Carla's Fundaiser is now complete!!! Scratch fundraiser #19 off your list because she is taken care of!!!! Thank you to all who made this fundraiser a success! You are the bomb!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Fundraiser #19 is COMPLETE!!!
Carla's Fundaiser is now complete!!! Scratch fundraiser #19 off your list because she is taken care of!!!! Thank you to all who made this fundraiser a success! You are the bomb!
Summer Reading Package~ Dominican Republic
Barbara's child Crismairy's item (above) & Sara S's child Yelisbeth's items (below)
Dee's child Jose Joel's items (above) & her child's Jose Manuel's items (below)
Dee's child Yamileisy's items (above) & Sara S's child Chabely's items (below)
Sara S's child Dania's items (above) & Tamara's child Francheska's items (below)
Sara S's child Ana Maria's items (above) & her child Michel's items (below)
As stated in the post about Chile, I need you all to look over these items and make sure I haven't forgotten anyone or anything. I will be boxing it up tonight to go out tomorrow morning. Package weight: 11 pounds 11 ounces! Shipping cost: $57.71!
Summer Reading Package~ Chile
Chrystal's sponsor child Paula's items (above)
Sara S's sponsor child Catalina's items (above) & her sponsor child Peter's items (below)
Sara S's sponsor child Aracelly's items (below)
Shana's sponsor child Patricio's items (above) & Dana's sponsor child Paula's items (below)
Alright, everyone, I have 2 country's packages ready to go. That means I will be shipping them out tomorrow! I just need all of you to look over what I have and make sure that I haven't missed anyone or anything. Should we decide to send Christmas packages later in the year, I will have a little different way to do it, so that it won't be so head spinning and confusing on my end. (that I will explain when the time comes) I have 6 children included in the package to Chile as shown above. Total weight 6 pounds 4 ounces~ Total cost to ship= $42! It is now in a mailer to go out tomorrow morning 2/1/10 :o)
Victor's Trip to Honduras: Chapter 7: Circumnavigation
Chapter 7: Circumnavigation
Yea, the title is a fancy word. As a boy I was fascinated by explorers like Columbus, Magellan and Prince Henry the Navigator. I'll use any excuse to use that word; sue me :) . One thing that we had not done up to this point was float down the lazy river. You know what I mean; every water park has one. This slow-moving river that rings the park. Being worn out from hiking up to the slide a dozen times, I talked the boys into going for a float down this. Miriam was being a tad overprotective (to be fair, it's her job, I know) and said that Wilmer was too small as he wouldn't be able to stand. She wasn't keen on Carlos going either, but I told her we'd go in a double float and I wouldn't take my eyes off him. In fact, the water wasn't too deep for him to stand, anyway. The older boys and a couple of the girls came as well, as did Jessica, the other translator. I suppose it took us about half an hour to float down the whole river and get back to the start. There was all the sort of stuff that you would expect; splashing, going under waterfalls, the older boys horsing around and dunking each other. Just as we were getting to the end, I could see Carlos starting to get cold, so it was good timing. Miriam said that we should start getting ready to leave. While the kids had had a total blast, I could see that some of them were getting a bit tired, so it worked out fairly well. I quickly changed and then told Miriam that I wanted to get a shirt from the gift store for Axel since he hadn't been able to come. Originally, my plan had been to get all three of my kids a souvenir T-shirt, but I wanted to do something special for just Axel given how things had turned out. I didn't think it would help much, but perhaps just a bit. His grandmother picked out one she thought he'd like and we went with that. We exited the park and the driver went and brought the van around. While I was very sorry that poor Axel had broken his arm, it accidentally made me realize the best strategy for maximizing time with the kids - have CI bring them to where ever you are going to take them and then ride back with them to their houses. That way you can see their home still, but without using up valuable time in the morning. Plus, you can give them whatever presents you have at the end of the day. Depends on the logistics of the area, I suppose, but for anyone planning a trip, I suggest you try to do it this way.
