Count Your Many Blessings Name them One by One......

I have to admit, this Christmas has been one of our tighter Christmas'. With Eric loosing his job a couple of months ago, things still feel tight and continue to feel like we are still playing catch up. Then we realized we were going to need a new fence sooner than later, and on top of that found out our water heater is cracked and is leaking so it needs to be replaced. I was in the process of feeling sorry for myself... than Eric volunteered with our ward to go help the people in Chehalis who have been affected by the flooding. When he came home with pictures and stories, I was able to realize how blessed I am and how many thins I have to be thankful for. I have so many things to be thankful for this Christmas. I have a wonderful family. A hardworking husband that is so good to me, and would do anything to help others out. He is truly a good example to me when it comes to serving others. I have two boys that are in perfect health, even if they do wear me out at the end of the day. I have a beautiful house and a warm bed to sleep in every night. And last but not least, I have the gospel in my life that keeps me going when times get hard.

Here are some pictures.

This is a picture of one of the many houses that were taking everything that has been ruined and destroyed out of theit homr. I can't imagine. Since these people were technically not in a flood zone, none of them had flood insurance either.


Here is a picture of Eric. He came home absolutley filthy. His job that day was to crawl in a crawl space of someones home, which was muddy, and slippery and try to rip out all the insullation, so they could replace it with new insullation. Most of the homes were also so mudy and filthy that they had to rip off there dry wall and re-drywall.


Here are two of the youth from our ward. It was neat to see the youth step up and volunteer too, I know it touched many of them.. Look how filthy the inside of this home is. This home is only 5 years old.



Eric said it was such a neat experience. When he arrived with our ward, he checked in at the local highschool where all the volunteers were given a yellow t-shirt showing they were volunteers. He said, that day, wherever you looked, you saw tons of yellow t-shirts, people from all over coming to volunteer their time to help out. It was awesome. It was cool too, A neighborhood that just happened to be a couple blocks up the hill from us, got together and donated $100 per each, showed up in vans, pulled out there barbecues, and provided lunch (hamburgers, hot dogs, soup, hot chocolate, and coffee) to all the volunteers.

I am thankful for this experience that helped me realize how blessed I am, and helped me step back, and remember the true meaning of Christmas, instead of getting caught up in all the craziness this time of year often brings.