Saturday, July 26, 2008

Fund Raiser Yard Sale for the Napier Family

In an effort to help our friends, the Napiers, with medical and other expenses, Brian and I decided to hold a yard sale and ask friends from care group if they wanted to join our effort. In a little more than a week, our care group, along with many from the Rhodes Care Group and other folks from Sovereign Grace Church, donated items and held a yard sale today bringing in $1,848.44!

Madison unloading items from the Coughlins.
Laura, always with a smile.
Issac and David Brown, the CRAZY, I mean kind, people who volunteered to host the yard sale.
Kerri and Stephanie made signs and put them up at 5:45 A.M.

Getting ready. We arrived to set up at 5:30 A.M. Special thanks go to Jessica and Brian Crabb, Beth Blackburn, the Brown Family, Kathy Ranfeld, Rebekah Judd, and the Wasko girls for not only being there so early, but working so hard with such great attitudes. Many thanks, too, to the Williams family, Bob Blackburn, Ginger Perron, Tina Kraft, and the Bare Family for helping with the sale. Thank you Becky Duenke for donating the newspaper ad. Also, a huge thanks to everyone who donated their stuff, let us borrow trucks, tables and ladders, and purchased items from our yard sale. 
The Browns, Williams, Wasko kids, and Karen & Ronnie Smith baked goodies and made lemonade for a "Donation Bake Sale." We think they made over $100 for our worthy cause. Many kind people paid $5 for a cookie and drink once they learned why we were hosting the yard sale.
We made a display with pictures of the Napier children and descriptions of their health challenges so that people at the yard sale understood our purpose. It was typical for people to ask us to "keep the change" or to give us more than what an item was priced. One of my favorite examples of this was a woman who bought a gift bag for 50 cents, and gave us $10. She didn't want any change. A few people didn't buy anything; they just gave us a donation. 
Coffee, Coffee, Coffee. Even a couple of the kids were allowed to drink coffee today.
Mimi Brown amazes me. Not only did she host the yard sale, but she made dinner for our family last night and had pancakes for all the workers this morning. How DOES she do it?
Stephanie and Isaac cooking the pancakes.
The Wasko and Brown kids performed tunes and dances they learned at the Hunts' Camp this summer. Below is the open violin case they used to collect donations. They did a great job!

Happy times counting the money. Did I mention that we made $1,848.44?!
Here are the kids (Thomas is missing from this picture) enjoying a hard-earned ice cream. While some of us were loading the unsold items to donate to CHKD after the yard sale, a team of these kids cleaned the Browns' house--vacuuming, dusting, bathrooms and all. What a great group of kids! What a great day!

Hanging Out with the Kemethers


Stephanie and Sophie

Edna the caterpillar.
Below: grilled cheese for lunch.

The Gang: three Wasko girls, Mike and Kate's three kids and the Kemethers' cousins.
A competitive game of Rumikub. Sophie was the winner. Way to go, Sophie!
Madison and Mike's mom were a great team.
Below: a beautiful flower from Mrs. Kemether's lovely garden.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Our first day at the convention

Hello everyone!
Katie had a card reader that I could use, so here are some pics from yesterday. Our awesome Hybrid

Our trusty GPS (Gregory Parker Skadoosh, or Bob for short)





Lunch stop





Pictures of the giant peachHere at last!











Before and after pictures of our booth.






Now for today. It was the first day of the convention. If you have been to one, you know it is not the most interesting thing in the world ( well, at least not for a 12-year-old girl) But it was fun to be able to help out my dad, and meet all his friends. It was a little weird, talking about WriteAtHome, with people, but nearing the end of the day, I think I had gotten the hang of it. It was a long day though, we got there at around 9:00am and it ended at 7:00pm. We were right across the hall from the Suits, people that go to our church, which was fun to be able hang out with them. Katie Paulus was there too, helping out. We went out to dinner with them afterwards, at this really nice ( not to mention yummy) restaurant.The Suits have the cutest little girl, who I took a lot of pictures of. Here are the pictures, enjoy!













This is the building where the convention took place.



Katie and I
And this isn't a very good picture, but it's little Lizzy Suits.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Our first day in Georgia,by Taylor

Well, for those who don't know, my dad and I went to Atlanta, Georgia for the weekend for a homeschool convention. Although I took tons of pictures, I don't have the card reader to get the pictures on to the computer. Hee Hee! I will after I get back though, now worries.:) (Mom, I know you are going to find a million grammar mistakes in here, but oh well.)

We left the house at 6:30 A.M.(ugh!)The drive up was about 9 hours, which is pretty good time. Katie and Jason Battaglia, are letting us stay with them, Thank you! They live about 15 minutes from the convention hall. We stopped, had lunch at the Cracker Barrel, and went the rest of the way there without stopping. Instead of going right to the Battaglias' house, we went to the convention hall to set up. After setting up, we went to Jason's Deli to eat. ( Their ice cream is so good!) We knew we had time to do whatever we wanted since Katie and Jason were both out, so we decided to see a movie. Thinking it looked good, we chose Journey to the Center of the Earth; it was fun. On the drive to their house, Dad and I were trying to think of a part in the movie that was actually possible. We didn't succeed!=D It was fun all the same. We got to Katie and Jason's house at about 9:45P.M. Talked for a little bit, then went to bed. I know it is kinda boring without the pics, but hopefully someone enjoyed the post!:)