Packed and Ready

This is what my living room looked like this afternoon. These are donations only--before adding any of my own belongings to what needed to be packed!

I would estimate we had about 50 pairs of shoes, most of them in pretty good condition (some brand new)!This doesn't do a good job of showing how many sheets were donated. I would say we had 50 sheets easily (top or bottom), plus several pillow cases).Not taking too many medical supplies over this time. I figure most homes already have at least a basic first aide kit, but some won't. For others, band-aids come in hand the world over! There was also a bag full of small toothpastes in this pic as well--clean teeth!

If I'm being honest, I would like to fill up all of my suitcases with toys and books and games and candy. It was quite difficult to prioritize the shoes and sheets over toys, books, and candy! At the very least, the Legos had to get in. I think those are the best toy EVER for any group care setting.
This might not look like a ton of clothes, but it was a pretty decent amount. Some of the clothes donated are absolutely darling and are going to make some little girl or boy very happy! This trip we are very girl heavy (especially 3-6 years). There was only one boy outfit donated, but I had the boys raid our garage to find more! =-)

This is a poor picture to show how many books, pencils, and flash cards we had to take over. We probably have 70 pounds of these things alone.Eric , Taevy, and I packed all night long. We put it in. We weighed. We took it out. We played around with how we could get the very most to Ghana in the least amount of bags and the last amount of overages charges!

1. Navy Blue Bag: Delivery for Kairo's (non-profit), and gifts for family and friends. That's it! There are a LOT of gifts when you count personal gifts and gifts for the kids from their parents. 68lbs

2. Red Bag: Donation clothes; sheets, legos, more sheets, flash cards, as many little toys as we could stuff in the pockets! 60lbs

3. Green Duffle: Shoes, shoes, and more shoes!!! Would you believe there are ten pairs of shoes just in the side pocket of this duffle?! 30 lbs [I hate that I'm going to be paying for another bag and it only has 30 pounds in it, but we ran out of suitcases so this was the biggest bag we had!]

4. Graffiti Duffle: Yee-ha! All of my clothes and most personal items are at the bottom storage area on this bag. The upper portion of the bag is full with medical, sheets, toys, sheets, and shoes. 69 lbs

5. Brown Backpack: I had nowhere to put all the candy I bought for the kiddos, so I now how 8 bags in the bottom of my backpack! Other things in there are my extra set of clothes (MUST HAVE IN YOUR CARRY ON!), snacks, cords, camera, etc. 20 lbs

6. Black Rolling Bag: Computer, eReader, cords, documents, documents, and more documents! 25 lbs

At the end of the day we packed somewhere around 280 lbs, of which around 50 was my personal items. Not bad!Unfortunately, we weren't able to get everything. I promise, we tried the bags a million extra ways. We are even paying to check an extra bag! [So expensive to buy sheets in Ghana.] We got all but a few good pairs of shoes in (plus 4-5 pairs of flip flops). I think we had 3 sheet sets we couldn't get in, and several pillow cases. There was a bag of scarves that would be so fun for the kids, but they got left out too. One whole box is mostly books, with some small toys thrown in. They will wait in my "Ghana Closet" for the next trip!