448.81 Feet Collected So Far!

The girls have learned a lot about networking. We, the leaders, have encouraged them to talk to people they know and businesses they frequent, to help the troop on their way to a mile of cookies. The girls have asked their dentist, orthodontists, the clothing stores and many others.

Proud Parent

My daughter wrote a speech about Hitler in her Speech and Debate Class.

She had to do the speech in front of the class as part of the assignment. Well, at first the speech was too long, so she negotiated an extension with her teacher. Well finally she had it close to the five minutes they were allotted. She gave the speech in class and the class loved it. Her classmates encouraged her to take it to competition. After thinking about she decided to go for it. It was her first time doing a “ex-poss” at tournament. So she was surprised that she made the semi finals and decided that she had done well to do that. Boy was she surprised when she took first place beating out 35 upper classmen, now on to districts. Good Luck!
I always knew she could talk her way out of anything.

Mile of Cookies

Girl Scouts Hope to Raise “A Mile of Cookies”

-- Boise Troop Expands Five-year Donation Effort That Started with St. Luke’s Mountain State’s Tumor Institute --

Boise – Often it only takes a cookie to bring a smile to the face of someone going through a trying time.

For the last five years, girls from Boise Girl Scout Cadette Troop 396 have been doing just that with cookie donations to patients at St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute (MSTI).

Each year, during the annual Girl Scout Cookie Sale, the scouts have asked customers to purchase cookies to be used for donations. The effort has resulted in more than 1,400 boxes of cookies being donated to MSTI.

“The girls personally delivered the cookies to the patients,” said Troop Leader Dawn Ackerman. “They enjoy being able to brighten the day of a patient who is going through a difficult time.”

This year, the Troop says it is “stepping things up” with a plan to create a “Mile of Cookies” to donate to organizations throughout the Treasure Valley.

This year’s effort would still include MSTI but add other Treasure Valley organizations such as local homeless shelters, food banks, the Idaho Veterans’ Home and senior citizens through the Meals on Wheels program.

The girls have dubbed the effort “A Mile of Cookies Brings Miles of Smiles.”

“It will take 8,448 boxes of cookies to attain the one mile goal,” Ackerman said. “We hope everyone will help these girls learn that dreaming big reaps big rewards, that reaching out into the community is time well spent and lessons well learned.”

The girls are measuring the mile by the number of boxes it would take stacked end to end.

A box of cookies costs $3.71 and a purchase of just under $20 will buy 1 yard of cookies and $100 will by almost 17 feet. A $500 donation will buy 84 feet of cookies.

Contact us at mileofcookies@yahoo.com

and check out the u-tube video at Mile of cookies 2

Christmas Fun

The kids decided to make a gingerbread house. However no one likes to eat gingerbread so I went for the kit. It was well worth the money.

Oh My...How Time Flys

I can't believe how quickly time has flown. I have meant to have a few posts this month but it has not worked out, but the Christmas tree is up and cards are finally in the mail.

December

It is so hard to believe we are already halfway through the month. We have been so busy with all the activities of Christmas that it is wizzing past. Winter here came in a day. Friday we had highs in the 50’s and then Saturday snow followed by cold, highs in the 20’s. Just like the rest of the US cold and colder. We have had snow several days this week so in between addressing Christmas Cards and chasing down new addresses we have been shoveling snow. I actually still like to shovel the snow. Jeff grew up shoveling feet of snow so he seems a little less happy about all the snow.

In with the Gas... Bye-Bye Electric

We just got our new range. To some this probably seems like no big deal, but to me it is the coolest. When we build our home twelve years ago I wanted gas range. Jeff thought it was just too expensive. He talked me out of it when he pointed out that the kids would be able to touch the burner dials, the kids were 2 and 5. I caved. Disappointed I have spent the last 12 years making do with the electric range that I hate. As anyone with a traditional electric stove will tell you the burns don't last. Cooking eggs had become a true challege and Jeff wanted me to replace the burners. So at Home Depot I went. Once there, I stood in front of the display "doing the math" and went there is no way I am going to put this much money into a stove I hate. If nothing else I can get the gas line run into the house for what it is going to cost me for burners. So in June this year I had the gas run into the house. Now I need to find a deal on a gas stove. Not an easy task. Gas stoves last forever so I don't want to settle, I want what I want and because I know I am only going to get one chance I'm not going to cave. So this November I saw an ad for a gas stove that looked like it might work. Just one hitch, the store didn't have any on display so I would have to purchase it from a picture. So I asked if we had to take it if it showed up and we didn't like it. The store said that we could refuse the range if we didn't like it. So here it is. Everything I hoped for but didn't think we could find at our price point. Stainless Steel, 5 burners, cast iron continous grate, and self cleaning oven. I am over the moon. Thank you Jeff for all your patience, love and understanding. I love you.