Treats for Soldiers

Treats for Soldiers started today. What is Treats for Soldiers you may ask?...Well let's start with the obvious...we make treats and give them to soldiers.

History of...
Last year my mom handed me a book and said it was really good. I needed to read it, so I did. It is called, "Once Upon A Town, The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen," by Bob Greene. Awesome book. It talks about the small town of North Platte, Nebraska. During WWII, the townspeople figured out that all military personal being transfered from East to West or West to East, went through their little town (center of the U.S.). As did every town and city across our country, thy had children, fathers, sons, uncles, cousins and neighbors who were away serving their country. To honor their loved ones, and to serve the loved ones of others who passed through their town every day, they decided to set up a canteen. The people of North Platte and their surrounding communities took over the resturant at the train station (with the blessing of the train company) and set up huge tables of all manner of food and drink for every single soldier who passed through...ALL For FREE. Mind you, every single person who donated food, was rationed. There are stories of people giving their sugar, their flour, their eggs, etc. to make pastires. There were sandwiches of every kind, hard boiled eggs, cakes, pies, coffee, water etc. A piano was set up in the resturant. Sometimes people from North Platte would come in and play for the soldiers and sing with them. Sometimes a soldier would play. Birthday cakes were made every day because every day was someone's birthday. No soldier went without a cake on his birthday, when he passed through North Platte. There is story after story of sacrifice just to feed these soldiers. The trains would start as early as 5 a.m. and sometimes the last train would pull out at 2 a.m. Each train would have anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes at the North Platte station before moving on either East or West. There was a story of one mother who, after receiving the news that her son died in Europe, took a couple of weeks off from the Canteen, then came back and was there every day after that. She decided there was nothing more she could do for her son but she could do something for the sons of others who went through her town every day.

After reading a book like this, it calls you to action. It dares you to look at your life and examine it. In this time of propserity(yes even our recession is a time of prosperity) this book make you ask, what have I done to give to the soldiers and veterans who have secured my comforts and freedoms?

I did not have my food rationed. I lived less than a mile from a base. I wanted to do something for the soldiers in my own backyard so...Treats For Soldiers was born.

I decided to make treats each week and take them to the base at Los Alamitos to pass out to soldiers. I invited other families to join us. We shake hands, thank them for their service and offer a baked good. We did that almost every Thursday last summer plus we selected a Saturday in August when we knew reserves would be coming in for training at the base, and passed out purchased and home baked goods, all the while calling out our thank yous and waving signs of thanks, as soldiers passed through the gate at the base. It was an incredible summer and a highlight of our summer.

A couple of months ago as we bagan to plan out our summer, I knew Treats for Soldiers needed to happen again. I have recruited new families this year and hope to be able to spread the word even more. Soldiers need to hear our thanks. There is a feeling so indescribeable that comes from expressing gratitude to our soldiers. I want to share that with my friends. I want my children to grow up knowing we honor those who have and are serving to protect our country.

God bless our country, God bless those who have and those who are, willing putting themselves in harms way for my families behalf.

Treats For Soldiers is on - Round 2

Wanna join us? Let me know. Not in my Cypress, CA area? Find something in your area that you can do to serve soldiers. I promise you, it will be worth every minute.

Eric Overton

I have found another blog about a person with the last name of Overton. This time...Eric Overton. Eric looks to be a graphic designer/artist. His website is full of drawings he has done. They are really interesting. I particularly liked the business card/christmas card he did. A client hired him to design a business card which he did. They then wantd him to use the same feeling from the business card to creat a christmas card to send out to their clients. He came up with a great Christmas Card. It was impressive. He was also hired to create a giant banner to go up on the side of a building advertising a composer and orchastra that were coming to town to play a concert. It is a really cool looking poster.

I am impressed with his talent. It is considerable. If you would like to view his artwork and his blog you can see it at http://ericovertonsblog.blogspot.com/.

Happy Perusing.

Handball, Handball, Handball

My son has become taken with handball. He plays it at school, he plays it on my fence, he plays it on my laundry doors and he playes it on my front door...inside the house. Before this phase of his life, he would constantly carry around a ball, any ball, (a balloon works too) and bounce it or toss it up in the air. Always bouncing and tossing.

