on the road...

Had a good last couple of days in Denver. Hung out at the bowling alley with my team on Sunday, for like 8 hours lol. Longest time I've ever spent in a bowling alley. Played 3 games, the last of which consisted of complete ridiculousness. Granny bowling, between the legs, and doing anything and everything to mess each other up... Then hung out at the alley's bar for like 6 hours, danced and sang to Victoria's iPhone rather than pay for the jukebox, and had pizza hut delivered. haha I bet they hate us there now.

On Monday did ISP at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. Spent all day organizing huge windows and doors. And naturally, caused havoc along the way.. I posted some pictures on facebook showing as much...

Spent the rest of the day getting ready to LEAVE!!! Got the call while we were at the Restore that the final paperwork was signed and we were good to go! On our way to Texas as we speak, spent the night in Selina, Kansas last night. I've never been more in the middle of nowhere in my LIFE!!! Well, gotta go. About to hit the road again in a few minutes. Staying in Dallas tonight, will be in New Caney, TX, our new home sweet home, by tomorrow!!

deployment delayed.. more time in Denver...

Our deployment to Houston for our first spike got postponed because some suit didn't sign some ppw... but oh well, makin the most out of some more time in Denver... Here's whats been goin on (as briefly as possible)...

11/11 - Day off for Veterans Day.. Panera with Erin, Sierra, Cait, Joel, and Erica. Beautiful day, ate outside, walked back. Then at night had a hairbrush karaoke sing-along to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack in Mary's room.. me, katie, alicia, mary, and steph were breakin it down.. amazing...

11/12 - Had our project briefing, where we presented our project to some of the higher-ups in the office. Went really well, except that this is when they decided to tell us we aren't leaving on Saturday. Kind of a bummer, but we'll make it work... Then had our community meeting, where we got to do a less formal presentation of our project to the rest of the corps (and dateline)... and by less formal I mean we wrote an obnoxious country western song and sang and danced on stage in our "sexy raingear" as we called it in the song!!! Then went to the most amazing hole-in-the-wall hispanic ice cream place??? They had really random flavors like avacado, cheese?? I got Fresa con Crema (Strawberry w/ creme) and it was SO GOOD!! plus it was only $1! :-)

11/13 - Officially inducted into the NCCC, took our class 16 Corps picture... then spent the rest of the day hanging out with our friends that were deploying the next day. Had an awesome night tho, perfectly in-sync with the essence of our unit! lol About 3/4 of our unit has a giant sing-along in our hallway, until we were keeping people from sleeping. At which point, we retreated to the basement, continued our sing-along, and added dancing & hitting around a volleyball. I THINK all the light still work... and there were no fatal injuries, but it did get pretty intense! This happened over a span of about 4 glorious hours, and was filled with the awesomeness of Taylor Swift, Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, Chubawumba, Missy Elliot, TLC, and our new hall favorite "Wagon Wheel" I LOVE FIRE UNIT!!!

11/14 - So, everyone else left at 8am this morning. Got up to send them off, which was harder than I thought. Its crazy the connections you make with people in such a short time here. The dorms are oddly quiet and empty, especially after a night like last night, one of the many crazy hallway gatherings our hall is know for. Had a good day with our team tho, made FIRE UNIT t-shirts in the hall this morning, made one for our team leader, Jourdan too. She seemed to really like it. I must say our shirts are pretty bad-ass! Thanks Ashley and Megan for the idea!! Did some team-building, shared our lifelines. Really interesting to hear other people's stories, learn where my teammates are coming from. Didn't get to do all of them, so looking forward to hearing more on Monday. When all that was said and done, our team (minus 2) went out to this Thai place called Spicy Basil... th food was SO good, then again everything is compared to the cafeteria... but no, really, it was yummy! Then tried to head to the Tilted Kilt for drinks, but got really turned around and ended up driving in the snow for like an hour and a half (thank you Google Maps for iPhone). It worked out tho, cuz the roads started getting bad and we were able to make the decision to go straight home, rather than being at the bar and being oblivious to the road conditions outside. I must say tho, that given Victoria's lack of experience driving in snow.. she did AMAZING!! we all got home safe, and she was hella calm about it, moreso than a lot of ppl who have driven in th snow a lot! i was impressed! Thanks Victoria, you rock!!

Supposed to leave on Tuesday/Wednesday for Texas now, we'll see. Can't wait to go! I'm SO excited and just ready to get out there and start working...

Last week in CO for a while...

So, since the last time I updated.. here's what's happened...

