Let’s Catch Up
Posted on November 7, 2015 by Ching under Community, Life.
This blog is ridiculously behind. I’m going to attempt to catch us up.
Did you all see that awesome rainbow that happened last month? It was on October 22. It was an amazing double rainbow. One really vivid one and then another faint one around it. It was a full rainbow too. You could see the arch from end to end. I usually miss these things but I’m so glad that I got to see it. It’s the most beautiful thing I’d seen in a while. I even got a picture of it; though the picture really doesn’t do the rainbow justice. It was amazing. I hope you guys got to see it too.
I love rainbows because they always brighten my day.
Speaking of brightening someone’s day, my extended team (extended because Faith and Amy joined us) and I did a volunteer service day at the Kansas Food Bank. We packed several “Bob Box” pallets from eight to noon.
It was a wonderful team building activity. We not only got to work with one another but we also worked with these ladies from a local church who regularly volunteers the food bank and some employees from Cox Communications who volunteer during their lunch hour. The church ladies arrived around ten o’clock and the team from Cox arrived around eleven. We had such a blast the four hours just flew right by.
I took this photo before everyone showed up. We had a pretty good assembly line going on with just the six of us.
We spent the day bonding as a team offsite so it was a nice break from the daily grind. I like it when we do fun team building activities like panting or crafting and such, but I really like team building activities that involve community service or volunteerism because then we’re not only having fun bonding but we’re also giving back to the community at the same time.
Here’s a picture of us with Kansas Food Bank President & CEO Brian Walker accepting our $1000 donation.
The best part about Westar Energy is that the company encourages employees to do volunteer work and has several matching programs. One of these programs is a team building service match. If we have five employees from the same department do a four-hour service project for a nonprofit then we can request for a $1000 grant from the Westar Energy Foundation to match our time. Of course, the organization and the project have to be vetted first, but it’s great that our company is supportive and encourages community service and volunteerism by donating funds to the projects and nonprofits that employees support.
This was on Friday, October 23. It was a great day for doing volunteer work and bonding with my team. Not so much for the diet, though.
The six of us went to District Taqueria for lunch. I’d never been there before but had been meaning to because it’s owned by the brother of my former dental hygienist. I’m so glad Nykole recommended it. The food was delicious. I have a separate blog post for that because I went back with Brian a week later for my birthday lunch.
Dinner that night was a Granite City with Brian’s Edward Jones office family. His boss (who is also our friend Rune) wanted everyone and their families to get together and meet. Dinner guests consisted of Rune (financial advisor and boss man), Kristen (Rune’s wife who also used to work in their office and still fills in from time to time), their son Eirik, Deb (the senior business office administrator at their office), her husband Mike, Brian (new kid on the block), and me (supportive spouse).
It was a great start to what would be a crazy-busy weekend consisting of groceries with grandma (which Brian usually does while I teach my Saturday morning Zumba class), brunch at the Good Egg, Connie’s 50th birthday extravaganza at the Kansas Star Casino, the Boo and Brew Ball (a benefit for Dress for Success Wichita), packing for Topeka, and bowling. I’m blogging separately about the birthday party and the Boo and Brew event because I have quite a few pictures to share.
We have been so busy lately that the year has just flown by. I’m hoping we’ll catch a break here eventually because we are so behind on house chores it’s not even funny. My having to work in Topeka four days out of the week doesn’t seem to help matters any. More on that in another post also.
We caught up a little bit but not quite enough. Hopefully I’ve have more time to blog this weekend so we can get completely caught up.
Until then, have a fabulous weekend everyone!
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