Now, he not only does that, he turns any two perpendicular planes, roughly at a 90 degree angle, into a handball court. What he does is, hits the ball, itbounces on the floor, bounces up and hits the wall (or door or fence or back of the chair) then bounces back to the floor to be hit again...back to the floor to the wall to the floor...hit...floor, wall, floor...hit.

I know the pattern of the sounds it makes by heart and I can hear it happening inside the house, outside on the fence or in the courtyard most of the time on any given day.

Glasses Girl

Madelyn just got her first pair of glasses. What color do you think they are? Pinky/Purple of course. She loves them and likes to wear them.

What color are your knees?

We just finished Family Home Evening. We talked about the kids being able to ask us any question they wanted about the gospel. We sang, "I Am a Child of God," as our closing song. Then we knelt for our closing prayer and family prayer. Just as I was about to pray, Spencer says, I have a question. We shushed him because I was just about to pray. After the prayer Spencer again says, "I have a question." Ok, we said, go ahead.

Why in that song (I am a child of God) in the second verse does it say, "And so my knees are grey?"

David Overton

Who is David Overton?

David Overton is a man that lives in the UK, works for Micorsoft and has a wife and two kids. In addition to all of that, he is my first blog review on the Overton Hunt. To be honest, I didn't read all of his blog but I read several of the most recent entries. He has a great picture of himself on his blog banner...asleep on the couch, with what looks like a cell phone at the ready right next to him. (Oh how my husband can relate.)

David is an interesting man. I liked him right away after reading his posting about a tech reporter that passed away. You have to like a person that can appreciate the good in others. Since he works for Microsoft, you can imagine he know alot about it. I read a posting about how Windows 7 is doing in the market place. In another post I saw beautiful pictures of his house and surrounding trees covered in snow and finally I watched a video he posted. It talkes about the depression he went through after his daughter was born. He and his wife worked through it and he now talks openly about it. That is really brave.

I like David. He is a good man. I think that I would enjoy being his friend. Thanks David for letting me get to know you a little bit through your blog. It was a great start into my little adventure.

If you are interested in reading David's blog here is the address. I think you will like David too.
www.davidoverton.com

I'm going on an Overton Hunt

Have you ever wondered how Michelle's mind works? It's ok if you haven't. Not many people do. Just a bit of insite for you all though. As I was trying to decide what to title this entry, the preschool song, "Were going on a bear hunt," popped into my mind. Thus...I got my title for the entry. Now everytime I see this entry I will be singing (in my mind of course) the title of the entry to the tune of Were going on a bear hunt.

Ok, you may be saying, but get to the point already!

Well here it is. I was trying to look up the website address for my Sister-in-law, Christina Overton's blog because I have never added it to the "People we love" blog site on the right side of this page. Feeling remiss, I attempted to google the blog to find it to get the exact address. (Close enough is good enough doesn't apply for blog addresses). When I typed in, "The Overtons of Overton Blog," I got back tons of people who have the last name of Overton who have blogs. There are soooooo many. I thought it might be interesting to do a survey of some and see what others out there are doing with the name Overton. It is a curious thing isn't it? I will let you know if I come across anything interesting. Although truthfully that is like saying , "Michelle, go into a book store and let me know if you find anything you like." I love books. I also really enjoy getting to know people. It all feels a bit stocker-ish though. Someone they don't know will be reading their blog. Tis the risk we run when we put a blog out into cyber space isn't it?

Curious about people who have your last name? You do your own experiment and let me know what you come up with.

Happy Reading!

(Long Live the Written Word)

Dodgers!

We are going to the Dodgers game on Saturday! Tod was able to secure 4 tickets thanks to a lady he works with. Woo Hoo! I am so excited. It will be Madelyn and Spencer's first time going to a Professional Baseball game. I think I will probably have to feed them lots of snacks and take a few walks but, it will still be great!

She came home

This is Madelyn at a local museum by my great Aunt's House. It has beautiful gardens. This museum is to honor a famous author who wrote a story in poetry form.