Yea, the title is a fancy word. As a boy I was fascinated by explorers like Columbus, Magellan and Prince Henry the Navigator. I'll use any excuse to use that word; sue me :) . One thing that we had not done up to this point was float down the lazy river. You know what I mean; every water park has one. This slow-moving river that rings the park. Being worn out from hiking up to the slide a dozen times, I talked the boys into going for a float down this. Miriam was being a tad overprotective (to be fair, it's her job, I know) and said that Wilmer was too small as he wouldn't be able to stand. She wasn't keen on Carlos going either, but I told her we'd go in a double float and I wouldn't take my eyes off him. In fact, the water wasn't too deep for him to stand, anyway. The older boys and a couple of the girls came as well, as did Jessica, the other translator. I suppose it took us about half an hour to float down the whole river and get back to the start. There was all the sort of stuff that you would expect; splashing, going under waterfalls, the older boys horsing around and dunking each other. Just as we were getting to the end, I could see Carlos starting to get cold, so it was good timing. Miriam said that we should start getting ready to leave. While the kids had had a total blast, I could see that some of them were getting a bit tired, so it worked out fairly well. I quickly changed and then told Miriam that I wanted to get a shirt from the gift store for Axel since he hadn't been able to come. Originally, my plan had been to get all three of my kids a souvenir T-shirt, but I wanted to do something special for just Axel given how things had turned out. I didn't think it would help much, but perhaps just a bit. His grandmother picked out one she thought he'd like and we went with that. We exited the park and the driver went and brought the van around. While I was very sorry that poor Axel had broken his arm, it accidentally made me realize the best strategy for maximizing time with the kids - have CI bring them to where ever you are going to take them and then ride back with them to their houses. That way you can see their home still, but without using up valuable time in the morning. Plus, you can give them whatever presents you have at the end of the day. Depends on the logistics of the area, I suppose, but for anyone planning a trip, I suggest you try to do it this way.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
This is so funny to me!
We will get to the funny part in a minute... Here is the letter sent to Mack for the package she gave to Steve to bring to the girls on his Mexico visit:
Dear Mack and Mike,Paola, her sisters, and her mother are very happy for the gifts you have sent for them, lollipops, bubble gum, and they liked especially the letter and the photo album because when they looked at it they remembered everything they saw at the zoo and all the good memories and all the good memories from the visit that you did. Paola and her family send many greetings and kisses. They hope you have a pretty Christmas.
Noemi – field officer
Additional Comments: These gifts were delivered by Mr. Steve Hogan in his recent visit. We delivered the gifts on time, but unfortunately the pictures were lost, so we had to take them again; this is the reason the candies are not in the pictures.***
***Ok, I wonder how long it was between the time they delivered the package to when they went back to get the pictures- Since it was candy, I am sure it was gone the day they received it!!! Hilarious!!!!
Packages to Haiti
Jodesson's package contained the items below. It was right at the 5 pound mark. Whew! It was $11 to ship to Florida, and $7.50 to go from Florida to Haiti
I wrapped their packages in small garbage bags, wrapped them with tape all the way around, taped their picture and details to the ball of plastic and tape, and then, placed the balls into a size #7 padded envelope.
Rood-Djevlo was on the urgent list in need of a sponsor because he has so many siblings. I decided to include enough for him and his siblings- 5 cars for the 5 boys, 8 lollipops for the 8 children. When I brought his package to the post office, it was actually over 5 pounds. I had to open the padded envelope, cut through the tape and plastic bags, and pull some items out. It was over a week ago when I did this, so I am trying to remember what was pulled out. I believe I pulled out the t-shirt, cereal, and box of candy.
Islande's package contained the items below. The green package you see is the package that Barbara sent to be included with the other items. Islande's package was close to the 5 pound mark. It was $10.85 to ship to Florida & $7.50 to go from Florida to Haiti. 
