Home!

I'm home and nolonger interesting. Sorry!

Final Days

So, pretty much one more day on the porch. I'm so excited to go home and see everyone! At the same time though, it's going to be reallllly weird leaving everybody here. It's really comfortable being on the porch because everybody else here understands the process of the summer and what we've been going through the past few months. It's going to be hard trying to explain this to people back home, though I know I'm really lucky that my close friends and youth group will want to hear all about it. This afternoon I was in an "Adjusting back to life back home" session and got some really good tips from returning staffers or Center Directors. They said that whether I want to or not, for the rest of my life I'll be doing "Initial Home Visits" (IHV's) on every building I step into. This is pretty much the first home visit we'd go on after reviewing applications, and on them we'd decide if the home is worthy or not to work on. I'm sure it'll be a curse after a while but I think it's pretty cool that I even have the knowledge to even perform one of those ya know? Haha I'm sure I can bug my dad and tell him we should be applying for home repair pretty soon..

Anyways, I'm super excited to go to Lake George with the fam. I'm going through some serious Kelly family withdrawl and can't wait to see them all and just relax for the week (with danielle too!). My sleeping pattern is all fotched so that should be interesting, but it'll be nice to get in some R&R.

Here are some pics from Cumberland Gap-- it's where Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky come together. I stood over the border where they joined! Probably one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

Helping hands

Now that we're helping hands and don't do anything, we've had some free time.. so 2 nights ago Becky and I took a roadtrip to the Cumberland Gap for sunset! It was amaaaazing I can't even put it into words. I was honestly speechless when I walked to the overlook because I've never seen anything quite so beautiful. It really puts in perspective how small we are and how huge everything is around us.. definitely makes me thirsty to travel! I just want to see everywhere because I know there is so much more to offer that I haven't even thought about.

Yesterday morning we drove Kyle to the airport so he could ship off to Mississippi with Americorps for 10 months.. I miss the kid mucho :(

RollOUT

I'm officially out of Buchanan County. Craaaazy huh? Now i'm in Jonesville VA with Kyle and Becky acting as "helping hands"... except today was one of those days. In the middle of our third dump run, I, without thinking, threw a board into the back of the truck bed and it hit the truck's glass window and shattered it. WOOPS! Soooo that's really cool Laura, but at least it's getting fixed tomorrow and nobody's mad about it.

Just in case you weren't convinced that I was an idiot, I hit Becky about an hour later in the head with a chunk of a 2x4 and now her head is numb and swelling. Ohhh Laura, sometimes I wonder if your brain works AT ALL.

Besides that, today's been great- we got back by 1 and showered and have just been catching up on some last minute stuff. Today is Jonesville's picnic so we'll be going to that later and enjoying some new scenery which I'm pretty excited about. Otherwise... we're just going to be cleaning around here for this staff and helping them out for the next few days, but since there are only 16 VOLUNTEERS AND 10 STAFFERS HERE (how they managed this I'm not quite sure), there shouldn't be much to do. Yaaaaaay

Great day.

Closing time, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here.

Sunday night, and only 2 more days to go in Buchanan County. We're beginning to wrap up all of the close-out work, which pretty much consists of me taking all of the final pictures of homes and putting all of the families' information in an internet databse. I've been doing lots of computer work and stuff like that, but today we took apart a lot of our office and sleeping quarters.. it's so weird! The school pretty much looks like a school again and I don't like it one bit. I am excited though because I found out where I'll be once I leave here-- me, Becky and Kyle are going to Jonesville in Lee County (where training was!), and Tayli and Spencer are going to Johnson County. I'm suuuuper pumped because a.) there are only two work crews in Lee this week so that means that being a "helping hand" is going to be really easy, and b.) because i love the staff there and I usually go there for my days off anyways and c.) I won't have to move all of my stuff more than once from another county. Yay!

Today we had a great staff bonding day, we visited a bunch of families and said goodbye :-( It was really hard to say goodbye to one homeowner who we nicknamed Dolla. He's the sweetest old man, and even though he talks in circles and has the memory of a fruit fly, he's definitely the homeowner who I've gotten closest with. For whatever reason I always get closest with elderly homeowners because I love listening to their life stories! They're so wise and have a really dry sense of humor which I absolutely eat up. He reminds me a lot of my Papa.. though my grandpa was a tad sharper in the mind before he passed.

