I WANT YOU!!!

We are still looking for people to be on our team (or someone else's - check them out here)

I know you may look below at the list of team members and be like oh there are too many I won't do it... AND you shouldn't do that!!! We still need more!! There is always room!! Even if our team gets full... For round two, they added 2 more teams at the last second because of how many bakers were still volunteering! So what I am saying is that, if you are thinking about it... DO IT!! It really makes you feel good doing something for someone else!!

Again, thanks for looking and to those who have said YES, THANK YOU!! YOU ARE AWESOME!

~Lyndsay


**please don't make fun of my picture... hee hee... I was trying to be creative (actually my husband said I should do that sometime, after seeing OBG's "logo"...)and not take a REAL long time to do it... so just laugh at it... don't critique it... **

To Our Team Members...

I sent you an email... If you did not receive it please contact me!!

Thanks,
Lyndsay

Update: I added the blogs of those I have... If you don't see yours let me know...

Our Team Members...

I will update this post as our team comes together...

So far here is our team....
My mom and I - Youngstown, OH
My Aunt Barb - Kremmling, CO
Marisa - Brooklyn, NY
Francine - Harvey, IL
Shanna - Chicago, IL
Patti - Maspeth, Queens, NY
Sara - Los Angeles, CA
Brittney - Selinsgrove, PA (or as she is referring to it as the middle of nowhere, literally) :-)
Kelly - CT
Kara - Falls Church, VA
Ashley - OK
Paige - Rock Hill, NY
Jeanne - Danville, IL
Elise - Newington, CT
Sharon - Southern CA
Suzanne - Goodyear, AZ
Lori - Alabama
Lori - Connecticut
Kristina - Portland, OR
Joanne - New York, NY
Rose - North Attleboro, MA

Thanks again to those who have joined our team!! I know Zach and the other troops will be so excited!

They have been posted!

Our Soldier's name is Zachary Thomas Sain, and he is currently stationed in Iraq. He is the nephew of one of my mom's tennis friends. This round of home-baked goodies could not come at a better time for him because homesickness is getting pretty rough. It has been tough to hang on to a little piece of home, and his contact with loved ones last month cost him a 4-figure phone bill to prove it!!! Now, let me tell you a little bit about him.



He is 19 years old and graduated from high school in Champion, Ohio in 2006. He has three siblings back home (Amanda 17, Jeremy 14, and Bailey 12) and his mother, Jaquetta. He is an animal lover and has a golden retriever named Sampson. Zach loves listening to the "oldies" as well as new music. He is into cars and rebuilt a 1977 Jeep with his dad, Joe, before he passed away. Zach loves to go muddin' in his Jeep and also enjoys target shooting. He is even a member of the American Motorcycle Association. As for the future, he hopes to return home from service and continue serving his community as a police officer.



If you would like to join our team, please email me at eLLe1015@gmail.com , and I will give you his address!

Our Team for Round 3!!!

Mom and I are a team leader for this round! I am going to hold off on posting our soldiers information until it is posted on the main site. BUT if you are interested in being on our team, please leave me a comment or send me an email: elle1015 at gmail dot com. Please put "I WANT ON YOUR TEAM" in the subject line and include your name and location!!

Thanks for looking!
~Lyndsay

Something to think about...

Something to think about...
last month I ordered from USPS online site, the flat rate boxes for the military and the customs forms. I ordered them over 15 (working days) before we needed to send the cookies. On the site it says it takes 7-10 business days and I did not receive my order until the week after we sent out the cookies. So I had to go to the post office and pick up the boxes anyway, but at least I do have them for the coming rounds. Anyway, I just wanted to share that information.

A good thing to add about the post office...
is that the lady that was working the day I sent them was very nice and helpful because my mom put together a box of goodies for a man whose family belongs to our church that was getting ready to deploy. She put everything in a regular box and not a flat rate box and it would have cost me almost DOUBLE to mail it in the small box my mom packed then to put it in their small flat rate box. So keep that in mind that it is probably best to use their boxes since the goodies we are mailing are heavy!

One last idea...
I created a sticker from the picture that is on the Operation Baking Gals site... and put it on the outside of the box. I thought that was a good idea and something that I would pass long!

That's all for now.

Thanks for looking!

We received a "Thank You"

Monday morning, I woke up to find an email from the soldier that we sent our cookies to! It definitely made my day and I know it made theirs!



**It of course did come looking like this, but I didn't want to just copy and paste text, so I made it look "pretty"**

On a sidenote- I mailed our package on Wednesday and he received it on Monday! So I thought that was really quick!

Our first round...

Here is what my mom and I made for our first round of Operation Baking Gals!



Homemade Toffee with nuts! Yum!








I sealed it to make sure it stayed hard and fresh for our troops!







Oatmeal Toffee Cookies-

This was the first time my mom and I made this cookie... and let me tell you it was YUMMY! If we weren't careful I don't think we would have had enough to send to our troops! HAHA!








Here they are all wrapped up and labeled.







Peanut Butter Cookies-

Just your normal peanut butter cookies, nothing special, but still tasty!










Here they are wrapped up in saran wrap and labeled.









Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies-

These weren’t what we had planned… we were going to make PB Pudgies but for some reason the PB center did not want to come together after 2 tries so we came up with these to use up all the chocolate dough we had. We actually really liked them! Not too bad for a mistake!




Again, here they are wrapped and labeled.








M&M Cookies-

We made these instead of regular chocolate chip so that the chocolate would not melt everywhere when they shipped. They were YUM!







Wrapped, labeled, and ready to go!












Our Box-

Here is our box that we shipped. We included a picture of ourselves, some postcards of Mill Creek Park (which is near my house), a thank you note, and a picture of my dog, Bella (just because she makes me smile and I think she would make others smile as well).


My mom and I really enjoyed doing this. I really feel that it is such a small thing we can do for all that they are sacrificing for us! We hope to lead a team for the next couple of months!
Thanks for looking!!