Update sooner than I thought!

So on Saturday I did what we call an "ISP" which is our individual service hours that we have to go out and do on our own, we have to do 80 (of our 1700) hours of that.  So to get it kicked off I went to a bicycle co-op a little bit away where they have soooo many bikes and parts for families that can't afford them to come and take or put together their own.  I helped out by helping rearrange the bikes in the yard and then rearrange the wheels and tires in the yard as well.

Organizing a bunch of bikes!

Bikes in the yard we rearranged



Wheels in the yard we reorganized



Amazing chandelier made out of bike chains!

Then Saturday night I hit the city with some people.  I experienced Chipotle for the very fist time which astounded everyone here beceause I had never heard of it.  For those that don't know it's a fast food burrito chain, but high end fast food, it was delicious.  AND they had $4 margaritas that were delicious and strong.  Then we made it to downtown (Chipotle was in Englewood) and went to a couple bars and had a great time!! 



My first Chipotle experience with Kelsey!

 

Me and my roomate Missy on our night out on the town!

On Tuesday we had our teams go out into the community to do some service projects.  My team headed a half hour away to a Habitat for Humanity outlet store where they have donated home goods (like a Home Depot) and sell them and all the money goes toward Habitat!  My half of the team painted the whole front wall of the store, it was a large wall, and if I do say so myself we did a darn good job!!!  It was a long and exhausting day, but the people who worked there were very impressed and thankful for our work.  That's what it's all about is helping others.  I love it.  A man who had come in shopping left, and returned with a tray of cookies for us because his father-in-law was part of the CCC (similar to what we're doing but back in the great depression for unemployed young men) so it was fantastic that he went out of his way to do something nice for us!! But below I put pictures of the wall we painted! I love the color choices they had!

Me hard at work painting!

There's more to the wall, it was just too big!

So last night was the Guster concert I had been looking forward to for so long, but ended up selling my tickets to Geoff.  In return he was nice enough to call during 2 of my favorite songs and leave voicemails and send pictures!!! it helped a lot cause it made me feel like I was kind of there.  I'm excited to get back and see the State Theatre renovated!! It's been soooo long!  But I had a distraction last night, every Wednesday they do an event to include everyone in the dorms, last night we went to a movie theater that plays movies that came out like 3 months ago for only $3.50!! ($2.50 for matinee) So I finally was able to go see Inception, thought I was going to fall asleep, especially since it was 3 hours long...nope! My eyes were glued to the screen at all times!!! I was so into it and it blew my mind! (plus I can never get too much Leo in my life ;) )

Tomorrow we are going to a rock climbing wall!!! Bad part is I have to be ready to leave at 7:10 am :-/ Oh well, I'm used to waking up that early for Hannaford anyway, right???  I'm sure I'll have pictures to share later!! Hope everyone is doing well!  And don't forget...any type of mail would be greatly appreciated and make me feel a whole lot better!!!!! :)  Miss you all soooo much!

Friday October 22, 2010- Trailwork with 6th Graders

Let me start off by saying how appreciative I am for all the support!! I love that people are enjoying reading this! I'm not a very good writer, I just go on and on about what's happening, but that's what's important I guess!  I promise more exciting things will come soon, we're just in training mode and head out on our first "spike" project in November so nothing too too exciting will happen until then!

So yesterday we went to Cherry Creek State Park which is a gorgeous park that has a lake and people camp, boat, hike etc. there.  Our job was to fix up one of the trails that was already there.  6th graders from a local school came down and were assigned to different groups.  There were almost 50 groups (5 corps members to 10 kids) So around 600 of us working in this area!!! Half of the groups had another job of getting rid of an invasive species that is taking over the area. 

So our kids showed up and we played a name game to get to know them and them to know us.  I always forget how much I love being around kids when I've been away from them for so long!!  I found myself being able to relate to them and they got comfortable around me and respected me and we were able to get a lot of good work done!

We had to walk quite a ways to get to our section of the trail, but they stuck through it.  When it came time to start work they were all willing to help and wanting to get their hands dirty which surprised me!  Since we were so far away from the crusher fine we had to lay down we had to wheel barrow it back and forth a lot of times but once again the kids were excited to help!  It was a long but fantastic day!  I was exhausted last night but it was well worth it.  I have a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what we did and what the trail looks like.  More to come!  This week is a lot of meetings and trainings so probably won't have much for you!

and so the work begins!