The pic of all of us is from our COMPLETED ROOM ADDITION PROJECT!! It's b-e-a-utiful!

Anywayssss after we said bye to families we stopped on top of the Poplar mountain nearby and just hung out-- it was so nice being able to enjoy being outside without having a time limit on it! We didn't have to worry about volunteers coming or going to GL meetings.. best Sunday yet by far. Saw a movie at the theatres tonight which was nice to get out, and now we're about to put in Anchorman and hit the sack. I'm a tad homesick, but I'm going to be really upset when we pull out of Russell Prater Elementary for good.

It's wednesday.

Wednesday already, sheeeesh this is wild. We're in the middle of doing lots of close-out work, but it's official, only 1 week left in this county! I'm really sad to be leaving all of the locals and friends that we've made, but at the same time I think my body is becoming fond of the idea of a normal night's sleep and a regular diet. It's wild that this is already just a memory and have nothing else to look forward to.. I mean, that sounds really pessimistic, but I just mean it in that there are no more volunteers after this week so the summer is pretty much over. Plus Kyle is leaving us next weekend for good- AmeriCorps for 10 months! We're not even going to be able to drive him to the airport because we're all going to be split up :-( Makes me sad all day.

I'm bored and trying to teach myself guitar, so far I know how to play hey ya, complicated by avrile lavigne, take me home country roads, free fallin, and wagon wheel. The tips of my fingers are loosing feeling... boooo

Rope swing!

This week was soo great! So great. The volunteers were amazing and I got really close to a bunch of kids. Not only the kids, but the group leaders were soo amazing to us! They gave us lots of gifts and went out of their way to make sure that we were doing okay. It was really nice to be nurtured and taken care of after the crazy week we had earlier, and they were all super understanding of everything. I'm such a cornball BUT I think my favorite part of the week was being able to hang out at Peter Pan and Cinderella (two sites that are neighbors) for hours every day and just hang with the volunteers. I got to be a staffer there for like 10 minutes and actually say construction-related things, but the rest of the time I'd just jam to good music and talk with them. A lot of times on runs we only get to stay for like 15-20 mins per site but I somehow made it to their sites every day... sick.

Yesterday Jared, Megan and Matt (volunteers from week 2) came and stayed with us!!!! They are the best volunteers in the world, and so last night we had a dodgeball tournament for probably 2 1/2 hours. It was so fun because it was fist pump friday so we would take extended fist-pumping breaks mid-game with the lights off. It got pretty intense. Today we took them to the rope swing again and I jumped off first.. ughh it's so crazy! we brought an underwater camera so I got some good shots, I'm pumped to get them developed. Anywayyssss we just did lots of work and now we're gonna watch some shudder island. I can't believe tomorrow's our last sunday of volunteers... weird. This summer has gone by so fast and I'm a little sad that it's a memory and there's not much else to expect. It's almost August.. whaaaaat!!

203 here I come baby

DAD VISITED!

So, dad came to visit this weekend!! Ahh it was so amazing and I feel like it was a dream. He got here on Thursday around 7:15, right in the middle of the picnic. After a bite to eat and introducing him to families and volunteers, I took him to the Towers Overlook where there is honestly the most beautiful view of mountains I've ever seen. It really feels like you are in the middle of Jurassic Park or Land Before Time or something and a pterodactyl is just going to swoop over your head out of nowhere! We took a sweet father daughter pic, as you can see. Later that night he sat in on our staff meeting and typed up the hardware list, and I think he really got a feel for how much detail goes into every meeting and how much planning each project actually takes. It was so fun having him there and after the meeting Spencer told me "It's scary how much you're like your dad". Sounds about right.

