Thursday Thrust

Just hours now until the start of our 2018 Operation Christmas Child packing adventure.

Since I knew the day would be getting warmer I started early this morning in the attic to get 115 bags of larger stuffed animals down the pull-down stairs so we could pack them up to take them to the church.  It's easier if I can lower the bags down to Jim, so when he had to leave to go to the church to meet the driver with two of the pup trucks to hold our boxes shoeboxes I had to stop.

A few hours later Jim and Myron made a trip to Donna's house to pick up the large plastic bags she and her husband had folded and stored in their home.  It took four vehicles to hold them all.

When they returned we decided to go back home and fetch the Schriefer Zoo before it got too hot.  I got all the bags hauled down and the guys loaded them--nearly filling the box truck.

By the time we had all those garbage bags unloaded and added to the ones from yesterday our packing party room looks more like a landfill.  The bags might not be aesthetic but they're a practical way for us to store so many thousands of stuffies.

I was excited to have Lisa Seale arrive from Virginia and we set to work filling the 500 cute
Crayola tins she brought us. They'll make really nice fillers.

Of course the box folding went on all day with the size of the crowd fluctuating but peaking in the evening with a large group of middle schoolers.

Our rooms are pretty much ready and we ended the day with 23,210 boxes folded.

Just waiting for the third load of stuffed animals to come out of the dryer...