It's only the beginning.....

For all the family that has not seen me, and has been ever so patiently waiting for an ending to this crazy adventure, I am sorry it has taken so long for me to do this!I will try to briefly catch you up on the last two months.

The trip home was amazing. I am so glad that I did not fly home on october 5th. The transition back into life, and out of amerilife has been difficult enough, without being forced into it overnight. 5 of us set off by train on Friday the 5th headed east. We stopped for one night in Salt Lake City and for 2 nights in Denver CO. Salt Lake was kind of dreary since it rained the whole day we were there (we arrived at 2:30am and left at 3:30am the next morning). We ventured into temple square and other sights (all by foot) despite the rain. Denver was great though. We were about a quarter of a mile from coors field, which is right in downtown. We did a lot of walking, once again, but downtown denver is a great place. There was a lot going on in the day time and at night. From Denver we said goodbye to one friend (who was flying back home to MN from there) and the 4 of us headed east towards IL.

Anyone that has taken the train knows it is notorious for being late. We experienced this leaving denver 2 hours late. This really stinks when you have a connection with only a 2 hour window! Soooo we made some phone calls and ended up getting off in gaylesburg IL and a friend of a friend picked us up and took us to Peoria where one of my friends that was traveling with us is from. She then drove us halfway to Bloomington where Sean(another traveler) was from. I spent a few days with Heather and Sean (the 2 friends that were left) and i then flew up to Minnesota to meet up with my family (mom dad jason and amy) and the grandparents.

I spent 4 days there with them, and it turned out to be some crazy 4 days. Some of mom's cousins showed up and surprised everyone, so it was a nice reunion. I flew back to IL, to Sean's house (his parents live in Bloomington), and 2 days later Sean Heather and I drove to Washington DC. We spent 2 nights there, and did all the touristy things since we are all dorks and like museums and statues. From DC we headed south to wonderful NC!! By this time i was ready to get home. 2 1/2 weeks on the road, after traveling so much all year, left me longing for stability. Sean and Heather spent 2 nights here with me before heading to FL, where Heather is from. (Sean and Heather are dating, so they were doing the meet the parents thing).

At this point it was Tuesday October 23rd. I went to Hickory Wednesday thru friday to see Jason and Amy and do a little job (teaching) hunting. Saturday i spent the day with the youth group, they were doing their fall retreat close by. The next week I started working at CVS again. My boss (pharmacist) in Greensboro got me rehired quickly which was nice since I needed some money! I worked at some of the CVS's in Greensboro over the next few weeks, 3-4 days a week.

Early November I received a phone call from a principal at a somewhat local high school here near home (about 15 min away in Burlington). THey had a sudden opening so i went and interviewed. I never thought i would teach again in Alamance County since i went to high school here. Plus this area wasn't really where i wanted to settle for a while. BUT like always, God's plan isn't what mine is, or what I think i want. I was hired by the school system here and am now working at Williams High school in Burlington. I started on Wednesday, so I have survived 2 days of teaching! I am taking over 3 "civics and economics" classes. It's the 10th grade history course. The teacher that left took another teaching job in Winston, teaching AP and Honors kids which are easier to control and it was closer to where he is from. I have an up hill battle right now since he did not have much classroom management. They are use to doing what they want and not listening to a teacher.
The good news with this is that i only have these 3 classes of students till the 2nd week in January, so with vacation, i have 4 weeks with them. Then i get 3 new classes of students where i can start with my rules and train them to behave most of the time! Soooo i'm just getting through till then and trying to teach these kids a thing or two that might help them on their end of course test (that they have to pass!)!!!

Oh, and i'm living at home for now, hopefully around February, after a few paychecks, I will be able to move into my own place in Burlington. I am itching to get out and on my own again. Mom and dad are great though, so living here isn't too bad! hahaha.

I hope this helps catch you up on my life. I decided not to title this the end, because it's just the beginning to what God has in store for me in this next stage in my life. I am happy to be teaching, since that is what i have always wanted to do. What happens from here, i'm content waiting and seeing!

Graduation #3

It's hard to believe today is graduation day! October 4th, the day i've been counting down to all year long. It actually doesn't seem like 9 months has gone by. This week has gone by fast with a couple random meetings and hanging out with friends. I was able to have dinner with my uncle that lives in Sacramento this week too so that was nice.
Last night we had Ameri-prom, aka a costume party. Allie, Sean and I dressed up as 3 seasons, we had a fourth but he decided not to do it with us (grrr!!). I was spring, Sean was Summer and Allie was fall. It was cute. It was completely free too, so that was even better. I was a little stressed yesterday running around trying to do all of the packing/wrap up stuff i had to do and creating my costume. Last night was definitely worth all of the craziness of the day. I will hopefully have some pictures up of our wonderful costumes soon. I know, just like the others that i havn't put up yet either. At this point you might just have to see them when i see you in the next few weeks! I'll see what i can do.