Victor's Trip to Honduras: Chapter 6: Sliding
Chapter 6: Sliding
Perhaps fifteen minutes after we had all finished eating, I led the kids back into the water. They STILL hadn't turned on the big slides, but they had water flowing over most of the small ones and that satisfied the kids - especially the smaller ones. Of course, boys being boys, several of them were soon doing things that they were not supposed to such as climbing up the slides after going down them. It took them a while to figure out that the guy with the whistle was blowing at them and telling them not to do it. For the most part, I was right there playing around with the kids. Wilmer in particular, seemed happy about this and he kept calling "Padrino, padrino!" ("Sponsor, sponsor!" for those who don't know Spanish) trying to get my attention to join him on one slide or the other. I keep meaning to tell the kids that they can call me Victor, but where I live it's actually considered rude for a child to call an adult by his first name and I don't know what it's like in Honduras. A kid here would call me Mr. Victor if he knew me well - I really need to ask the translators what's the best way to handle it.
It turned out that we were waiting for the water park staff to finish lunch to turn on the main slides and at last they got them going. Well, actually, they didn't turn them all on, they sort of rotated which ones were on, but that wasn't an issue. There was no line to wait as the park wasn't very full and you can only go down one slide at once. The trick was that you had to walk up a substantial slope to get to the top (while carrying an inflated tube to ride on) so you'd get tried pretty quick doing it over and over. Carlos was somewhat intimidated by the size of the slides, but agreed to go with me. Needless to say, Jon and Wilson had no hesitancy about it and went down repeatedly. Carlos and I went down a few times and then I found Wilmer and asked if he wanted to go as well. He was even more intimidated than Carlos, but I could see he wanted to try it too. He and I went down twice but after that I was more or less worn out from lugging the floats up to the top, so figured we should try something more mellow as we only had about an hour left in the park.
Perhaps fifteen minutes after we had all finished eating, I led the kids back into the water. They STILL hadn't turned on the big slides, but they had water flowing over most of the small ones and that satisfied the kids - especially the smaller ones. Of course, boys being boys, several of them were soon doing things that they were not supposed to such as climbing up the slides after going down them. It took them a while to figure out that the guy with the whistle was blowing at them and telling them not to do it. For the most part, I was right there playing around with the kids. Wilmer in particular, seemed happy about this and he kept calling "Padrino, padrino!" ("Sponsor, sponsor!" for those who don't know Spanish) trying to get my attention to join him on one slide or the other. I keep meaning to tell the kids that they can call me Victor, but where I live it's actually considered rude for a child to call an adult by his first name and I don't know what it's like in Honduras. A kid here would call me Mr. Victor if he knew me well - I really need to ask the translators what's the best way to handle it.
It turned out that we were waiting for the water park staff to finish lunch to turn on the main slides and at last they got them going. Well, actually, they didn't turn them all on, they sort of rotated which ones were on, but that wasn't an issue. There was no line to wait as the park wasn't very full and you can only go down one slide at once. The trick was that you had to walk up a substantial slope to get to the top (while carrying an inflated tube to ride on) so you'd get tried pretty quick doing it over and over. Carlos was somewhat intimidated by the size of the slides, but agreed to go with me. Needless to say, Jon and Wilson had no hesitancy about it and went down repeatedly. Carlos and I went down a few times and then I found Wilmer and asked if he wanted to go as well. He was even more intimidated than Carlos, but I could see he wanted to try it too. He and I went down twice but after that I was more or less worn out from lugging the floats up to the top, so figured we should try something more mellow as we only had about an hour left in the park.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Christmas Package for Eloina
Here is the letter written by Eloina's 12 year old sister, Mileidy shown in one of the photos, so it is a little stilted.Dear Barbara
This letter is to thank you for the package that you sent to Eloina. She thanks you for a stuffed reindeer, dress and shrug, 1 blue hoody, 1 tea set, 1 singing snowman, 1 pair socks, 2 bedtime dolls, underwear, Xmas soldier card holder, Xmas decorated handbag and barettes. I thank you for the doll that you sent to me as well as Eloina. I want to tell you that Eloina passed from Kindergarten and will now be in pre-school. She thanks you for your support and says so long with kisses and hugs.
Yoselyn gets a package from Holly!
You may remember Yoselyn from Honduras. Does she look familiar? We did a fundraiser for her. She was fundraiser #9, and she got a bed, stove, food, school supplies, and clothes!
These pictures are of a direct package that Holly sent her, and her thank you letter is above. Isn't she a cutie?!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)