Raking the leaves off the trails

Pounding down the crusher fine to cover tarp

Getting the crusher fine into the wheel barrow

Our great group!

First Week in Americorps- Denver,CO

Hello all!  I figured it might be a fantastic idea to start a blog to keep everyone updated as to exactly what I am doing!

So I have oficially been here for one week! I left Wednesday morning from Portland and flew into Detroit.  On the plane to Detroit, I met 3 other people heading to Denver for Americorps!! So we helped eachother getting around the airports, which was a comfort.  When we got to the Denver airport there were people with signs to help us get our bags and get us on our bus to our campus which is about 45 minutes from the airport. 



 

The campus is pretty cool, I live in Walsh Hall and the rooming situation is much like college, my roomate Missy from Wisconsin.  That is one the most fantastic things about this experience so far is meeting all these people from all over the country!!  Our room is pretty decent sized and we have our own little areas and theres a sink in the room which is very convinient.



Desk area in room



Our beds

Our view from the dining hall blew us all away.  It is pretty intense going from all ocean to all mountains.  Doesn't this seriously look like a painting?? It's surreal! And I get to wake up to it EVERYDAY! Ah.mazing.  So along with rooming we get fed food in the cafeteria.  Food isn't that spectacular but I can say I'm very ecstatic about being able to wake up and eat scrambled eggs every morning.  You can basically expect to eat pasta or a mystery meat for lunch and dinner, but they have forced me to eat a lot of salad from the salad bar.  Some days we have to pack lunches and make our own sandiwches, but let me tell you that sandwiches get pretty darn old quickly.



Red Rock Ampitheater

So in NCCC Denver campus there are about 300 people broken up into 4 "units", Water, Sun, Earth, and Fire.  I am in the Fire unit.  Withing our Fire unit we have 7 "Team Leaders" who are in charge of around 10 corps members.  For the first couple of days I was in Danny's team Fire 7.  The first day was just a business day, get your paperwork in, get uniforms etc.  Then on Friday we had to learn how to drive a 15 passenger van!! Yikes, not quite as small as my Ford Focus, but I didn't do too bad!  But this meant that we were stuck in the van for 5 hours while everyone took a turn driving!  When I drove I got to drive up to the Red Rocks.  SO beautiful!!!  We also went up to a lookput on a mountain where Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane's graves are.  Our team found an awesome rock to get a group picture on!!




Fire 7 (my first team) at Red Rock







Fire 7 at lookout



So needless to say I spent a lot of time with this team and we bonded very well, but we transition these teams so that we can get to know more people in our unit before we are placed in our permanent teams that we will go on our "spikes" (projects) with. 

On our first Saturday night here we decided to hit up downtown Denver and see what they had to offer! The majority of people here are recent college graduates which is great because they are in the same place in life as me and the same age!  Then there are some high school graduates and some in between.  So we went to some bar/restaurant chains to check out the scene.  Denver is an awesome city!  





Cheers!



Out and about downtown Denver!



Sunday we had off and me and a couple of girls went back downtown to check out the 16th St. Mall area which is pretty cool! Very touristy but I like that coming from Portland!!  And the next day for work, they actually took us downtown Denver so I had 3 days in a row going downtown!

Tuesday we got to go into Boulder and we took a hike, I was a dummy and didn't bring a camera, but if someone else uploads their pictures I'll be sure to share!  We then went into downtown Boulder which I absolutely fell in love with!!! It reminds me a lot of the Portland feel which of course is comforting.  We ate lunch at this place called Illegal Petes which has mexican food, I tried their taquitos and ate them with guacomole DELICIOUS.  Then we wandered around the stores for the rest of the day.



Kelseu and I eating at Illegal Pete's



Walking around Boulder



Found this pretty sweet rocking pig!!



So this is all I have for now!  Pretty long, but I know a lot of people are interested in how this whole thing works!  I had a second team this week, but we're already switching again tomorrow!!  Friday we get to go to a park and do a community service project with some 6th graders so I'm very excited for that!!!  More to come!!! :)