Merry Christmas Everybody!

We had an eventful Christmas day, starting off with a mighty car crash (in front of us, we weren't involved), then a great time geocaching with Katrina and Brad. Here are some pictures...

This accident was caused by the van farthest away in this picture. The driver amost hit us in the Camaro as she was slicing her way through the traffic at a speed much greater than the posted 45MPH. We were talking about how this 'idiot' was going to make it a bad Christmas day for other drivers or at least the safety workers that would have to respond if she were in a one-car crash. Moments after saying that, we saw a small silver car spin out to the right and then slide to the left and tire went rolling across the road to the right. My comment? "She got somebody!"

This is the passenger after he got out of the car. The left side is so smashed up, the driver had to crawl out on the passenger's side. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.

The girl in the blue shirt is a first responder, who was driving the bronze-colored chevy that is closest in the first picture. As you can see, this car took a serious hit in the left-rear from the van. When the van driver climbed out of her car, all she could say is; "What happened"over and over and seemed to be quite delirious. She was placed in an ambulance and was hauled away.

The wheel I saw rolling across the road when the crash happened, with the driver and passenger of the silver car in view.

And this is the real reason we were out on the road Christmas morning, to find this Christmas-based geocache..

This is one of the best ones we have found so far. The geocachers that made this one up have gone above and beyond the call of duty to put this one together...

We liked it so much, that after we returned home, the kids showed up and we hopped in the van and drove over to see it. We ended up meeting some other geocachers too.

Toys For Tots 2011

We served at the annual Toys For Tots distribution this year, and it was something else... Since we saw that they were kind of lacking in items to hand out last year, Luann found a toy wholesaler in Orlando so she and Katrina drove over there and bought a pallet of toys, then drove back to drop them off at the distribution warehouse. After doing that, we were stoked with the desire to help out with the distribution this year. Of course, there were shortfalls, but through some very hard work between the staff and volunteers, every visitor was well taken care of. We thought this little train was totally cute...  Since T4T is directed by the Marines, the opening ceremonies were performed by the military ROTC cadets from neighboring schools.  Here is a view of some of the distribution areas in the warehouse. Since we used a cellphone camera, some of these shots weren't all that clear.  This is the stocking stuffer table. It was a bit smaller this year than from the previous years we have been doing this.  And here is the stuffed animals table. I remember the first time we helped out and the stuffed animals were piled high into a mountain of critters, with more boxes filled with them being used as the table.  This is the books secction. Thankfully, there were a bunch more books tucked away in the boxes, and they stretched out just enough to take care of everybody.  DING! Off we go, because it's time to get down to business. We were so busy that this was the last picture we were able to take. This year, this facilities' commitment was to help about 3200 families, and we were told that 1200 of them stopped by our table. It was a mad-house as people sorted through boxes and put items on the tables for the parents to select through, but we got it done... Every year, we are thankful we have this opportunity to contribute in some way in order to give back tot he community, and we'll be looking for more ways to help out throughout the upcoming year.