Happy Mail for Heroes

We just got this e-mail at school, and I wanted to pass it along.  Please remember our military who are fighting for freedom and will not be with their loved ones this holiday season.

For the 2010 holiday season, the Red Cross and Pitney Bowes are again sponsoring a "Holiday Mail for Heroes" program to distribute holiday cards to service members, a program that encompasses not just troops who are recovering in military hospitals but also service members stationed throughout the U.S. and abroad, as well as veterans and their families.

The cards should be addressed to:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
PO Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD
20791-5456

As noted on the "Holiday Mail for Heroes" section of the American Red Cross' web site, all cards must be postmarked no later than Friday, December 10, 2010. Cards postmarked after that will be returned to the sender. This deadline ensures enough time to sort and distribute cards before the holidays.

The Red Cross provides these additional guidelines:

Do

• Include your heartfelt sentiments and sign all cards
• Entitle cards with generic terms such as "Dear Service Member, Family or Veteran"
• Limit cards to 15 per person or 50 for school class or business group
• Bundle groups of cards in single, large envelopes.

Don't

• Send letters, care packages or monetary gifts
• Include personal information such as home or email addresses
• Use glitter — excessive amounts can aggravate health issues of wounded recipients
• Include inserts of any kind as they must be removed in the screening process

Also please note that the "Holiday Mail for Heroes" program is for the delivery of holiday cards only. Those wishing to donate items such as phone cards or military comfort kits should go to the military section of the Red Cross online catalogue.

We Know How to Stretch out a Party

This weekend, the company that CH works for had their Christmas Party.  They switch between adults only parties and family parties.  This year was an adult only party.  We had a dinner cruise on a yacht on the river.  

So, Saturday afternoon, CH insisted that we leave 45 minutes to an hour before boarding begins.  (It only takes about 15  minutes to get there.)  I told him how sad it was that we had no life and that we had to get somewhere so early.    We get there and sit out in the parking lot forever for a long time.  Then, CH decides we should start walking down to the dock.  We take our time, and end up walking around the dock and checking out a couple of the boats and basically just wasting time.

 Then, we decide it's time to walk toward the yacht.  As we're walking toward it, we see a group of people walking toward it...with gifts in their hands.  I look at CH and tell him that we don't have a gift...is he sure that we're not suppose to have one?  He said it wasn't in the memo.  Then I ask him if he recognizes anybody.  Nope.  But, he doesn't know everybody in the company, so we didn't think a whole lot about it.  We stand around a few more minutes, and another group comes towards us...with gifts.  Nope, he didn't recognize them either.  That's when I looked at him and asked if he was sure it was the right day.  He checks his calendar on his droid, and started laughing.  We were there a day early!  We laughed about that the rest of the night.  There is a Ruth's Chris right next to the dock, so we ended up going in there and having dinner.  The bad thing (or good, depending on how you want to look at it) is that we had eaten a little something before we left the house since we weren't sure if we were going to have a sit-down dinner or just hors d'oeuvres.
Sunday, we didn't have to leave quite so early, since CH realized it wasn't necessary.

We go there on time, on the right day, and had a great time.  It flurried off and on all day, so there was a nice Christmasy feel to it.  Yes, it's definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

How Did We Do?

If you read yesterday's post, I'm sure you're back today to see how the Small Town High School did yesterday evening.  But, before I get to that, I wanted to show a couple of pictures from this year's send off, compliments of one of the senior's moms, Barbara, who allowed me to use her pictures. I didn't go to the send-off since I don't have a son on the team; I figured it's my time to fade into the background and let these parents have their day in the sun.

The send off began at the high school:

Continued on to the middle school:

And then continued to the elementary school where the boys were greeted by this sign:

When the game started, the opponent got the ball first.  They made it all the way down to the 11 yard line.  And then they were stopped.  I have to admit, when they marched down the field to almost make a touchdown, I was thinking that we may be in for a battle.  Our defense held them, and the opponent came away with 0 points.

I won't keep you in suspense any longer.  Here's the final scoreboard, with Small Town's score on the right:

 

The prize:

And, "The" picture:

Photo by Adam Briner

Our kicker:

He's come such a long way:  he was thrust into the starting position 2 years ago during the playoffs due to some circumstances that I'm not going to go into here.  He went from just barely being able to kick the ball over the post, to being the 2nd highest scorer in the state. And to top that, he's a good kid, too.

After the game, there's only one place in that town to go:

They have incredible pizza.  We went last year after the game, and by chance, had the same waitress!  She even remembered us, remembered where we sat, and remembered that we had a few other people with us.  (MS came with us; he said it was weird to see the game from the stands, but he was so excited for his former teammates.)  When we were seated, we were at a table next to some of the opponent's fans.  I happened to look over when we came in, and this woman was just staring at me. (This was before I knew they were from the other school.)  I just thought, "How rude" and went on.  It clicked when I knew where she was from.  Our waitress even said that when she came in she was really rude to the hostess.  There's no sense in that; I don't even care if you have money and send your kids to a private school.  (Hope that doesn't offend anyone!)
Anyway, I'm leaving you with one last picture.  This says it all:  It doesn't matter if it's your 1st or your 4th for these seniors, each one is just as sweet:

Photo by Adam Briner

These seniors only lost 2 games in their high school career:  both of those games were to our rival school that has a student body 3 times the number of ours, and who competes for a state championship in their class every year. Yep, I'd say "they done good".