Friday morning I took him to hardware right when it opened at 7:30am, and after getting all of the inside misc. stuff we went into the lumber yard, I think he really loved it. It's pretty cool getting to start your day off with the lumber guys cracking jokes and loading up hardware, even though it doesn't sound relaxing it totally is and gives you some time to yourself. After all of the volunteers were out of here I took him to 4 homes, the first being one where we're building a knee-wall and installing trusses above it (see pic). I love this project because I've talked the group leader's through it and I've seen the progression of it, and it's really coming to life. Seeing it finished is going to be one of the coolest things, especially because her ceilings are in such bad condition that she really can't go through another winter without a proper roof. After that I took him to a hollow (pronounced holler) with 3 trailers we're working on, and we stopped at Dollar General beforehand to pick up lots of toys. We brought them to the kids there, and one boy Elijah LOVED the bat and frisbee we gave him. It was obvious that he'd never played baseball before so my dad stayed for about an hour and taught him the correct way to stand, hold the bat, and it was just the coolest thing watching him make a bond with the boy so quickly! Corny. I'll stop.

We had the share circle, a huge evening gathering where we all share a "God" moment of the week, and mine is too long to say so I won't. My dad's was really cute and everyone loves him :)

Saturday I woke up and did my work orders and nonsense and was done by noon so we explored downtown Haysi and I took him to the ropeswing!! It was the coolest thing ever, I had never done it before and it was really high and ughh it was just such a rush going off of it! It's a ropeswing that goes inbetween two cliffs and a railroad track is running right above it. To the right there are some rapids that we rode through on our butts and it was so much fun! I wish I could put into words how cool that place is but I just can't. So I'm sorry. But it's magical.

We went to Me Finca for dinner and met up with some Dickinson County staffers and then they came over for a slumber party! Fun stuff. He left Sunday morning around 5am.. yikes! Overall it was one of the best weekends I've had here and it was just super cool to be able to share this with someone back home. It's hard to put into words what I do and so I'm really glad that he got to see me in action! Plus we've kind of been going on a faith journey at the same time together which is also really cool to have that kind of relationship with him.

I'll stop being corny now. Enjoy the pics!

Home is where the heart is

DAD'S HERE!!! :) :) :)

He got here last night around 7 and hunt out at the picnic at the Breaks Interstate Park for a while. I was soo excited I told all of the volunteers like 6 times he was coming and they really don't care, but it feels so good to be able to share this with someone and have someone fully understand what I'm doing! So we walked around the park last night and I took him to some overlooks and we took some really awesome pictures, I'm really pumped to get them printed.

This morning I took him to hardware so he could get the full experience, he met the lumber boys Sarge, Anthony and John, along with Bertha and Gerald inside who help out with fasteners and such. It was a greeeaaaaat morning, and I took him on runs with me after that! We visited one project where we're doing a knee-wall and building trusses for the roof. I loved bringing him there because that's my contact home for the week and my vision is finally coming to life, it's so cool seeing my own plans being completed on the home and it transforming. He was pretty shocked at the condition of the inside--the ceiling is literally halfway to the floor it's falling off so badly. Needless to say that once we make further progress on the roof we'll be removing the ceiling and subfloor and replacing both.

Next I brought him to a hollow (pronounced holler) where we're working on 3 out of the 4 trailers located there. At 2 of them there are little kids running around and my dad taught a boy Elijah how to play baseball- he was so in his element. His face was beaming as Elijah got better and better at hitting the balls-- I'm almost positive this was his first time ever playing. We gave Elijah a frisbee, bat, some bubbles, silly bands and other things to share with his brothers and sisters who weren't there. Afterwards we walked up the hill to visit Trenton (3) and Ryan (2) along with their mom Alisha. They came outside, and first of all, these boys are straight up cartoons. They're mini sumo wrestlers in Hulk tighty whities, best thing I've ever seen. As soon as we brought them over toy cars and bubbles they had a party by themselves on the deck and just their little chubber manerisms were the funniest things in the world.

After runs I took him to Bellacinos-- a reaaaaally good grinder place, and afterwards we walked across the street to Thangs (thrift store) to pick up a couple of awesome thrifty hats. I'm so pumped, I struck gold in there today.

