High School Christmas Party

The High School Group (the Loft) from Hillside Church threw a Christmas party for the kids of Farm Drive. We took them to the church for some games as you can see below:


Then after this we jumped into a bus for a little trip to the Sonoma Chicken Coop for some chocolate fondue.


As with all kids the fondue will end up in places it is not designed for! The kids had a blast. Thank you Hillside High School Youth Group!

Annual Farm Drive Christmas Store

This week, we had one of our largest Christmas stores EVER!! The kids normally go through and pick one gift for each member of their family, and one for themselves. This year, we were able to let them each get THREE extra gifts. You could see the smiles of joy on their faces!! We had a whole bunch of volunteers and we were able to assign a “personal shopper” to each kid! The shoppers carried their gifts while they continued to shop. What a special time.

After getting their gifts, the kids went to our “Wrapping Stations”, where other volunteers helped the kids wrap the gifts for their families. What fun!! I have included a couple of pictures so that you can see what a good time the kids had.

Before pictures!



And then the customers showed up!







Thanks to the volunteers that showed up to help. We couldn't have done it without you and to all those who donated the gifts! The kids and their families really appreciated this.
Word had spread around and we had a number of first time volunteers. We even had the CFO of a large corporation (Roche) show up and helped!

Wii Night for Younger Boys

While the younger ladies had a Pajama and movie night, we had some of the younger boys up to our apartment to play Wii Mario Cart. 13 boys had pizza and played a round robin tournament. Below are a few of the pictures from the night.

These guys have been bugging us for awhile to have a Wii night just for them and not with the older boys. Since Patty was going to be out with the girls this presented us with an opportunity to do it now. We only had 4 signed up to play at 4:00 but when I came home at 5, 11 guys were waiting to play! A few more showed up and game on!

The challenge was that only 4 guys can play at a time. So what to do with the other 8 guys? Fortunately the games are not very long so they can switch off. One thing they learned is patience because they have to take turns so everyone gets a chance.

Gary has never played Mario Cart before so we had some kids teach him how to drive! I was able to record it for all to see!