Dear Ray, Krissy, Kate, Jack, Lily, and Owen,
We are so sorry to hear you have been so sick. Having just been through it a couple weeks ago we know how awful it is and just how miserable you feel. We sure hope you get to feeling better soon and can enjoy the rest of your time off from school!
Since we were so sick it was really hard for us to do our Family Christmas Service before Christmas! We were so excited to be able to give the gift of service this year and we are so happy to share with you what we decided to do. We brain stormed many fun and wonderful things we wanted to do – but narrowed it down to one thing. Since Makenna, Porter, Charley and Campbell’s cousin Hatcher was born, he has had to spend many hours, days, weeks and months in the hospital. Over the last 5 years there have been so many people who have visited him and brought him gifts to make being in the hospital a little bit less hard. We thought that it would be a fun service to bring a homemade blanket and gifts for 1 boy and 1 girl who are currently at the St. Charles hospital in Bend.
We picked out a fun soccer ball printed fleece for the boy and a fun polka dot print for the girl.
We cut slits in the edges and then tied knots all around the edge of the blankets.
They were so cozy and we could just imagine those kids in their hard hospital beds feeling a little more comfy with those blankets.
Our next outing involved going to the dollar store and picking out gifts for each of them that we thought would be fun to do while lying in a hospital bed. For the boy we picked a mini pool table game, silly putty, a glow ball he could put together, and a dry erase board that had lots of different games on it. For the girl we picked silly putty, a glow in the dark necklace, two different colors of nail polish, and the same dry erase board with games. We put all of the stuff into 2 big sparkly gift bags and headed out for Bend.
When we got to the hospital we weren’t exactly sure where to go. One of the hospital staff directed us up to the 5th floor – the pediatric unit, where the sick kids or kids recovering from surgery were. We got up to the 5th floor and ended up running into a friend of mine who is a nurse. She showed us where we could find the head nurse. We gave her our gifts and asked her to give the gifts to a boy and a girl who could really use some fun activities. As we walked out of the hospital that day we all felt so good and happy. It makes us excited to do more service and think of others ways we can give and serve.
We want you to know how much we love you all and how grateful we are to have you in our lives. We love you! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