Anyhooo I'll upload some pics from his camera on here later. Time to do work and then nap quick before dinna, then EG and a dodgeball tourney/Dairy Queen trip. Cheaaaa

It's alllllll good

So, the bat situation is all good! I don't need to get shots, and the rest of my staff is fine. No worries! :-)

The bat was tested for rabies and it came out negative, which is pretty much what we were expecting. Still, the North Carolina crew left Friday morning to go home and get the rabies shots. That left us with 3 crews doing work on sites for us on Friday.. so they did work until around 3:30 and then they came back to the center and a handful of volunteers got shots at the center. The local health department really helped us out by sending us nurses and bringing vaccines to our school. It was pretty weird seeing a bunch of nurses walking down the hallways with coolers full of shots.. but anyways, all of the volunteers were gone by 6:30 Friday night so we had the entire night to re-organize our center! That was nice, although moving into our new office and sleeping quarters AGAIN was a pain in the butt. We went to the Midsummer gathering this weekend in Jonesville (where I was for training, its one of the headquarters) where we all learned new positional ways to improve and talked about our summers so far. After, we went to Hancock County, TN and about 70 staffers went to a waterfall and we all swam until around 10:30 that night.. it was AWESOME! There was a huuuuge waterfall with a pool at the bottom and we were all just hanging out in there.. afterwards we went back to the Hancock center (they have no water.. crazy! Really opens your eyes to the need) and had a bonfire and looked at the stars. I swear that is the most beautiful county I've ever been in, everywhere I looked my jaw dropped. I think I'm so in love with it down here because I'm so used to the cookie-cutter suburbia back home, and this is just so hilly and green and beautiful everywhere I look!

I'm so lucky. I'm getting really corny right now but it's because i'm in suuuuuuch a good mood!!! I just talked to my mom and dad and I'm almost positive my dad's going to be able to come stay with me next week -- YESSS. I'm a tad homesick and I miss him and the fam so much I can't wait for him to come see everything I'm doing! He's going to absolutely love it, and I'm really pumped for someone back home to understand what it is that I do on a daily basis; it's hard to put into words unless you actually witness it and have been here. So. Now that the corny part is over, let me tell you about my AWESOME DAY! The 81-person crew from Westborough, Mass came in and I can tell that they're all pretty hoss. They're super experienced and really into construction, and during the Group Leader meeting they straight up donated a check for $3,000! WHAAAAT! Not to mention we changed our fundraiser today so if they donate:
$1,000 towards Tayli, they can style/dye her hair purple.
$1,000 towards me, they cut off 8 INCHES OF HAIR!
$1,000 towards Becky, she has to shut up for the entire day. impossible.
$1,000 towards Kyle, they can cut/color/style his hair any way they want.
$1,000 towards Spencer, he does an entire day of runs in a dress.
$1,500 towards Spencer and he wears make-up with the dress
$2,000 towards Spencer and he does dress, make-up AND pink hair.

Nuts...... so, I may come back looking like Lord Farquaad (Liana <3) with my silly haircut. Whatever, at least we're $3,000 richer, I really don't care.

Bats.

So. There have been bats in Russell Prater Elementary for over ten years now, and have never caused problems with ASP.. until now. On Sunday night while the volunteers were sleeping, a girl woke up and saw a bat on the floor in front of her bed. It then flew onto the end of her bed and just sat there..so she and a couple other people killed it and threw it in the trash.

You would think that would be the end of the issue, but it isn't.

Rob, one of the Group Leaders for the church (who is a pediatrician), decided on Tuesday that this was a crisis and why hadn't we done anything about it? So, he begins researching and finds out that a bat's bite can be so small that you can't even feel it, and because the bat was in the sleeping quarters with "unconscious" people, anybody could have been bitten and not realized it. Thus, we could have an entire room of rabies-infested people. So, because he freaks out, everyone freaks out. We move our entire staff office and living quarters into the pre-k Head Start room (where we were for set-up week, it was miserable) and all of the boys move into our old room, and the girls move into the large classroom nextdoor.

So, the health inspectors come by today and inspect the entire school, (I learned it is actually illegal to kill a bat..who woulda thought?) and the schoolboard freaks out because they come in this morning and we have volunteers sleeping all over the place and they have no idea what's going on. Not only that, but there have been conference calls with the STATE health departments from Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey deciding what the best plan of action is. I swear you can cut the tension with a needle that's how uptight everyone has been- we had girls sobbing last night thinking they had rabies and of course boys are trying to comfort them, sweeeet, I'm glad now we have to worry about them sucking face as well as getting rabies. Anyways, there are nurses here now on the other side of the school with surveys and forms everyone has to sign and fill out. The state needs an account of the situation from everyone's perspective I guess, and so some people are deciding if they want to get the series of 4 rabies shots or not. There's been word that North Carolina is leaving us tomorrow.. which means that we'll have 3 work crews for 10 sites for the rest of the week. COOL BUCHANAN COUNTY, COOL.