This is Madelyn climbing the 72 (she counted them) stairs in the light house in Montevideo.

Here is Madelyn with two friends she made. Madelina (11) is in the pink dress. Emma (9) is in the brown. They are girls from America that Madelyn met at church. They played together as much as they could.

This is a picture of Madelyn at Carnival with, "The Old Mamas."

This is Madelyn at the Capitol Building, the White House of Uruguay.

Madelyn came home! We are so glad to have her back. She had a great time in Uruguay visiting with her South American Family, making friends and learning about the country. Here are some pictures from her adventure.

I passed

I received my results. I got a 9.9 in both reading and math. What does that mean? Don't know but I passed and I can register for the Core Medical class on the 27th of March.

Done with the test

Well I completed the test. There really was nothing to be worried about. Madelyn my 5th grader could have passed the test. There were two parts to the test. The first was reading comprehension. A passage was presented with 5-6 questions that followed. There were about 10 passages in all. The second part was math. It was very basic math. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. In addition there was addition and subtraction of fractions. The only difficulty I experienced with the test was a few poorly written question. I had to study the question, the provided answers and the passage to determine what they were really asking. There were 4 or 5 questions like that. A few of those I am still not sure what they were really asking but I did my best. It was a scantron form so that wasn't too difficult either. All in all, I am confident that I passed. The next step is to register for the core medical class on March 27th.

Testing today

I am a little nervous this morning. I will be testing in about an hour and a half. I have to take a test to start the CNA program with the North Orange County ROP. They said it was basic English and Math. I should not be nervous because I am soon to be a college graduate. Furthermore, any 17 year old high school graduate can take this test so, I should be ok right? Well I woke up this morning at 6:00 a.m. and started cleaning. If you know me, you know there is really something wrong if I voluntarily start working before 7:00 a.m. I folded laundry, emptied the dishwasher, loaded it again and started it. So, there it is. Proof positive, that I am nervous. Wish me luck.

Digging it out

About a week ago Spencer came home from school with significant scraping on the palm of his hand, on his hip and on his knee. I was a little alarm and asked what happened. For P.E., his class used hoola hoops to jump rope from one end of the basketball court to the other and back again. Spencer tripped and injured himself. When I heard it was the injury happened on the blacktop, I remembered the story of Tod and his permenant dirt (little pieces of blacktop gravel that are still inside of his skin). I looked closely at Spencer's injuries and decided for the moment they looked like blood spots. Well a week later, as the injury has healed some, it became evident that the spots were infact blacktop gravel. I got out my tweezers and prepared for the drama. Oh my goodness, you would have thought I was going to cut his hand off. He wailed and screamed and pleaded for a stay of execution, he bargained and begged. Of course my heart was breaking but I had to get the gravel and dirt out. It took some time but I finally got the two biggest pieces out of his hand. Poor thing began to hyperventilate. He has done this in the past and knows what it feels like so admist all of the screaming, he informed me that he was feeling, "clostraphobic," and was going to die.

Life as usual - Afternoon edition

Life as usual, in the afternoons, means doing homework (not mine, Spencers), doing laundry, folding laundry, trying to decide what we are going to have for dinner, putting a call into Tod (To find out what time he thinks he will be home so I can coordinate dinner but, mostly just to hear his voice) emptying the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher, putting away things left out on the counter in the bathroom, wondering what shows are going to record tonight on the DVR, and thinking about the little projects and things I need to do around the house. Intermingled with all of this is a, "reasonable," amount of Twilight musing. Life as usual is pretty good. I think when I am old and gray, I will look back with fondness at "Life as usual."

Madelyn is in Uruguay

The tradition continues. Madelyn is in Uruguay with Abuela. She represents the begining of the 3rd generation who has visited Uruguay, our matriarch's homeland. Madelyn is having a great time and we miss her. She has made some friends. They are two little girls who are Americans. Their father is working in Uruguay right now. Madelyn met them in Primary. They play together in the backyard with a beauty salon and make houses and little beds for their dolls. She will be gone for two months and will return on March 19th. Pictures to follow.