-volunteered at an H1N1 vaccination clinic, got a free H1N1 shot as a result, well the "mist" or whatever... which is cool, since like 10 ppl from my unit have already gotten H1N1 and if we get it before we go on spike, we can't go to Texas and get stuck here in Denver for 1st round. :-(

-everyone went downtown for one last night out as a group before we all get deployed all over the country... started out at riverview park downtown and hung out for a while (about 25-30 of us), then went to this really expensive bar called the Pour House, kinda cool, had a rooftop deck. Except that the heaters are right above your head and i thought my forehead was going to go up in flames.... not the mention the rest of me was freezing cold still, lol. That + the prices meant we didn't stay very long. Ended up heading back to Croc's, our regular spot, and the first place we all went as a group our first weekend in Denver. It was cool to end it off back where we started. Had a great time, danced til they kicked us out....ended up staying up all night B.S.ing with friends, playing pool and ping-pong at the dorm, and saw the sunrise. MOST BEAUTIFUL sunrise i've ever seen in my life. Bright orange and pink coming over the mountains... so amazing.

-about 50 of us went to the Colorado Avalanche game.. we lost to the Oilers, but it was still pretty fun. Never been to a pro hockey game before, so that was cool. Plus had a crazy sing-along in the van on the way home to songs that no one knew more than like 4 words to, so we all mumbled in between and yelled out the parts we knew. It was pretty freakin hilarious...

-built a fire on campus and made s'mores with the HUGEST marshmallows I've ever seen in my life from the mexican market across the street... oh, and half of them were strawberry?? kinda random but still pretty good... then me, erin, sierra, cait, joel, and sam went to our favorite chill spot at the park til we were frozen solid...

have off today, no idea what i'm doing but im sure i'll figure something out. sucks tho cuz i'm broke and get paid TOMORROW.. would have been nice to have gotten paid BEFORE our last day off that we have in Denver.. oh, well.... 3 MORE DAYS TIL TEXAS!!! w00t!!

Halloween in Boulder, PT, and FINAL TEAMS & PROJECT!!

10/31 - So, got back from 4Gs early in the morning, washed off my whiskers and passed the heck out... slept in the next day (still in my costume minus my tail and ears) and hung out for a few hours til we left for Boulder for Halloween... after all, I'm wearing the same costume... Around 630, we were all finally in costume again and ready (which was easier for me, seeing as how I was pretty much still in mine, lol) and caught the 27 bus to downtown denver, where we would catch another bus to Boulder. It was me, erin, katherine, sierra, kassie, and annie. Got to Boulder around 8:30ish and headed to Pearl Street, which was INSANE! One huge mob of people in crazy costumes, lines out the door of every restaurant and bar... So, we walked around for a while, then decided to find a less crazy place to chill for a while. Headed to the liquor store, then the park at the end of Pearl Street, where Katherine and I discovered a new favorite, captain and orange soda! so freakin good!... had a blast hanging out, until i peed on my tail by accident, and by 12:30 became a tailless roadkill critter... oh well, i am dead and run over anyway...

Once our supply was depleted, headed back to Pearl Street and found Jamie, Mary, and Chris... who came sprinting towards us with open arms and almost knocked annie and i on our backs. Wandered for a while, taking pictures with ppl in awesome costumes, then found an awesome restaurant/random window in a brick wall on a side street that served amazing sandwiches, wraps, etc, and chowed down... met up with erin's friend looby, chilled for a while, and headed back to his place to crash for the night. Awesomely random night... definitely a great Halloween!

skipping a bunch of days cuz basically just did training and hung out playing games, etc in the dorms...



11/4 - Finally did our baseline PT test, now that the snow has finally melted... I think I did decent, considering its all hills here and really high altitude... did 32 pushups in a minute, 66 crunches, and ran a mile and a half in 16:30. Not too shabby for not running in years, but will def do better next time.



11/5 - 11/6 - Then had 2 days of red cross training for shelter operations, first aid, and cpr. fun with manicans.. yay! lol Best part was that afterwards we got our FINAL TEAMS and our first SPIKE PROJECT!!! yay! been waiting for almost a month to find out!! So, I'm on Fire 5, Jourdan's team (best TL in my opinion) with:



Erin, Katy, Meghan, Lena, AJ, Andrew, Adam, Eli, Katie, Victoria, Joe, and myself of course...

and we are headed to HOUSTON TEXAS to work at Lake Houston State Park with the Parks & Recreation department doing trail work 3 days a week and working in their environmental education center 2 days a week... SO EXCITED! Everyone on my team is mad cool and our project ROCKS!!! We'll be living in a large open (1-room) lodge.. so we'll be nice and close after these next 4 weeks. And we have a mile hike to our worksite everyday, plus lots of manual labor, so we should all get our butts whipped into shape too.