All I can do at this point is laugh, this is absolutely ridiculoussssssss ahahaha

I'm sad :(

I woke up at 3:30am to say goodbye to my church, and they were already gone :( :( :( I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to you guys! I love you all and I'm so happy I got to spend the day with you!!

Reunited and it feels so goooood!

I'm currently in Harlan County, Kentucky visiting my church! It's so nice to be here and see familiar faces whom i love ohhhhh so much. Plus I get to see other staffers that I haven't seen since training which is fun. It's so weird being on the other side of the spectrum when I'm around my church because I feel like I should be a volunteer and help them with construction- but at the same time it's pretty cool actually knowing what kind of work they're doing without having to be told. I took lots of pics and I'm really pumped for tonight because 1.) it's the share circle where I can hear everything amazing that happened with them this week, and 2.) theres PROM!! I'm going with my hubby, Doug. Even though he asked the cashier at the nearby gas station if she would be his date (she's planning on showing up later in a dress to horribly embarass him, YES), I'm not too worried about it because I have a be-a-utiful green velvet and polysester dress that I plan on wearing. wooooop!

Office day!

Here's a pic from last week-- In the middle in the blue is Phloyd, and on the end is Jared. Phloyd's little sister Phil was also our bff, but seriously, these guys were awesome- and the rest of their church from Maryland! (cough cough TomTom, come back to be a Staffer-in-Training!) I'm really sad that they're gone because we all learned so much about each other and they were soo great! I'm really going to miss them :(

For a fundraiser we pie staffers in the face, and I got pied once (Tayli got 2 pies because she raised the most money, I lost by 1 cent). That was hysterical not only because, well I got pied, but because we looked like complete fools in our flockey uniforms. To you flockey noobs, it is playing floor hockey with duct tape covered fly swatters and ping pong balls.. epic.

While everyone else went on runs this afternoon, I had an office day! It was so nice to catch up on everything, because there are so many little details that you can just let get passed you but now I'm caught up on pretty much everything! I made a new system to keep myself organized and feel good about where I'm at soo that's good. Plus I got to call my mom and others today so it was really nice talking to the outside world for a bit :-) These past couple days have been great because we have 2 "floaters" and 1 helping hand, which means that people just come visit and do extra things for us that we'd like help with! Plus our program manager Sarah was here last night so that definitely helped make us look better when everything was running fairly smoothly. woop woop

Here are some pics, and a video from my roadtrip last weekend with Kyle! (I really hope this video thing works)

Monday Monday Monday Monday

It's monday. This is crazy! The volunteers got here yesterday and they seem really pumped to be here, plus most of them have been here a handful of times so that's really nice having some experienced workers without a thousand questions.

On another note, last week was AMAZING. I became so close with a bunch of the volunteers and it was a lot harder than I thought to say goodbye. One of the best and worst parts of my job is that we get a new bunch of volunteers each week- I mean the upside is the ridiculous amount of people I get to meet, but when you meet some really awesome kids it's hard to let them go! Last week some of the volunteers got us candy, we had a flockey tournament (playing hockey with fly swatters covered in duct tape and playing with ping pong balls), they donated a ton of money, and they were just amazing to be around. I gave my staff share, which is like a rollo for you Emmaus go-ers (describes my faith journey), and it was more incredible than I had ever expected. It was a little difficult giving it because I've never talked about it before other than with my staff and a handful of others, but when I finished some women from the Tullahoma, TN group prayed around me. It was the most out-of-body, amazing experiences I've ever had, I don't even know how to put it into words. I can't even describe how appreciative I am of all of those guys!

Anyhoooo today's monday, and I had hardware duty this morning.. too bad I woke up 20 minutes late! Thanks stupid watch alarm for NOT waking me up. I got everything back on time though and all of the volunteers loaded up everything they needed to, not to mention we have a floater crew and a couple helping hands so we're gonna be all set for deliveries! Plus the head construction consultant Dennis is here, not to mention my Program Manager Sarah came for the day.. so thank God everything went smoothly (ish) this morning orrrr that would have been super embarassing on my part.