Today we had graduation practice and our last community meeting. We had superlatives, otherwise known as mock awards that we had voted on this week that were funny. My team won the team most likely not to talk after AmeriCorps. It was pretty exciting! I also won the team motivator award for my team, although i knew I was getting it because we argued over who was since none of us felt anyone motivated anyone. haha. Oh well, i got a cool shiny metal!

I am trying not to think about leaving everyone here. I will be with a few of my good friends over the next week or two, but some others I will not see after tomorrow morning. This stinks. I have friends now that live all over the country, so i have plenty of places to stay in cool locations! it's a good thing I will have summers off to travel! =) I have lots of places I want to see again and more of too!

Tomorrow begins my insane road trip for the next 2 and a half weeks. I'll end this with a brief itinerary of my next few weeks. It's a good thing i'll have so much time on the train and in the car to reflect on this past year. Maybe i'll actually know how to describe this year and share about it in some way that actually makes sense by the time i get home? I look forward to seeing everyone soon!

Oct 5-10- On the Amtrak, stopping in Salt Lake City for 1 night/day and Denver for 2 nights/days. Ending in Bloomington/Normal Illinois.
Oct 11-12- Meeting Sean's family, taking Lindsay home (in IL) and hanging out
Oct 13-16 - Minnesota, meeting my family up there and spending a few days with my grandparents!!!
Oct 18-22 - Driving to DC and then North Carolina!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See ya'll then! =)

Lake Tahoe, my future home?

Ok, so I probably will never live at Lake Tahoe, but I can dream, can't I?

I had a pretty busy weekend, for my last weekend in Sacramento! One of my old college roommates and good friends, Katherine, came up to visit since I probably won't make it out to CA again soon. (She lives and goes to school in L.A.). We went up to Lake Tahoe for the day on Saturday and hung out in Old Sacramento today. My parents told me that Tahoe was a place I should definitely visit while I am on this side of the country and only a few hours away. 3 girls that are in AmeriCorps with me have been training for the Lake Tahoe Marathon for the last few months, so some of us decided to go up this weekend and support them while they accomplished this insane task. A few car loads of people actually went up, along with us, but 2 of my friends rode up with Katherine and I on Saturday.

We set off on our hour and a half trek at the early hour of 7:30 and were greeted with fresh snow on the top of the mountain when we got close to Lake Tahoe. It was pretty exciting, i'm not gonna lie. Maybe not for Katherine who wore flip flops, but that was entertaining all on its own! After pulling off at a rest stop to play in the snow for a few minutes, we headed into Tahoe City to find out how we could get to different mile markers to cheer on our friends. It turns out that the hwy going around the western side of the lake, and the actual marathon route was open going south bound, which was the direction the runners were going. So we could travel along side the runners and stop along side the road to cheer people on. So we drove till we found our friends (they had been running at this point for an hour and a half) and we stopped a little ways ahead of them and cheered for people till they passed. Then we drove up about 5 miles and waited again, and did that pretty much every 5 miles, or stopped every time there was photo opportunity. As the morning went on, 2 other cars of Americorps people joined us so our cheering crowd was pretty big. We made friends with other runners and cheered them on every time they passed us as well. All 3 finished in under 6 hours, and they are doing pretty good today.

Along with cheering for our friends who were running the marathon, we were able to enjoy the amazing scenery of the lake. I was just in complete awe of the beauty that was around me all day long. There was a point where we climbed some rocks to sit out and overlook the lake and mountains. It was breath taking. Sitting on these rocks i decided that I wanted to live out here some day. Of all the places I have visited this year, this is where I want to move. Sure, it won't happen, especially on my teacher salary, but i can dream about waking up every morning and seeing that on a daily basis! =)

This is my last week in the program. We have a few meetings/wrap-up stuff each day. Thursday is graduation in the evening and we leave Friday morning! It's kinda crazy to think that I will be done soon, while I am excited about that, I am not looking forward to saying goodbye to a lot of people. This will be an exciting, but tough week when friday morning comes and we all head off in different directions and begin our lives after AmeriCorps.

Back to Sac!

I am finally back in Sacramento, after spending the last 5 1/2 days on the road! We were supposed to leave on Saturday morning, but because of a tropical disturbance we left Friday evening. My team leader, kelly, had been out of town from Wednesday till Friday, and was supposed to get back in at 11 Friday morning. I am ATL (assistant team leader) for this round, so i was pretty much left in charge. Here's how the day went down:

Kelly: I am still in Memphis, my plane still hasn't left, i don't know when i will get back. Will you call another team leader and get the addresses for the hotels on the road trip.
Me: Sure, Let me know when you are about to take off.
(i call Moe, another team leader and ask for the addresses)
Moe: Well, i don't have those, but we are staying in Alexandria tonight
Me: Alexandria? What? Tonight? what are you talking about?
Moe: Oh, you havn't been called, we are having to leave tonight because of the storm.

