Thanksgiving

Hello, everyone!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We spent the week with our families, and had a very nice visit. Mom, Katie, and I did some shopping before Thanksgiving, and had fun just being together. We visited with my husband's family yesterday, so we didn't do any 'Black Friday' shopping. We stayed as far away from the mall as possible! What a shame to hear the stories of people fighting over the things on sale. :(

We had to leave Mom and Dad's early this morning to avoid most of the UVA/VT game traffic. We still ended up in some of it, but it wasn't too bad. We got home a little while ago. I washed some clothes, my husband made some tomato soup, then we started unpacking.

My giveaway package arrived today too, so that was a nice treat. I already have my little snowmen displayed.

They're so cute, and much nicer than these pictures show. Faye did a beautiful job on them. :-)

I hope to come around and visit soon. Hope you have a wonderful week ahead!

Take care,

~Melanie

Samaritan's Purse OCC...It's Not Too Late!

Next week is Collection Week for Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child! The ladies and girls from our church will be meeting Monday night and filling boxes for this very worthy project. We have fun with it every year!

This year, we also showed the following video to our church. A picture is definitely worth a thousand words! After the video was over, my husband said to the congregation, "If that video didn't touch your heart, you need to meet Jesus". How true! It seems we see so much sadness and injustice in the world anymore, but we can't let that harden our hearts to the suffering going on around us.

As Americans, we have so much, and it's amazing to see how so little can make these children so happy! They will not only get toys and hygiene items, they will also get the message of the Gospel, and that is the most important thing!

If you're interested in filling a shoe box, please go to the website listed above to get more information about what to do and where to drop off your box.

I hope you're all having a wonderful week.

Take care,

~Melanie

Moments With Baxter

This is such a sweet video. It's a couple years old, and Baxter has already passed away, but he spent 16 years as a therapy dog at San Diego Hospice. He looks like he was such a sweetie. Have some tissues handy!

~Melanie

What I've Been Doing

Hi, everyone! I hope you're all having a great week.

Our weather has been very nice, and the leaves are beginning to turn. Fall has always been one of my favorite times of the year.

Well, I turned another year older last Friday, and had a very nice day. The teachers got a cake for me, and some of the younger children made me some cards. I got some beautiful cards and gifts from my family, then we went out to eat. :)

We're getting everything organized to put the Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes together. This is a great ministry. So many lives are touched.

It's hard to believe the first quarter of school is almost over! Our staff is a bit short-handed right now, so I've had to do my own job and help out in the classroom. Things have been very busy!

We just finished a Yankee Candle fundraiser, and made a great profit! Their products are wonderful, and we got 40% of the sales. One of our students' moms picked it out for us to do, took care of all the paperwork, and did a great job! This will be a big help in addition to the Box Tops for Education labels we collect.

Unfortunately, the cold virus has been making its rounds through our area, and our house was no exception. I had it first, then Katie, now my husband has it, and today is his birthday! Poor guy. I think he was sick last year on his birthday too. It's just that time of year, and I don't guess it helps being in a school all day with kids and germs.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll leave you with a couple of pictures I took yesterday.

These are the trees across from our house.
The leaves were so pretty in the sunlight.

Our blueberry bush out front.

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Take care,

~Melanie