12/11/08 The Wrapping is DONE!

Today another 3 carloads went over to Val's house to finish up the wrapping for the kid's Christmas party next Saturday.

It went much smoother this time as everyone knew where they were going, what they were doing and we walked in and just went right to work.

Sandy, you know her as my line dancing instructor, kept busy as a bee. I've been visiting Sandy ALOT lately because she has been baking her Christmas cookies. Now of course I'm not doing this for myself, I think of it as "quality control". I certainly wouldn't want Cactus Carl to get sick because of bad cookies now would I? They are going to their son's house in North Carolina for the holidays so she has been baking up a storm so that she can take lots of goodies to the grandkids. Sorry, kids, you aren't getting as many as you thought but feel safe in eating them, I tested and re-tested for you. No need to thank me, I was happy to do it.

Here's Billie, you may know her from the blog as Mrs. Peacock. She's smiling but under breath I think she's saying, "Oh there's Snookie, with that damn camera again, doesn't she ever put it down?!"

I think Judi is saying, "Look at this pile behind me, I'm so sick of this paper!"

Mary is thinking, "Hooray, my last package to wrap!"

Janet is saying to herself, "Oh yeah Snookie, you took all the square or rectangular boxes and left me with the hard ones!" Uh,,,,yep, I did!

So in the end we wrapped 542 packages. Games of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, more than a few skateboards, boxes of crayons and the books to go with them, baby dolls of every size, baseball bats and basketballs, Play-doh and Lego's, a microscope and an Etch-a-sketch, trucks and cars of every color and function. toys that are quiet, toys that are noisy, toys that teach and the list goes on and on and on. Everyone of us walked out of there, both days, with aching backs from bending over and stretching, aching feet for standing for three hours in the same place but it was a feel good kind of pain. Aches and pains we would tolerate again and again just to be a part of this. Val has so much energy and passion for this project that it oozes from her very pores and its contagious. Each of us just want to keep giving to this project, we want to be there next Saturday morning to watch the kids tear into the presents from Santa that "these elves" put their all into the wrapping of them. And we will be there, in force, because we can't stay away. This has become part of us now and we all know that if we're in Quail Run next year that we'll be part of this again, and again the year after that and as long as this party for these Arizona kids goes on. By the way, Santa is from Quail Run! We have also made arrangements for the donation of a 10 foot tree from Lowe's Home Improvement so we are very involved with this cause. And it feels good!

After dinner I went over to Sandy and Carl's, I forget what lame excuse I gave for stopping in but I sure didn't refuse her offer of a couple of cookies. Gee, I hope she didn't feel obligated in offering them since I kept looking past her at the tray of them on the table. I hope I wasn't salivating.

This next picture is kind of "fuzzy" because it was taken through a window. I heard singing that sounded very, very nice and I had to find out where it was coming from. It was the winter residents, who are making up our Christmas Eve choir, practicing. Ohhhh, they sound GOOD! Six of them are on the Activities Staff.

I bought these decorations from Lowe's for the walls in the Breezeway. They were marked down half price and I just couldn't refuse them! Aren't they cute?

Shhhh, don't tell anybody but they are really toilet seat lid covers!

I got that picture of the side of our trailer with the outside light on over the tree.

Bob is so good at this decorating stuff! So creative and the best I can do is stick a toilet seat lid cover on the wall.

Oh yeah, a book we ordered about exploring Alaska arrived today. The trip seems all the more real now.