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!