La Vida Loca De Flores

Shortly after New Year's, Mike's aunt, Fran, asked me to volunteer at our local holiday "help" center I guess you could call it....it is the place where you can go and donate gifts, clothing, household items, etc., at Christmastime for the less fortunate, who can come and basically just sort through and take what they need for their families. Each year, this center is set up at our local fairgrounds, and inevitably, when the holidays are over, there is a lot of stuff left over that was not taken. The remainder of the items are boxed up and then given to a charitable thrift store in Billings. The thrift store sends a truck to take the items back to Billings, so many volunteers were needed to help load the hundreds of boxes onto the truck. So this is what Fran asked me to help with, and we brought Kolt along thinking he would love to run around in the huge, empty building (all the boxes were stacked up in one corner) and play with his toys. However, once the truck arrived and everyone started hauling out boxes, Kolt was anxious to do his part.

So I began looking for boxes that were small enough and/or light enough for him to carry and he started lugging box after box out to the truck. Then, the other volunteers noticed him working so hard and began looking for small boxes for him to carry too, or asking him to "help" them carry a heavy box with a handle for him to hold on to, and kept encouraging him, saying what a big boy and what a hard worker he was. He was so happy to be working hard and helping that day (as you can see by the huge grin on his face!), it was so cute!

He was so proud of himself and Fran and I were proud of him too, because it really was hard work and he challenged himself to carry the heaviest boxes he could and didn't stop until all the work was done!