Meals from the Heartland

What a way to start Labor Day weekend!  On Saturday morning, Joe and I had the opportunity to volunteer for Meals from the Heartland to package food packets for starving people all over the world.  Most of the meals we made today will be shipped to Haiti and Africa, but some will also stay here in the States too.

Before we got started we checked in and watched a short video of how to prepare the meal packets.  They had examples of a village in Haiti of the living conditions, tents, etc. and lots of photos from the devastation from the earthquake.  It was very emotional.  Then we got sanitized and fitted with hair nets and aprons, etc.  Then we each took a station and started our work for 2 hours.

We volunteered with a group from Hy-Vee, which is Joe's employer.  We had a lot of fun.  Here I am with Josh, the son of one of the Hy-Vee employees.  We were a pretty good team sealing the bags, stacking them up and then loading them into the boxes.

I think we completed about 10 boxes, which will feed approximately 2,160 people.

This is a view of just a small area of the tables set up to package the meals.  It was amazing, and I think i heard the surpassed what they had hoped to get done this weekend.

Here is Joe and I in our gear!  Not too flattering, but we had so much fun I can't wait to do it again next year.

Here are the statistics...

On to other activities of the weekend...

Joe's sister and her family came to visit us for the weekend.  Mike had never been to Des Moines (grew up in TN).  We made a stop out to the Bass Pro Shop.  They had a family obstacle course set up, which included being able to shoot a paintball gun.  Here is Joe and Hope waiting to get into the tent.

Here is Hope in shooting the paintball gun.  At first she didn't want to do it, but they guy ended up talking her into just pulling the trigger while the guys held the gun.  After the first shot, she got this BIG grin on her face and then she didn't want to stop until the gun was empty.

We went out to eat at Joe's Crab Shack and walked around the lake at the mall.  Then we played Farkel (a dice game) the rest of the night.

On sunday, we went to the Blank Park Zoo.  Here is Kaylee and Hope riding a camel.

Well, I am off to get Hope in the bath (after playing with worms all day).  Long story short, who knew that a bucket of worms could entertain 4 little girls (the twins, Hope and the neighbor girl) for several hours.  They also played in on the swing set too, but spent a lot of time with the worms.

I also got to spend a little time scrapbooking this weekend and I will share when I can.

Good Night!

Darla