A Sick, But True Confession

Many of you know that my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer last November and moved in with us. It was said at the time, that if she did her part of just getting better, we would take a celebratory trip to California as a family of 9. We would spend time at Disneyland, Sea World, and the beach. And my mom held up her end... so we did it.

The first hotel we stayed at, like all of them, were the cheapest we could find. We would need 2 rooms for the number of people we had traveling and I have to tell you (a sick, but true confession), that one thing I was super excited about before even leaving, was collecting the daily shampoos, lotions, and soaps IN 2 ROOMS! I had set out my big bottle of shampoo and conditioner to take so that I could just keep the free-bee travel sized ones and bring them back for the people in Africa.

So we get to our first room- and I realize that I left the big shampoo and conditioner at home. My mom assures me that it is OK, but I honestly, was quite disappointed. You see, for our free tickets to Disneyland, we did "Care kits for Haiti" right after the big earth quake. I shopped for travel shampoo, lotion, and soap and found that $1 was the price for the shampoo and lotion, and $.33 for the soap. This is expensive. I had even priced filling empty bottles and that was no cheaper. I had to get big shampoo and soap, and fast! Before we used up the priceless travel ones!

Meanwhile, Mom went to the front desk and explained that we had 6 girls in 2 rooms and that 2 small bottles of shampoo accross all of us was simply not going to get us where we needed to be. They unloaded handfuls of shampoo on my mom!

More motivated than ever at the thought of getting to take those shampoo to Africa instead of using it, J and I drove out to find a grocery store. I bought my big bottles and smiled the whole way home, knowing that the handfuls of shampoo just given to us would one day make it to the people in Ethiopia! AWESOME!

So, for the 7 nights and 6 days, I was able to save about 20 bottles of each hygiene product, and not quite as much soap! Not bad for a weeks work! If we think of that in dollars and cents, it is about $43 worth of travel sized goods!

Please consider saving your travel sized toiletries for the people of Ethiopia. We are leaving Dec 28th and will be taking out donated supplies with us at that time.

Also, be sure to check out our Carpenter's Kingdom Face Book page. There is a link on the right side of this blog so you can "like" the page and get updates. Also, please "suggest to friends" the page so we can get the word out on this amazing cause!

P.S. It is so good to be home!