Merry Christmas to Alex! Love Liz

I had a LOT of pressure this year to come up with the PERFECT service for Alex. You see, he had my name last year and did a super good deed. Honestly, I was so touched and I know he gained some major heaven points. So I felt like I had some big shoes to fill.

Alex is a simple person in some ways, and rather complex in other ways. In trying to figure out what to do for him I had several options - a family man, a great husband, hard worker, lover of cats and dogs, gamer, geek stuff, picky eater . . .   Some of my early ideas were really more representative of his wife or kids, so I kept at the "drawing board" to think of something that really reflected Alex himself.

In the end, I decided on something that I personally appreciate in Alex - his love of board games and his willingness to stay up until all hours of the night playing them with my kids. I don't have the patience I use to with board games, and I definitely dont have the stamina to stay up until 2 a.m. to play them with the teenagers. But Alex has both.

Early in the fall, I thought it would be fun to host a game night at our house and have Jackson invite any friends over to play games. I would provide snacks and the space, Jackson just had to provide the teenagers. That was harder than anticipated - high school football games and Brianne's homecoming got in the way of many Friday nights. We finally hosted one game night. I would've been willing to do more had the kids actually played the games. But alas, the games got abandoned after about 30 minutes and they spent the rest of the night goofing around. I think this group of kids needed more experience in how to have fun socially while still being engaged in a game. They need an Alex :)

Well, I didnt want that one night to be the end of my service, so I went back to brainstorming more ideas. Then I remembered that our ward use to do some service for an organization in downtown Las Vegas called the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth. It's not a shelter, per se, but rather a daytime center for support and resources.

"NPHY’s programs stabilize homeless teens’ lives, meeting their immediate needs and providing a safe, supportive environment and a path to self-sufficiency." -

I thought how much these homeless teenagers would probably appreciate some good board games to play while at the center. So I started advertising through my ward and other networks that I was collecting gently used board games to be donated to the NPHY group. I got several responses from my ward and also from the community and even some other homeschool families that wanted to help out tho I've never met them. Some people didnt have games, but wanted to help in other ways. We ended up collecting several bags of clothing, school supplies, and over $100 in gift cards in addition to over 50 awesome board games and card games. I was surprised how many were actually brand new- still in the cellophane wrap. These good people were really wanting these kids to have games in good condition. 

Jackson came to help me deliver these games and the guy at the desk was really impressed that we were specific about the games. He said they had a few in the rec room, but not any where near this amount and not nearly in as good of condition. I didnt get a chance to meet any of the homeless youth themselves, but we could hear them in the courtyard having a great time. 

Thanks to Alex for inspiring me to help provide a little more fun in these kids holiday. Visiting places like this sure makes me appreciate my blessings of family and the gospel. I'm also so grateful for the supporters of NPHY who help these kids learn how to be self sufficient. I think I may start offering some tutoring services or something there soon before we move away. 

Merry Christmas Alex - I hope you get an awesome new game to play this year! Thanks for being so great!