Mission Accomplished!

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:57

It is officially official! Today, Frankie and I donated the whole amount of the monies raised to charity:water and sponsored a water project, only by the grace of God! We are so grateful that He put this on our hearts at the beginning of last year and that He touched others hearts to make it happen! Thank you to all our family and friends who joyfully participated! Today we have changed the world together!


charity:water also thanks you-

Water changes everything. Preventable waterborne diseases are drastically decreased. Long walks to muddy ponds and rivers are no longer necessary. Time spent collecting water is reduced, offering women a chance to earn an income, and children a chance at a better education.

Clean water offers improved health, a better quality of life, and hope for a better future.

100% of all donations will begin to be put to use for a clean water project in the name of Taylor & Frankie and Friends. We want to keep you updated throughout the process:

A water project takes 12-18 months to implement, complete and then report on. We are committed to sustainable water projects, which require planning and problem-solving; so before the physical construction of the water project, our partners need a considerable amount of time to effectively prepare and engage the community.

MONTH 1-3
• You make a donation.
• charity: water works with local
partners to choose the best
project technology and create
budgets for the project(s).
• charity: water grants to
partners at the end of the
quarter.

Way to go team! Way to go God! Stay tuned over time for updates and eventually GPS coordinates of the Taylor & Frankie and Friends Well!!!

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!

More Water Warriors

We have a big announcement to make but before we do we still have a lot of people to thank!
Along with Tina making bracelets, Amy making crafts, and Thayne sharing with his co-workers, we have many more great stories to share! So many in fact that we hope we mention them all... really we just keep hearing about more and more. It really is incredible!

Uncle Tad and his family gave up drinks for awhile and saved money by only drinking water. Yep, no coffee, Dr. Pepper, or energy drinks! They also put together a yard sale! Thanks guys you are so awesome!

Aunt Jodi donated early in the year when she heard what we were doing. But she and Uncle Fritz and their family set an amount that they would donate monthly and found ways to meet that goal. Not only that but Bo's girlfriend, Emily, used an assignment for school to spread the word. She put together a power point presentation about the need for clean water and she raised $70 that day! Amazing!

We would also like to say thank you to North Rome Baptist Church where Uncle Fritz pastors for the collection they took to donate to the well! What great hearts you all have.

Thank you to all who bought water bracelets and for all who gave donations above and beyond the "asking price" straight from the heart! It means so much to us and it means life for His children!

So many people came together to meet this need. So many hearts wanted this dream to come true. So many people prayed and so many people worked really hard to raise this money. We have the final count and we know God was behind all of this and that he made our final amount possible. But before we let you in on the total we have one more story to share, don't worry we will be posting it today!

Hope you enjoy the last day of 2010! It truly has been a blessed year! :)

Water Warriors

We are only nine days away from the end of our goal! And we are truly blessed by the ways that others have contributed. What is amazing to us is that when we set this goal we did not plan or expect any funding from other people. We didn't know how we were going to raise the money but we trusted God and knew that if he put it on our hearts to build a well, He would make it happen.
We did not recruit the aid of family members, other that taking items off their hands to sell at our yard sales. We did not post a link asking others to donate on our blog. We did not rely on anyone except for God. He is our motivator and He enlisted the hearts of the many people that have aided us in our journey.
As far as I know we did not ask Tina, Teddi, and Brogan to make bracelets (but we did ask if we could help after they started)! And we did not ask for an aunt and her family in Michigan along with 6 other families to give up all drinks except for water for two weeks to save money for the same well... Our next Water Warrior is Amy Asaro! She has been so wonderful! She organized an awesome water party to get her friends involved in spreading awareness about the water crisis and saving money for clean water. And she hand crafted gift bags to sell at a local craft fair to raise even more love for water. She is such an inspiration! Even her teenage son, Thayne took the word to his work to encourage his employees to take part in the water project! And they aren't done yet! But you will have to wait to find out how she inspired a whole family to change their Christmas this year!

So today we want to say thanks to Amy and Thayne Asaro! The Asaro family has raised over $600 so far and they rock our socks off! You guys are so great and such an inspiration to us! Thanks for all your hearts and all your hard work. We miss you guys and can't wait to hug your necks next time we see you!

Well...

