I didn't have a lot of time on my post earlier regarding Olivia's wish experience from last night.

On our way there Olivia said "Tonight is the best night of my life." I said, "Really, why?" She told me that she was so glad to be able to meet three other families who have kids with something "going on in their body" and that she was meeting with people who help kids have wishes. It was too cute.

What a wonderful time we had. Our area is having to do things slightly differently as we currently have four wish children and not enough wish granters. Wish granters are teams of two who travel up to two hours from where they live to meet with wish families during this process. The first visit typically has one granter working with the parent or parents and the other working with the child to really get at what that child wants to wish for. Since we are so low right now on wish granters they had all four of our families meet at a pizza place locally. We each had a big booth and two granters from Chicago and two (a husband and wife "team") from Champaign (south of us) came. One wish granter was to sit with each family, help to fill out paperwork, and talk to the child about their wish.

We began at 4:30 and I let them know we would need to leave by 5:30 in order to pick the others up before day cares close at 6. We were blessed with the husband, on the husband and wife team, to be our wish granter. He is so very nice. He and his wife are retired and he has a job mentoring teens at a junior high. Another granter, from Chicago, had a family who hadn't arrived and she sat with us during most of our time there, talking with Olivia.

When the granters first came in, they brought each child a fleece tie blanket made by Chicago school children. They knew Olivia's favorite color was red and gave her one with red fleece with gingerbread men on one side and greeen fleece on the other. She LOVES it!!!! They also gave her a princess book! :) She was on cloud nine.

The night flew by with paperwork and Olivia describing her wish and giving them the picture of the pirate ship. Most of the paperwork was in case her second wish of Disney came through and they needed travel information, but he said he's pretty sure the first wish is doable and shouldn't be a problem. Some of the questions they ask you to answer really make me see what a blessing we have in that Olivia isn't "sick." We, unlike many families in this situation, don't have to worry about wheelchairs, nursing care, medical needs, etc. We really are blessed.

What a heart to have to be a wish granter. It is all volunteer. More money to put toward children's wishes.

We were asked whether or not Olivia's name, story, etc could be used for publicity. I knew the question would be there at some point and made sure to ask her again what she thought before we got there. She said yes, she didn't mind. He took down our local paper's name and the Christian radio station that is local. Our news, etc comes from Chicago so I don't know that they will do anything with that. I was a bit nervous signing that paper. We have "let out the secret" so to say of Olivia's status. But people have not turned around and gossiped or shared this that I can tell. It's in the hand of supporters, friends, family who love Olivia. I still am nervous about it really "coming out" but know that God is in control and that we have made the right decision. It's all about helping raise money for Make a Wish and helping to just get the message out that children in life threatening situations are able to receive a wish, not to mention how much Make a Wish could do with more volunteers, etc. When I explained to Olivia about how her wish would cost a lot of money and that people would work on raising that money, she wanted to help. She wants to help raise money for kids to get these wishes. She is wonderful. :)