The End of a Year and the end of a goal!

This year has been so great! We celebrated so many things- birthdays, anniversaries, banquets, benefits, we hung out with old friends and made some really good new ones, we said goodbye to some families, and hello to a few babies! We were so blessed in so many ways. Take a look at a few of the highlights!

We started last year in Chicago!!!

Since then our friend Falyn who we were visiting has moved back to Texas!!!

Taylor made it to an Extreme Makeover Home Edition reveal!!!

Teddi was "re-adopted"! We love our little sister!

We got to visit friends Tia and Joey in CT with a day trip to NYC!!

We ran the CHF 5K!!!

We attended to the 3rd annual Children's Hunger Fund Banquet!

We ate PB&J sandwiches almost every day as we let our original Food Pak Adventure change they way we ate all year!

And so much more! Thank you everyone for following along with us through this year, you have been a great blessing to us, hope to see you next year, too!

And because it was such a great year we have something big to end it with... At the beginning of the year we said that we wanted to raise enough money to build well. Now it is time for our final update and it starts back with Aunt Amy... She really had a heart for what we were doing, so much that she held a meeting this summer with the family. With everyone there she presented her plan to replace the gifts that they would normally receive from Papa with money. Cash for everyone! And Papa and his handyman self would build a well to represent what we wanted to share with the world. So this year for Christmas we all received money and as fast as we got it we put it all in! We dumped our pockets, including the money we had been saving up in Houston, in San Antonio, in Adrian, in Battle Creek, and in Tipton. Everyone pitched in and our water jars overflowed into the well! Everyone shared their stories, their memories, their accomplishments, their love for one another. We shared over Skype and over the phone. We are so thankful for the families that God has given us! Thankful that they believed that we could do this and thankful that they wanted to be a part of it in a big way! Thank you so much to everyone one who helped!

Here are some pictures from the night (via Skype)! All the family in Michigan was at Papa and Gma's house on the 29th for their big Christmas celebration! The little ones opened a few gifts along with their dollars and everyone ate lots of good food I hear! ;) The family here in Texas received cash as well and we had our own little photo of the well from Papa!

In go the money jars!

Inside the well!

Aunt Amy, Landon, and the well!

The Winder and Rodriguez well monies!

So you wanna know the grand total?!?!?!

At the end of the night all monies were counted from all families and all projects from the year. Cousins calculated on their phones and through the phone with my Mom, connected via Skype, we heard this number all the way from Michigan...

$6,947.50

And Papa pitched in out of pocket to bump it up to an even $7, 000!!! Way to go guys! What a beautiful Christmas gift to our King! What a beautiful way to end the year!