Houston

Hello!!! So we've officially been in Houston for over a week now.  We live in a church's recreation center basically, we have two of the classrooms we sleep in, have a nice almost industrial size kitchen and there's a gymnasium right next to our rooms.  We live in Bellaire, TX which is a part of the Houston Metropolitan area.  We are so close to downtown there are so many things to do around here.  It's a really nice area we live in, we drive down the streets and there are so many gorgeous houses but then all of a sudden there are old houses in between them they look so out of place.  We are working with an organization called Neighborhood Centers Inc. and we are working with them on their project to replace temporary tarps on roofs that have been damaged since going up from Hurricane Ike.  So we go in and simply nail down tarps over the old ones.  Not so simple.  Originally they saw us doing 90 houses in the 10 working days we had here.  We had a very breif training and the guy who trained us worked for the government so couldn't even walk on the property....So it took us 2 days to complete the first house we did.  So we had to come up with a new game plan which now sees us finishing 2 houses per team (2 teams) a day if we're lucky.  I really like the work, it is just so darn hot and humid here.  I'm getting used to it but today I had to take a sick day because I have a humungous migraine!  I still have it but I'm sure I'll be fine to work tomorrow!

Me showing the men how it's done!

Last weekend we went to check out the museum district, I thought the natural science museum was free, turns out its $15 friggen dollars to get in!!! So instead we walked around Hermann Park which is GORGEOUS and I want to go back for a picninc.  its a fun little area that has paddle boats and a train that goes around and the zoo is right next to the park (which I want to go to before we leave).  Tuesday night some of us went to the Houston Astros game against the LA Dodgers and that was a lot of fun.  So i really like it here so far, its just so humid, so I decided to cut off 5 inches of my hair! Hated to have to do it but it was necessary

This weekend we have a 3 day weekend (thank you Memorial Day).  No set plans, might go to a park for a picnic and there may be some fireworks and music for Memorial Day celebrating!  And we're here in Houston until June 8th and to be quite honest, I don't know if we have an address to send mail to...the day we got here the organization was told they had a week to move out of the building they were in...so I don't know that they are there anymore...but as soon as I know my next address I'll let you know! We don't know exactly where we'll be going, Big Bend is still the plan as of now but we could be sent to a lot of places due to these crazy disasters happening! could be Missouri, could be Alabama, I could be heading back to Arkansas! Who knows!  But as soon as I know I will post it, I will try to get better with the picture thing, I'm just not good at remembering to take dang pictures!!! Hope all is well! <3

Denver yet again!

So, this past week has been pure craziness.  We'll get to that in a bit.  When I last posted I had two more weeks in Arizona.  One weekend we took a drive up to Phoenix after our second community build.  On the way to Phoenix we drove up South Mountain.  On the mountain are buildings the CCC built back in the 30's-40's.  The CCC inspired for NCCC to be created. They were the Civilian Conservation Corps (we are Nationa Civilian Community Corps).  They were men who needed work during the great depression, and any money they made was sent back home to their families.  They are the ones who built the Red Rocks Ampitheater out here in Colorado (if you've never heard of it/seen it before look it up, pretty cool) So anyway, they also built these shelter buildings on South Mountain and we were able to drive to one and check it out.

My shuffle team at a CCC building on South Mountain

Another cool thing about the mountain is it completely overlooks the city of phoenix with the mountains in the background.  After South Mountain we headed to the State Capitol in Phoenix.  We were there on a Saturday and it was like a ghost town near the Captiol.  Kinda creepy.  No one was walking around at all, but I bet it's crazy busy during the week!  But there is a park there with a lot of statues and monuments dedicated to different things.  Afterward we spent the night in a hotel, the girls were going to go downtown and check out a bar, me being silly little me left my ID in my jeans pocket...back in Casa Grande...so I decided to try to get in anyway, it was a no go.  So I just called it an early night and went to bed early.  The next day we got to go to a Diamondbacks game against the Cubs.  It was a lot of fun, I've realized though that when I go to a sporting event, I don't watch the game, I just enjoy the atmosphere and people watching!

On the mountain we ended up building 10,062ft of brand new trail on Casa Grande Mountain! Our original goal wast 9,250ft so we beat our goal.  There are two trail heads that we were trying to connect (one on the North end one on the South end).  The goal of 9,250ft was how much they thought it would take to make that connection, that guess was off by about 2,500 ft...oops, so we weren't able to finish the connection, but still built a whole lot of trail! There are some of our supervisors that offered to go out and finish the connection for us so that they can officially open the trail in the fall!  This project overall was fantastic.  The sponsors that took care of us did an amazing job and are such amazing people! I am definitely going to miss that community as well, they are so kind and welcoming! 

So on our way back to Denver we stopped at the four corners which was pretty darn cool.  They have a little market surrounding the four corners in a square.  I went to go look at the jewlery stand of one guy and he goes "welcome to New Mexico!" I did a turn around and didn't realize as I was walking around I was walking in different states! Haha, I remember when I thought it was cool to be in two different time zones crossing the Arizona/Nevada border at the Hoover Dam, but being in four states at once kind of beats that for me!  We stopped in Colorado for the night and my Team Leader Ashley was telling me about this "Composite Team" they were putting together.  What that means is there is a whole new project for this round where they are pulling 6-7 people from all the units, now keep in mind I really only know the people in my own unit (Fire Unit) which is only about 70 people of 280 people, so 1/4 of the people.  The project was described as starting and helping with a summer camp for kids in Center, Colorado (3 hours south of Denver, middle of nowhere) It is an agricultural town and is 75% hispanic.  These kids don't get to get our and do much so this program would help them tremendously.  Me being me and having the interest in working with kids that I do, I applied by writing an essay describing why I should be chosen.  Once again me being me the next 3-4 days I was regretting it on and off because I really wanted to be with my team, but I really wanted to do this as well. In the end I let it go and figured things would work out as they should.  3 people (including myself) on my team applied for it.  By the end I was really not wanting the project and think I made it known to those who needed to know.  In the end the other 2 people from my team are on this composite team and I am staying with my team.  I am so relieved, I felt I really wanted to end this whole adventure with the people I started it with.  And I am very excited about my project now after hearing all the amazing stories from the people that were there for their last project. 

For the first part of our project (Leaving Monday-June 8th) we will be in Houston, TX replacing tarps on roofs of houses as disaster relief from Hurricane Ike.  After that it is all up in the air as to what we are going to be doing because it is disaster season.  We have two teams from the Fire Unit leaving tomorrow to head to Alabama to help with relief from the tornadoes (or was it flooding there? too many disasters happening I blend them all) by gutting houses and/or serving food.  There is a good chance due to our location in Houston that we could get called on Disaster at anytime!  So who knows, I could end up going to Big Bend National Park, or to Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, I have no idea.  This is a great thing about this program.  Before, I was afraid of change and didn't handle it very well.  But being constantly faced with instant change here I have learned to deal with it and have grown a lot.  If I do end up going to Big Bend it will push my limits which is why I came here, to grow.  We will be in the middle of now where with no cell phone/internet service.  We will be camping in tents for 6-7 weeks.  I will be peeing and pooing outside most of the time.  Like I said, push my limits to the max, but I'm excited for it!

So that's been my crazy week at a glance!  This program is amazing, but ever changing and I have to be on my feet at all times! Once again I'm bad with the whole picture thing but I will try to post some soon before I have no internet!!  I'll try to update as much as possible, but not much goes on so I do these larger posts to include more fun and interesting things! Byeeee