15 days more days of Grey and Khaki!!!!

Tomorrow is my last day of work here in Biloxi. It is a little sad, but mostly I am ready to be done. I have enjoyed getting to know the kids at the school I have been at, and getting reaquainted with kids/young adult books has been a lot of fun too. Babysitter club, Judy Blue books, Berenstain Bears, Goosebumps, American Girl(s), Great Illustrated Classics, and soooo much more. It has been a blessing working with Mrs. Pennell as well. Since I am familiar with the high school side of education, it's been interesting to learn more about the elementary issues, many of which of course affect me later with high schoolers. I was also able to join her family for dinner again 2 weekends ago, and like the first time, it was a lot of fun.

There has been a lot of other things going on here as well. I visited Ship Island, which is a barrier island off the Gulfport MS coast. Definitely not as cool as our outer banks, and much smaller. It was clean water to swim in, and fairly nice beaches. Plus a cool historic fort (Fort Massachusets), so you know i enjoyed that! We got to see some dolphins on the way out and back on the ferry ride too!

I spent last weekend, well an extended weekend in St Bernard Parrish, and New Orleans. My closest friends all just happen to be living at Camp Hope which worked out beautifully for me to visit them! Plus, Camp HOpe has moved (3 miles farther down the road, still in St Bernard Parrish)so it is a nicer facility. . .(ok maybe nice isn't the right word, its more like livable place. Not quite nice yet!) So i didn't mind visiting. I rented a car Friday, and took have a day off work, and headed west. I parked my car at Camp Hope that evening and we used the gov't vans to go to dinner that night and to the trivia fundraiser the next morning. When we got back to the parking lot after lunch saturday one of my friends noticed that a car had a flat tire. Well guess who's car that was. . .MINE! Enterprise was kind enough to offer to send someone out to put the spare on, but we could obviously handle that. So while I looked up tire places who could put a new tire on for me, Sean and Heather graciously changed the tire. (Yes dad, you did teach me to change a tire, they just beat me to it!) There wasn't a place still open on a saturday afternoon, but i did find one that was open on sunday. Soooo, we packed up our stuff for the evening and headed to New Orleans, where we had a hotel reservation downtown. Luckily we all had lived in the area enough that between all of us we could find our way on backroads to downtown New Orleans without going on I-10, since i wasn't supposed to go over 35 miles per hour on the spare!

We arrived at our luxurious hotel and i used an inside shower for the first time since I was at Eglin Air Force Base in the beginning of August! It was a strange feeling! We joined some other folks for dinner and then went out and celebrated my 23rd birthday!! I really enjoyed spending time with everyone that was there. As frustrated as i get with my teammates, I really have some great friends on other teams in the program. One of my teammates, Lindsay, was in New Orleans last weekend as well, and i was glad she (of all the people left on my team) was the one that was there to celebrate with me!

When we eventually got up on sunday morning, we were greeted with super late continental breakfast (till noon!) and we went to the tire place to get a new real tire for the car. Unfortuntately the cold that I had for the previous week had returned with avengance and i felt kinda crappy, along with a couple of my friends who were coming down with colds. So we were all kinda miserable and we sat at Borders for 2 1/2 hours waiting for the car to be fixed. Yeah, i don't know why it takes 2 1/2 hours to do a car, but whatever. We all like bookstores, although i am more of a Barnes and Nobles girl myself! We were so tired by the time it was done we went back to Camp Hope and took naps, and took it easy the rest of the day. I slept most of monday morning, trying to feel better, had lunch with Heather and came back to Biloxi.

Monday night, was my birthday present to myself. I heard weeks ago that Shane and Shane were going to be in Pascagoula MS (about 20 min east of here) on the 17th, so i bought tickets, and decided to keep the rental car for an extra night. Happy Birthday to Me!! The concert was great! Bebo Norman and Monk and Neagal were the opening groups. Shane and Shane sing with so much passion, but they do more than sing, they worship, which is what i like most about them. Their lyrics are just so real too. Amazing.

I guess that about sums up what has been going on here. Oh! My team got me an ice cream cake that we had last night after our final team dinner. That was a cool surprise, and i sure do love Reeces Cup Ice cream cakes! Ok, i love anything Chocolate!

Saturday morning nice and early we head out on our 5 day road trip back to Sactown. We are going a much sweeter route than I-10 that we took here back in March. I will fill you in once I get back to Sactown, and i'll have pictures to put up as well!
Here's kinda how my next few weeks are looking though, and the big unveiling of when i'll be home:

Sept 22-26- Travel back to Sacramento (super cool route, seeing 5 new states!!!)
Sept 27-Oct 4- Transition/Graduation
28-30- Katherine's visiting!!! And we're going to Lake Tahoe for the day!
Oct 5-22- Road Trip HOME!!! Lots more states, cities, and a 4 day getaway in the middle to Minnesota with my famliy!! (more on this later though!)

Yes, friends, you might have gathered this already, but I will be arriving in Mebane North Carolina on Monday October 22nd. Sean and Heather will be staying with me till that wednesday, i'll be showing them the big city and all the fun things to do there! (aka. gboro, chapel hill,etc)

Hope everyone is doing well, and i look forward to updating you on all my travels over the next month!!
15 days left in AmeriCorps. . .Yesssssssss!!!!!