K time for runs, see yaaaaaa

And if I die in Raleigh, at least I will die freeee

Sooo today's my day off! I came to Jonesville, the headquarters last night to hang with Torre and Jenna. It was so nice to get away for a little bit and not have to worry about making calls and answering questions, although I am a tad sad that I missed last nights evening gathering! But I got to the porch around 8 last night and then we drove an HOUR to see toy story in 3d... IT BLEW MY MIND! it was so awesome. Buzz Lightyear is so much cooler when he speaks spanish.. his latino hips dont lie thats forsure

Anywaysss we came back here and now are going on an adventure to Bojangles! I've never been and all I hear is good things. Spencer is gonna kill me that I'm going there without him cause hes from NC and they're all OBSESSED with it there.. apparently its wicked good fried southern food. om nom nom. I head back to the center around 3:30 today so I can be back for dinner. And tonight's culture night so we're gonna be square dancing with some people from a church, and have the south mountain bluegrass boys perform! holllaaaaaaaaa

Time to grub. Adios.

Another batch is on the way!!

So it's Sunday already. Whaaaaaaaaat!! The individual days are going by so slowly but looking back it's flying by. The new volunteers will be here in about a half hour.. they're from MD and Im super pumped cause they sounded awesome on the phone. Supposedly there's kids who are bringing a banjo, guitar, and a mandolin, and then there are good singers and a break dancer. I have such a good feeling about this week after how Friday wrapped up! The beginning of last week was tough.. as you could probably tell by my frustrated posts, but by the end of Friday night the V's were so appreciative of us and everything we did. After the "share circle" where everyone shares a God moment from the week, a Group Leader named Scott stood up and said we were the best staff he's ever had, and we got a standing ovation! That was such an incredible moment because we were convinced that they didn't like us and that they weren't having a great week. So many people came up to us and said how great we were, and then they took us to Dairy Queen :) Solid. That may or may not have been my second time there that day.. dont judge me

Anyhoo, last night Tayli Kyle and I went to the Porch in Jonesville with a couple other centers and we all hung out and watched a movie and just party-bedded all night. It was so awesome to see everyone again, and we'll get to see them all again this weekend when they come to the breaks (our state park thats AWESOME). I'm in the best mood everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


write to me!!!
Appalachia Service Project
8433 Lover's Gap Rd
Vansant, VA 24656

It's Friday...WHAT?!

This week FLEW by! Okay so maybe it didn't during the day as you can tell by some of my wenching below, but looking back it felt like 5 minutes. I think that the busier we are, the faster it flies because we straight up have no time to realize what time it is!

Today Kyle and I went on runs together, great success. The volunteers really warmed up to us and opened themselves up, and I'm so happy about the relationships weve made! Last night after our picnic with the families, 3 staffers got pied for a fundraiser we did (thank God I didn't.. that's the pic of Kyle and Becky pre-pie-in-face haha). That was hysterical and everybody got really into it, and ever since we've been so buddy buddy with the v's! I'm sad they're leaving now, but I know that next week will have even more awesome people to bring me

Tomorrow Kyle and I are going to the porch in Jonesville to hang out for the night and get the day off.. I'm excited to sleep until 10 or so, I need a few extra hours of sleep in a big bad way. It's almost dinner time and then our last evening gathering.. the share circle - it's kind of like Emmaus in that everybody shares their favorite God moment and all of the 14-year old girls cry like little babies. I'm looking forward to it :)

Volunteers have arrived.

So, the volunteers got here yesterday. Things are absolutely crazy! Nobody got here when they were supposed to and though they seem really nice, it's pretty hard to get them enthused about evening gatherings. Of course there are things that we could be doing better, but it's a little difficult to even make it through the activities if they're not willing to participate.

There is so much being thrown at us at once! We're trying to manage our assigned homes while learning about the rest of the 9 projects (I'm assigned 2 homes to manage), meanwhile trying to do our positional work, and somehow attending all of the activities we have planned every day. It's getting a tad stressful.. but my staffers are great and we're all pulling together to get through these really really hectic first days. Last nights staff meeting went until around 2:30am discussing all of the projects, and we just finished tonight's. We're all pretty much running on barely enough rest and aren't doing a good job of taking care of ourselves! I know it will get better, but I'm not gonna deny the fact that redbulls and monsters have become one of my only sources of energy.

