Help for Kiddos this Christmas

Dear friends,

Hard to believe that the holidays are so quickly approaching! I know that I think this every year, but this year REALLY does seem to have flown by! I love this season, though, and can't wait for the holidays to come.

I am writing to ask for your help. As some of you know, my dad started a foundation - Christ's Starfish Foundation- several years ago. They work to help meet the needs of hospitalized children and families of children who are facing hardships due to their child's illness. They specifically work with families children with non-cancer related illnesses, as that is an area of great need with limited resources. At Christmastime, though, the foundation works to provide gifts for all of the children that are hospitalized on Christmas day. The foundation is based in Jacksonville, FL, and has been providing gifts for the children there for several years.

This year, the foundation has begun to partner with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston (where I work) and at Scottish Rite. For Christmas, they have been asked to help provide gifts for about 145 children at Egleston on Christmas day.

And that is where you come in. The foundation relies on the help of the community at Christmastime to help provide gifts for the children. I am helping to coordinate gifts for the toddler age group. They have been asked to provide about 3-5 gifts for 30 toddler aged children, which means that we need about 150 gifts for this age group.

I would love for you to consider donating a gift, or perhaps sponsoring a child. If you are not available, perhaps your small group, neighborhood, or church might be interested in donating. We can use all the help we can get!

Please let me know if you are interested, or if you know of a person or group who may be interested. I can tell you firsthand as a nurse who has to work on Christmas, it is so fun to get to see our kids' faces when they realize that "Santa" comes to the hospital, too. Gifts can be brought to me, or I can arrange to have them picked up if you are interested in participating.

Thanks, friends!

Amy

Toddler gift ideas: g-rated DVDs, sound books, musical toys, light up toys, Duplo blocks, balls, cars and trucks, pop-up toys, See-N-Say toys, wooden puzzles, bubbles, coloring books, big dolls, stuffed animals

In the past 24 hours I have...

...eaten ChickFilA chicken for three meals in a row.

...played human Bingo.

...sweated in the HOT Georgia summer sun.

...camped out in a parking lot.

...played quite a few hands of Nertz.

...played some Settlers, too.

...done some quality people-watching.

...wondered why in the world someone would bring a baby goat to a ChickFilA opening??

...tried to untie a frozen, knotted T-shirt.

...sweated a little more.

...had fun with some super great friends.

...become the proud owner of 30 free ChickFilA meals!

Our tent (we set up actual tents later to sleep in)

AJ and Lauren playing the oreo game. The goal was to get the oreo from the forehead into the mouth with no hands.

The morning after sleeping on the asphalt

The line of winners waiting to go get their prize

Lauren won the "alternates" raffle and was the last winner of the 52 free meals!

Our "official" ChickFilA First 100 winners. They split their winnings with us, though, so everyone took home about 30 free ChickFilA meals.

And now I need a nap!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day, Dad! You're the best! Hope you enjoy your day!

What's Wrong with this Picture??

Any guesses???

Cinque Terre

Monterosso (the northernmost town)

Vernazza (the town where we stayed)

Boats on the Vernazza harbor

Cornliglia (from the hiking trail between Vernazza and Corniglia)

Manarola

Riomaggiore (from Manarola)

Riomaggiore

European Lessons Learned: Part 1

Thing #1) Good customer service is not a priority in Prague. Especially in restaurants. (Note: This does not, however, apply to the Mosaic House. That place is awesome and everyone was quite friendly.)

Thing #2) The paper $50 Czech note is obsolete. Do not try to use it in a restaurant. Even if it is your first day in the country and you didn't know better. Even if it only became obsolete a week ago. If you do, in fact, try to use it, you might find out more about Thing #1.

Thing #3) There are many, many beautiful places to see in Europe.

Thing #4) Milan is not one of them. Especially the part by the train station at night. Or during the day for that matter.

Thing #5) Be sure to arrive in Vienna, Austria with Euro in hand. If not, you will have be able to find your way to the city center to change money, as apparently this is the only location in the entire city to do so.

Thing #6) European banks are never actually open.

Thing #7) If you are female and you would like to fit in, you should bring spandex pants. Lots and lots of them.

Thing #8) You might also want to sport a mullet. Especially in Prague.

Thing #9) When they tell you that a certain Cinque Terre hiking trail is closed to due landslide, they weren't actually kidding. You will, in fact, find a large, impassable landslide along the way. (However, you will also find one stretch of amazingly beautiful trail that is completely open in the process, which will make your efforts worth it anyway.)

Thing #10) They take security very seriously in the Amsterdam airport. Like ridiculously, irritatingly, very slow and inefficiently seriously.

Thing #11) You will have to repeatedly dump out your water bottles as part of the security process on the journey from Prague to Atlanta. Thing #10 will have something to do with this.

(Disclaimer: The "Part 1" title of this post does not actually guarantee that subsequent posts on the subject will actually ever occur.)

Back Home

I am back home in Loganville. Sorry that the blog posts did not continue - our internet opportunities were sparse for the rest of the trip. But, don't worry! I have lots more pictures to share! Approximately 818 in all, but since very few of you would actually be interested in every detail, I will stick to the highlights. Lots more posts to come!