have friends come in for their annual pilgrimage from NY. Its sort of like an annual reunion of your birthing class participants. The kids share an amazing connection as do the adults.