I'm doing a hardware run tomorrow at 7am and I'm scared out of my mind because I'm going alone and there's a ton to get! Hopefully it won't take me too long because today it took us quite some time to get the materials out to the sites and that left some groups with nothing to do and many weren't happy with us.. but hey, we just finished our first day of our first week of the summer. They just can't expect perfection cause we still don't even know what we're doing!

My mind's going crazy with lots of stuff to do tomorrow and still tonight before bed sooo off I go!

ps i got the cutest care package from mom and dad today. they're awesome :)

Only one more day..

So last night in the midst of making phone calls and doing some last minute stuff, an enormous thunderstorm hit us and we lost power until 3:45am. This was pretty ridiculous considering we still have so much setting up to do and details to iron out! It was kinda hysterical trying to plan evening gatherings by flashlights last night though.. although the school was pretty creepy when it was pitch black. Good thing we salvaged 2 hours of daylight and did WORK making signs and put them up all around! Megan, a helper, came to visit us and did a lot of work for us which was super helpful.

Today we've just been setting up the center, which takes so much longer than I thought. So many signs to make, the supply room to set up, plastic to put up in order to separate sleeping quarters.. the list never ends. So.. I should get back to work! After tonight's over all hell will break loose.. the first church gets here at 1:30 tomorrow! This is mayhem. I'm so excited and nervous at the same time, but I know that we're doing God's work and everything's going to work out

Another long day fosho

So when I said that yesterday was really stressful, I had obviously had no idea what stress meant. The good news is that we signed a bunch of homes today, which is a great step towards having a functioning mission trip this summer! I really love the families that we'll be working with, they're all so appreciative and amazing. Every single person here is such a character, it's hysterical and I am eating all of their stories up. Speaking of stories... yesterday Becky and I went to do an IHV (initial home visit, i know I'm so legit with my super cool ASP lingo) on this guy's house named "Ralph". He wasn't home, so we met his cousin "Ron" who was house sitting for him, and while we were standing in the rain outside he managed to tell us that he had 3 degrees-- he was a sociologist, a chemist, and something else. Meanwhile, he was finishing his ex-wife's degree, as a "going away present". While acquiring all of these degrees, he managed to be a drummer/guitarist in a well-known band down here for 26 years, and was an aspiring Botonist so he could grow his own marijuanna.. awesome. He was definitely telling the truth.. NOT! Haha but I love that people here exaggerate like crazy because it makes everything more interesting and it definitely makes for some interesting conversation.

Anyhoo, the 5 of us rode around all day signing homes which made for 100% deliriousness the entire time and we had some sweet bonding moments. Red Bull and Monsters have become an absolute staple-- I'm going to need to learn how to shotgun Monsters to keep up with Becky because she's an absolute energy machine. (Meghan Ledan.. she reminds me a lot of your constant peppiness <3)

The reason why all of us are so stressed is because our internet is STILL not hooked up (I'm on the school's internet, which is verrrrrry limited in that we have to use proxy sites to get around all of the restrictions), our phone doesn't have an answering machine so we can't retrieve our messages, AND our center computer is locked and we don't know the password. That's a huge problem because we have so many forms and what not on there that need to be sent out but we can't reach them! I guess all of the centers have had problems with their computers working in the past few days, and hopefully it will be fixed by tomorrow. I'm relieved because I finally got in contact with all of the churches coming down last night, so that's a definite plus-- although I would really love it if I could input their info on our center's computer and just have everything organized. For now my entire life is written in note form in a steno pad.. organized chaos is my middle name. (kind of like our staff quarters..see pic)

Definitely a good day for staff bonding, which makes up for the rest of the stress! Only a few more days till the volunteers are here... CRAZY

p.s. there was the kindergarten graduation tonight so we may or may not have used their setup as an invitation to have a rap battle and dance party on the stage..which explains my typical outbreak of the sprinkler in the photo above.

LONG day!

So today was a ridiculously long day.. we woke up at 8ish, and after a quick bowl of cereal we headed out the door for some home visits. We only made it to about 3 before lunch, but because this county is so big finding each house becomes such a huge process. Lunch was awesome because we took two community contacts out to lunch at a chinese restaurant! They've been helping us find applications and the actual addresses of the homes so they appreciated the lunch, not to mention it was a really nice break from eating mcdonalds and DQ...although DQ is pretty freakin good.