As most of you know one of the goals that we set for this year was to build a well. :)

We have been very blessed in our fund raising efforts. We have had two very profitable garage sales, have accepted donations as birthday and anniversary gifts, and have even worked over time to put a little extra in the jar. So far our total is around $2,800.00! UNBELIEVABLE! God is so great at providing!

We aren't at our $5,000.00 goal yet... but we are not worried. Only two weeks to the day til the end of the year and we are not worried about the other $2,200.00 because we have some great partners helping us with this great mission. :) We would like to feature the people and show them our thanks in the next few posts.

So today we want to shine the spot light on The Winders! That's right! Taylor's family has taken part in the fun. Her mom, little brother, and sister have started making bracelets under the name clearly love. These beautiful bracelets were created by the three of them in many different colors and styles. Each one hosted a clear bead to represent clean water and what the bracelets stood for. After just a few weeks of announcing these gifts on Facebook and at church the Winder family has raised nearly $350.00!!! Wow! We are so grateful for their hard work and participating in building the well.

Speaking of clean water... We did do our giveaway (the video ate up most of our time) but we haven't shared who the winner was. So congrats to Sonia from his hands his feet! She won the $10 Living Water gift card. With this gift card you can chose where to spend your ten dollars... you pick what to fund. A few of the options are school children in Uganda, hospitals in Kenya, unreached tribes in the Amazon, and house churches in India. Have fun shopping! For more information on that go here.

Also to learn more information about clean water through charity:water watch ABC 20/20 tonight to see a well being drilled!

Thanks again for your help Winder Family, we can't do it without you!

Sunny Saturdays - Yard Sale!

At the beginning of the year we set a goal to raise enough money to build a well in Africa through charity:water. Well, Saturday we got to fill our jar a little more- we had a second yard sale! It took four truck loads of stuff from seven different families but we got it all down to Pleasanton, TX! We worked from 4 a.m. setting things up to be ready by our 8 a.m. start time to 4 p.m. loading the unsold items back into the truck. So much work but oh so rewarding!! From the start we felt so prepared, we picked a good day - the day after payday (last time we had it on a holiday weekend which we were told was a bad idea), we put an add in the paper and on Craigslist, we made signs, and I took a whole day off to get things ready. And no matter what we did God was there to prove to us that no matter how much planning we did, we were not in control of this, He was and He was going to take care of everything...

Yeah, we picked a good day- so good that everyone one else picked that day to do stuff to. Our sister Kathy, was testing that morning. Our Rodriguez family was campaigning. Our Winder family was helping with a Fall Festival. Half of our Pleasanton family was having their own garage sale across town. So much for many hands making light work... but we went on. We put our add in the paper on time and had all the permits bought, except when we got the paper it didn't say what day the sale was actually on (meaning people were driving by on Friday when we had nothing) or what town it was in, but we went on... The night before we found out that our plan to start selling at 7 a.m. to catch all the early birds was spoiled by a rule saying that we couldn't start till 8 a.m. (the sun didn't even want to come out till 8... our first shoppers had to borrow flashlights to shop with) but we went on... when we started to unload our trucks we lost a set of keys in the dark and the doors were locked... found them in the backyard after some frantic searching. Finally the sun came out and some help showed up and the people started slowly come in. Then more, then more, then MORE!!!! We put out three signs, and my Grandpa later came out and asked where I had put those signs because we have never had a turn out like this... we even had a line to check out at one point! And caused a small traffic jam in the road in front of the house!! Even as we were packing up we had people coming by. Even after we were all packed up and had made the final count, two teenage girls were knocking on our door asking if we sold the biggest item leftover, which we glady unloaded from the truck to sell to them!!! Like we said, no matter what we planned God was there laughing and saying "Let's do this my way."

We still left Pleasanton with two truckloads of stuff to pass on- two bags of clothing and a box of shoes to the Agape Ministry donation baskets at Journey, three or four big boxes of stuff for Goodwill, a box of items for Mom to consign at the thrift store on base, and three boxes of stuff to pass on to the Youth Ministry at Journey who will be having a garage sale next month! Perfect timing, eh? We were so blessed with all the donations that came in and blessed to be able to pass on some goods to others. And SO SO SO blessed with a grand total of...

are you ready for this?