the only thing that sucks is that our fearsome foursome is getting split up.. erin and i are on a team together, but sierra and katherine are on different teams... so we decided to hang out as much as possible for the next week until we all get shipped to different parts of the country. After team assignments, we all headed to the barn store and then to the park next to campus to chill... me, erin, sierra, katherine, and joel. Such an awesomely chill night, hung out, BSed, took lots of pictures, I'm really gonna miss these guys when we leave next saturday... we're just gonna have to make the most out of transition weeks...

snowday, rock climbing, 4Gs, and halloween party

10/25 - Katherine, Erin, Sierra, and I headed to downtown Denver in the snow and the freezing cold to the Tattered Cover... one of the coolest bookstores ever! Hung out for probably over an hour reading "Where the Wild Things Are," hanging out in bean bags and drinking hot beverages to warm up... I got the "hot apple pie," the best hot drink i've ever had, which is basically hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick and carmel in it.. AMAZING!! Then met up with 2 of Erin's friends, went to Hard Rock for the first time, and spent a whopping $13 on a stupid drink, all because I was trying to support Breast Cancer Research. Next time I'm asking for prices... Sorry, but my income just doesn't support that habit... lol

10/26 - Training all day, the soccer game for PT, I took a soccer ball to the face... then at night Erin, Sierra, and I had a mini rave in Sierra's room with glowsticks that someone sent her for Halloween... HILARIOUS!!

10/27 - Service project with Learning Landscapes at Munroe Elementary replacing a chemically-treated retaining wall with an untreated one so they could plant vegetables in the garden... Sounds easy enough right?? NOT!! would have been if the old wall was straight OR level... but instead had to dig 2 feet down, remove the old one, spend about an hour leveling the ground, and then dig a bunch more into the higher ground b/c the old one wasn't straight at all... oh, and there was a pipe in the way too... so we had to totally redesign how the wall was constucted so it could be level... complicated process, but in the end it worked out... and its going to mean more fresh vegetables for kids in a struggling neighborhood, so its all good. oh, and the best part... watching the 2 contractors that came to help us almost cut limbs off with a chainsaw. And the one guy put it down on top of the wall while it was running and leaned his face over it... DARWIN AWARD nominee...

10/28 - Most of our regular trainings were cancelled b/c the presenters couldn't get here in the snow, so we watched the movie "crash" as part of our diversity training requirements and had a discussion about racism, discrimination, etc. Then we had optional PT, which mean TACKLE FOOTBALL in the SNOW!!! YEAH! so much fun... not much running involved, more dog-piling every 5 feet and wrestling for the ball, but it was great.

10/29 - SNOW DAY!!! bummed around til lunchtime, then headed to the Gypsy House for some Hookah with Jamie, Mary, Chris, Katie, Erin, Shawn, and a bunch of other ppl from our unit.. (about 10 of us). Stayed for like 3 hrs just B.S.ing, then came back and went to the local bar/mexican restaurant across the street (the imfamous 4Gs) and got dinner. Got a quesadilla and played some pool with Jamie, first game of pool I've played in forever that was pretty even, because we both suck horribly... and I WON! yay!

10/30 - went rock climbing for unit time at rockin' and jammin' rock gym. I volunteered to belay, which meant I was there from 830-like 3 belaying for two units, about 100 people. It was really fun tho, and nice to be able to help ppl out that had never climbed before. And I did get to climb a few times, which was awesome, its been such a long time since I've been to a real rock gym.

After we got back, it became a mad dash to come up with an idea for a halloween costume, figure out how to pull it off with basically no money, and get to the AmeriCorps halloween party in about 2 1/2 hours... Decided that I was going to go as roadkill, don't ask why i don't know, but I loved it... took an old grey long sleeve uniform from the recycled uniform room, turned it inside out, used a friend's spare tire and $2 of black paint from the dollar store to make tire tracks on it. Wore a pair of grey pants, made a tail and some ears from another old uniform, and drew on some wiskers and a nose with a friend's eyeliner... all in 2 hrs time, and only spent $2! :-)

The party was pretty fun, kinda cheesy but it was to be expected. Hung out for a while and then about a quarter of the corps (about 50 of us) headed to 4Gs to party there for a while. Awesome Halloween round 1, round 2 in Boulder tomorrow!

will write more later... trying to catch up...

snowman and service projects,,,

So it snowed for the first time since we've been here the other day... SO exciting. After much convincing, managed to round up a group of people to have a snowball fight, which was EPIC!! Had an enormous snowball fight with about 10-12 of us I think, and then started building the best snowman ever, who we named Jack Daniels.. not so sure why.. Then we dressed him in extra AmeriCorps uniforms (4x or something, cuz JD is kinda round lol). Took lots of pics, rolled down the snow-covered hills, made snow angels... it was really nice to see snow again, its been so long since I could do something like that. I almost forgot how much fun it was. JD may melt soon, but his legacy will live on forever! lol

