Holiday busy-ness has kicked into full swing.
We started things off with our annual Strong Family service project. Every year, we get together with my mom's family and do some sort of service project - whether it's a sub for Santa, or making blankets for homeless teens. It's a fun way to gather to celebrate the season and teach our kids about the value of service and reinforce the true meaning of Christmas.
This year we chose to participate in a service project that we learned about from a little boy that my aunt had helped through hospice. He was dying of a brain-stem tumor and had decided that for this past birthday and coming Christmas he would like friends and family to donate to Operation Christmas Child - a project run by Samaritan's Purse. You fill a shoebox full of toys and small items that get shipped to children around the world. Thomas had hoped to get 100 boxes to send to this charity. We thought as a family we would be able to do around 40.
When Bryson heard about this and looked at some videos of children getting the boxes, he was hooked. He chose to turn this service project into his Eagle Project. He solicited donations from our ward, and organized the evening.
The outpouring of support from our ward combined with the money my extended family donated, we were able to make over 100 boxes.
We gathered yesterday to shop for and assemble shoeboxes. We had planned for Bryson to go with my aunt to deliver the boxes to Thomas, but unfortunately, Thomas passed away Friday night. We felt sure though that he knew about what we had accomplished and that he was giving us 2 thumbs up.
It was completely awesome.
That's it for tonight, Updates on the bathroom and kid room swap coming tomorrow...
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