A little down and out the past few days!

The dreaded Christmas cold came early (I hope). As a family everyone except Trevor has been battling a bad head cold.
I have had so much planned and really cannot find the energy to even think let alone do.
I am starting to feel better so I am hoping to get a lot done over the next few days, at the very least get the Christmas cards out in the mail.

I did go to Seattle this weekend with my sister, that was fun, I was looking forward to this for weeks and when the time came I was full on into this cold. I tried my best not to let it stop me. I was able to pick up some really great deals. People were bugging me about the dollar because it has come down so much but honestly the sales in the stores more than made up for the difference in the dollar. We are facing some of the same economic issues but honestly I have not seen the evidence in the stores, no mind blowing sales like I saw in the US.

Then yesterday I was able to complete one of my favorite things of the holiday season. Every year my sister through her work collects donations for a toy drive. We (sister and I) then go shopping for toys. We had just over $1300 for toys. There isn't a better feeling than shopping for toys for kids that don't have much and not really worrying about the prices. Don't get me wrong we wanted to get as many as we could but we wanted to make sure they were gifts that the kids could really enjoy and get some good play out of. We managed to spend just under $1100, we should finish the rest tonight. I just love this. Unfortunately my desire to adopt some families really won't come true this year simply because of the financial issues we have gone through when Rory took his leave but I am going to save all year to ensure that we are able to do this for sure next year. It is really important for me to teach our kids that they are fortunate and that they always need to think of others. My goal is to not only adopt the family at Christmas but for the entire year, my Dad brought this up to me one year when I was working with some other families, how many birthdays are just as important that get missed because they don't fall during the Christmas season.

Anyway I am off to bowling tonight and then will sit down and send out my cards, I also hope to get some new layouts listed and work on some projects for the kids. Time and my stuffed head will tell.

Cheers