We actually got to do some service work recently too, which was awesome. Since it is why we're here and all... The first project we did was all 250+ of us working at a local elementary and middle school. The main part of the project was building a track for the school, hauling hundreds upon hundreds of wheel barrels and buckets of gravel and dirt and spreading it out over the track, raking, shoveling, etc. Then we also redid the track at the elementary school, planted flowers and trees, etc. It was really cool too cuz the 8th graders worked alongside us for most of the day. So tired and sore, but it was way worth it. We were able to save the school $750,000 with the work that we did there, which was payback enough, just knowing that we really helped them out. On top of that though, we all went into the cafeteria afterwards to say goodbye to the 8th graders that helped us and got a standing ovation!! It was so cute and really touching, especially coming from the students.

Then the next day, on Saturday, we did another service project, our first ISP (independent service project) with our team, which I ended up organizing... We were working at this place called People House, a spiritual center/counseling center for people without insurance. Me, Claire, and Raz painted one of the counseling rooms all day, while other people painted other rooms, cleaned, did yard work, moved furniture, hung drywall, etc. It was awesome how much we were able to get done. It felt really good to get out there and do some service, after all that IS why we're all here...

Then when we got back Jamie, Mary, Katie, Chris and I went to a hookah bar called Gypsy House. Super chill place. The entire basement is filled with couches and pillows, the atmosphere was awesome. Got two hookahs, one strawberry/banana and one peach/vanilla, both of which were really good, plus some Gypsy House Special tea... Stayed til they closed and kicked us out, then headed to taco bell and a local park at like midnight and hung out on the playground. Really awesomely random night and really cool people = perfect saturday night...

thats all for now, will try to update again soon. thanks for looking.

night out with the team and boulder, co

Saturday night a bunch of us decided to go check out the downtown nightlife in Denver.. What started out as a group of like 15 of us ended up being more like 60 people trying to squish onto one bus. Just the beginning of a crazy night ahead. We were heading for the brewery but a bunch of us broke off and stopped at some random bar that had $3 drink specials. Ended up being an awesome bar, with a dance floor and some really good music. Danced our butts off for like 3 hours until we were completely beat, then 5 of us decided to head back to campus, so we hopped on the light rail to the englewood station, closest station to campus.

We ran into another group on the train who said they knew a better way back with a bus that dropped up off right in front of campus, so we stupidly followed them and got really lost. Ended up waiting at a station far away from campus for a bus that never came, just to wait another half hour to get back on the same train we just got off of to head back to the station we were bound for originally. Thats what we get for listening to other people... NEVER AGAIN! So, we get back to the englewood station and call a cab to get back to campus cuz its hella cold outside and none of us are dressed for it. The cab company said 45 minutes minimum and they couldn't guarantee how many cabs could get there when, and we needed 4. Needless to say, we didn't wait. So we start walking what we were told was a mile walk back to campus (uphill) that ends up being 2.4miles... yeah got back to the dorms at 230am after leaving the bar over 2 hours earlier!!! insanity!!!

Woke up at 8am the next morning to a text from this girl annie about heading out to boulder to go hiking soon... wasn't gonna happen. Woke up with sore legs from hiking, dancing for 3 hrs, and walking for almost 2 the night before... not up for hiking. No matter how bad i wanted to. So a bunch of us decided to head to boulder anyway and just save the hiking for next weekend. It actually worked out really well. spent some time walking around the outdoor mall at Pearl Street, then got coffee and chilled at central park for a bit by a stream, really peaceful. Then afterwards 4 of us headed out and took a scenic byway through the Rockies, took a bunch of pictures, and stopped in this really cool little hippie town, dont remember the name of it but it was awesome. Grabbed some food and headed back to campus.. altogether an amazing day. Really great to get outside for a while and not feel like we are trapped on campus. Definitely need to go back to boulder again! It was SO pretty!

Then today we had driver training all day pretty much, which was kind of boring expect that they planned out some cool stops along the way. We stopped at Lookout Point (gorgeous), and saw where buffalo bill is buried, dressed up like cowboys and took a pic after the nice old lady at the counter let us in for free "its free if i don't see you go in" is what she said! lol love her! so great! Then went to the Columbine Memorial, sad but interesting place... thats all for today.. going to check out the book club.

i'll update soon. thanks for reading if you did. hope i didn't bore you too badly! ttys!