$778.00!!!!!

Whoa! Is our God big or what??? He sure showed us. He showed us and blessed us and still amazes us at how awesome He is. :)

Thanks everyone for all your help, your items, and your prayers! We truly could not have done this with out you!

Frankie made us shirts with a homemade screen printer!

Grandma's House

Kitchen items in the front, closet in the back.

Home items.

Craft supplies.

Kid's toys.

Kitchen.

Some furniture.

Painting.

Things are leaving!

Games and toys.

Christmas stuff.

Taylor made some bread and some gift baskets!

Yard Sale Update

To say our yard sale went pretty well would be an understatement. We did a little research on when would be a good time to have it, even though our date was pretty much set, we wanted to know our odds. Rule #1: Have your sale after payday. Oops. Rule #2: Never have it on a holiday weekend, people travel. Strike two. But, we prayed, and moms prayed, and aunts and cousins prayed... and we had God up to bat for us- GRAND SLAM! Our God is not a God of rules and statistics, thank goodness! We had our very first customer at 6:30 am and it didn't slow down unitl around 12:15! We were consistently busy (but never overwhelmed)! After that things slowed down, but we still had constant bursts of people, with never more than about 5 minutes in between. We sold and sold and sold! At the end of the day we had raised a wonderful $521.23! Not bad considering that our biggest item was priced at only $15! We even received a $1 donation. :) Thank you to everyone who prayed, donated items and time, made signs, and lent us yards (and made us breakfast and lunch! ;) ) and shopped! - you made it all possible! Thank you God, for a wonderful turnout and a large step towards our goal!

With the addition of this weekend's earning we are now more than 1/5 of the way!

Yard Sale

We are having a yard sale to help raise some money for our goal of building a well this year! Both our families have contributed stuff for us to sell along with our own and all proceeds are going straight into our water jar! Come out and help support the cause if you're in the area- At Hwy 132 and FM 463, just past the Nazarene Church in Devine, TX. 7am- 2pm.

[Free lemonade! ;D]

casa HOTEL

It's been a year since our adventure started as husband and wife, and it has been so much fun. For our honeymoon we stayed at the coolest hotel in Austin {San Jose Hotel}. I picked it because one of my favorite Architects designed it. We loved it so much that we decided to go back for out first anniversary. For a full year we talked and talked and talked about going back, what room we would get, what shops we wanted to go to, where we wanted to eat. We even got a bonus for resigning our lease, $200 off our May rent!, this would cover the cost of a night! We were so ready! Or so we thought...

They were booked... Boo. But not to worry, I jumped on the computer and the same Architect had a hand in a new Hotel in San Antonio {HAVANA}. Awesome! We love San Antonio, and the hotel seemed to have the same feel as the one in Austin, and it was so new that it wasn't booked yet. We fell in love and started planning our new weekend. Would we stay one night or two? Come in Friday or Saturday? Should I take Monday off? The grand total of the whole weekend started piling up.... maybe not too unreasonably for an anniversary weekend, but it was a lot, and a lot is out of our norm.

After much much much thought we decided that the hotels would be there next year. For those of you who don't know, Taylor and I set a goal at the start of the year- we are trying to build a well in Africa! We are really excited about it and are trying really hard to complete this in one year. So the idea of being able to put this money into our water jar instead into our weekend made more cents. (pun intended ;) ) So that's what we did. But that didn't change much, we decided that we would still have our hotel stay and fancy dinner, but for much less. So with Taylor in San Antonio visiting family I got to work. And so we would like to share with you our hotel stay at {casa HOTEL}. :)

Our Room! :)

Mini Bar

Lounge

And of course we had a Restaurant too....

Dinner for two, with the house wine, "Casa". ;)

Dessert!

It was so much fun! And the total cost came to be about $25.00. 5 for the mini bar, 10 for the wine, and another 10 for the food and flowers. We can now put the rest in the water jar. :)

We also enjoyed some fun new things in Houston for the weekend. We went bowling Saturday morning for a friend's birthday, and then to Kemah Boardwalk on Taylor's mom for food and fun! We also ate a couple other meals out thanks to my mom and sister and Taylor's grandparents! Thanks all! It was definitely a special weekend for us! :D