Week 1: Families Helping Families

Dan & I spent the week between Christmas and New Years building a house for a deserving family in Mexico. We spent most of our time with the Carrillo family putting their roof on. (The house had been built this summer but not finished due to funding) Kallie and I were the roofing queens and had so much fun, hard tar and all.

And since this is more my journal than anything I also want to use this year to remember how blessed we are as a family.

Two amazing things happened this year with our trip. First off, was our campaign to raise money for the foundation. I was humbled almost daily for weeks as neighbors and friends dropped off checks, checks came in the mail with Christmas cards and total strangers donated money. It completely changed my approach to Christmas as I saw an outpouring of generosity and love. I was witness to so many tender mercies as I watched people give of themselves and their money. It made my entire Christmas- so THANK YOU again to all those who helped. It was AMAZING.

And second, at the end of a great week, Dan & I and another couple were driving home and we had made it as far as Kingman Az when we stopped for dinner. On our way into the restaurant our friend realized he didn't have his wallet. He and Dan spent 20 minutes with flashlights digging through the "car trip" packed truck in hopes of finding the wallet. Our New Years Eve dinner was spent in silence with our friend on the phone canceling his credit cards. Our Las Vegas New Years Eve plans had already lost their steam so we decided after dinner to drive back and see if it had fallen out of the car when we had taken a quick pit stop on the side of the road.

We said a prayer and texted our kids to pray as well - and we turned around to search for a black wallet on an unknown length of highway in the pitch dark . As we drove back we all remembered details about the stop that we had not previously recalled. We narrowed it down to 15 mile stretch of highway- two lanes, with no shoulder, a few bushes and a ledge. There were very few areas that fit every one's description so we decided to make a second pass at this 15 miles. This time we went a little bit further before turning around to retrace our steps. Now remember there are small wallet size black things all along the side of the road- tar, and pieces of tire. Dan and JD jumped out of the car multiple times and then we drove very slowly on the shoulder. JD saw the wallet before he was even out of the car. He jumped out and hooted and hollered and we celebrated like it was 1999! We were relieved to find the wallet (with cash inside) and know that our little prayer in the desert was answered.