We found probably 4 homes that we're definitely going to work on today, and its so nice being positive that they're going to get the help they need! It's a stressful process because some people don't own their land or trailer so it becomes a huge process making sure that a form is signed in front of a notary, the landlord and the resident..hopefully we'll have it all organized by the time the volunteers come on Sunday! ...no pressure or anything. It was really depressing when we found homes with great families that just didn't have enough need to consider it for emergency home repairs--so many families are absolutely amazing and so sweet and it just breaks your heart not being able to work for them. I know that we'll be able to find definitely qualified homes soon enough...I just want a couple homes with kids and puppies!

We got back around 6-6:30, and I finally got a hold of the two other churches that are coming down on Sunday! That was such a huge relief because they've been out of contact with us for over a week, and it's really important to go over the number of volunteers, any medical needs, all the forms and money they've handed in.. and more boring stuff. So thats just one more thing off my plate, phew

Tomorrow we get to move into our life-sized room! Right now we're staying in a kindergarten room which is wicked cramped but tomorrow we'll have a room 3x the size with a flatscreen, dvd player and computers! Not to mention our wireless internet and phone will be hooked up so we can finally function like a real staff. This whole kindergarten classroom without a working phone nonsense has been ridiculous because we can't tell anybody to call us back (we have absolutely NO service).

One of the funniest things EVER happened tonight, while we were going over the homes we visited today during a staff meeting Becky (the center director) said something really weird that we didn't know how to respond to...and Kyle (another first-year) responded after 5 seconds of silence by saying "hm." She then spit out her soda from her mouth all over him and the table, ran to the bathroom... but didn't make it--pissed her pants on the way. We're all having dying fits, Tayli had to run to the bathroom so she wouldn't pee her pants, then I literally couldn't breathe from laughing so hard, all the while we're all like drooling and looking like complete idiots because we're having uncontrollable laugh attacks...aka "craffing" (crying and laughing). Solid. Becky's going to be really really mad at me for posting this. Sorry. <3

Finished working around 9:30.. long day, but got a ton done! Hopefully all the homes will be signed tomorrow, but knowing the rate at which we get lost around here, one can only hope..

Day 1 of official work!

Hello, crazy blog world.

My journey began May 26th, and after 11 days of training and a couple days in my center, things couldn't get better! Last Sunday I found out my staff during a scavenger hunt in Jonesville, Virginia, and I couldn't be happier with who I'll be with for the next few weeks. We're all so wacky and weird in our own ways, but at the same time we know exactly when to put on the business pants and get stuff done.

We're staying at Russel Prater's Elementary School, and this is seriously the coolest school I've ever been in. There are Disney characters painted all over the walls, and the set-up is really open and inviting. There aren't actual classrooms, most rooms are just divided by bookshelves and chalkboards and such. I would have never thought that would work.. but according to our crazy center advisor Paul, it does. The 5 of us are sleeping in a head start room for kindergarten-ers, and divided it up into sleeping quarters and an office. Even though it's freakin cramped at times, it's pretty cool having a bunch of roommates and workmates so close all the time.

Today we explored the county and began working! Now that I'm used to getting up between 7-8:30am, waking up isn't so torturous anymore. Kyle and I started the day off by heading to the hardware store and introducing ourselves, and then headed over to the dump. Whoever told us that finding the dump was going to be easy was a jackass. We got completely lost up a switchback in the middle of nowhere, but it was AWESOME! Definitely one of the best times I've had getting lost-- nothing's better than driving through windy mountain roads to some good ol' Zac Brown Band! (shout-out to my fave Ethan David: the mountain with the dump on it is called Keene!) After this trip, I went on another journey up to the Breaks, which is the state park. This is seriously the coolest park I've ever been to, there are so many historical things that you can look at, not to mention the most breath-taking views you've ever seen. I don't know how you can look at the view and not believe in God, the view was way too gorgeous to doubt that there's something bigger than us out there.

I never thought driving around would make me so exhausted..but after some phone calls and sign-making after that second trip, I'm just about ready to pass out. Great success.

p.s. my address is:
Laura Kelly
Russell Prater Elementary
St. Route 83
Vansant, VA 24656