Soooo, i spent the next 45 minutes on the phone with 3 other team leaders, and my unit leader who finally called me to fill me in on what was going on. He wasn't too happy to hear that Kelly's flight was extremely delayed, but i assured him i thought she was in the air at this point, so she should be back around 2 (i hoped?). Luckily another team leader who's team was in Mississippi took care of the hotels for our teams for the night, and we went to Jackson the first night. Kelly eventually got in around 2:30 and we packed because we of course were not packed yet. We left by 5, which is pretty impressive packing if you ask me.

After the craziness of the leaving early the trip went as planned. We traveled with 2 other teams, Gold 3 and Gold 6. We didn't see the other teams except at the hotels at night. Or if we passed each other on the interstate. So here is how i spent the last 5 days.

Day 1: Jackson MS to Ardmore Oklahoma. We drove through northern Louisiana, into eastern texas, through Dallas and headed north just over the Oklahoma state line. Ardmore was not too impressive, but it wasn't the most remote place we've stayed.

Day 2: Ardmore OK, to Colby Kansas. I was pleasantly surprised with Oklahoma. I thought it would be pretty flat and boring. There wasn't a lot there, but the rolling grassy hills and farms/ranches were pretty. Central Kansas on the other hand was pretty unimpressive. I slept through half of it and was bored for the last half. Colby was a small town in western Kansas, 45 minutes from the Colorado border.

Day 3: Colby KS to Denver Colorado. This was the shortest driving day. It was a little less than 4 hours. The land remained pretty flat on the way to Denver. The mountains begin a little past Denver, but you could see them in the distance from the city. Denver is one of my stops on my trip home here in a little over a week, so i wasn't too worried about seeing the city. I spent the afternoon with Heather and Andy (2 people who are going on the trip home with me in a week). We walked around 16th street mall, which is a street that has lots of shops and department stores, an outside mall i guess you could say. There was seriously a starbucks on every 2 blocks. It was cloudy that day, so as the afternoon went on it got pretty chilly.

Day 4: Denver, CO to Salt Lake City Utah. This was probably my favorite drive of the trip. We went north from Denver, and hit Interstate 80 in Cheyenne Wyoming. Now, i don't know about you but for me, Wyoming has always sounded like this far off place where cowboys and indians roam. We stayed in southern Wyoming but the scenery was exactly like i pictured and had hoped it would be. I drove quite a chunk of that part, but i was picturing the pioneers in their covered wagons and the cowboys on their horses riding off into the sunset. It was a lot of fun! We stopped at a gas station along the way that actually was a town with a population of 1. Yes, 1. It was 2, like the postcards say, but the son left. LOL. Like Denver, I will be in Salt Lake City on the way home as well. The disaster team that was up in Wisconsin the last few weeks (that i had a teammate go to) ate dinner in Salt Lake City so my team leader and i went to join them. It was exciting to see Erin again. I have another good friend on the team as well, that i hadn't seen since summer break in May.

Day 5: Salt Lake City, UT to Sacramento CA!! The home stretch...the most boring day. Leaving Salt Lake City you hit about 25 miles of salt flats, which are pretty boring, except if you get out and play on them like Lindsay Kelly and I did. Once we hit Nevada though, there really wasn't much at all. It was a nice long 9 hour day. I didn't want to sleep much though, in case something cool came up. When will i get back to this part of the country again?

It has been nice to be back in Sacramento, on base, in my room with my wonderful roommate, Heather. I have a busy weekend coming up because my old roommate, and good friend Katherine is coming up to visit. I am looking forward to it, since i wasn't able to see her much while I was in LA during first round.

I will get some pictures of 4th round and the road trip up here next week, and will update you from my weekend travels/adventures then as well!
Hope everyone is doing well, and I hope everyone enjoys the season premier of Greys Anatomy tonight!! yay!!!

woo hooo!!!!

I know i wrote just last night, but I wanted to share my excitement of officially being done with project work!!!
I have lots of laundy and packing/parting with things to ship home ahead of me tomorrow before we leave saturday AM.

Tonight I had dinner with my friend Abby, who's team is now living at Hands On. Abby was in Charleston as a Crew Leader for Summer of Service, like I was. It has been nice to have a familiar face here this week, since her team arrived over the weekend while i was gone. Those of us that survived, i mean participated in SOS share a bond that is really hard to explain. At dinner tonight we got started talking about our future plans, Life after Americorps. She's not done till November (she's from Perry Point MD campus) but we were sharing our plans, and got started talking about how it doesn't really matter about "our" plans, it's God's plans that is what ultimately matters, and what will be what happens. It was just so nice to be able to talk to someone about that, since lately that has been something i have been trying to be patient with and to figure out.

Ok, just wanted to share in my excitement! Read below for more updates, and when I am officially getting home! =)

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!!!!!