Week 1: Check!

I have no idea how this week is already over. It's funny, each individual day is packed with errands and activities and stress and seems to crawl by, but here we are on Saturday and it's already over. Craaazy! I'm so happy that we just had that group of volunteers, they set a really great tone for the rest of the summer. They were great to us and each other, which is always great because it's always a possibility that groups won't get along at the center. One of the groups was from Washington D.C., and consisted of 14 kids from an all-boys Catholic high school. I guess they have monks teaching their classes, which I think is hysterically awesome, and they gave us shirts last night that say "Got Monks?" on the front! Haha, that was a sweet gift.

Yesterday we finished up working on 2 out of the 5 homes we signed for this week! Pretty exciting, almost all of the rest of our projects though will last us until the end of the summer. I guess we're a pretty ambitious staff because we have some seriously huge projects and I can't wait to get started on them! We're signing a house today to start on Monday for a guy who is living in a siding-less house and doesn't have ANY plumbing (doesn't even have a bathroom) or water. He goes nextdoor to his brother-in-law to use their bathroom and water. I cannot even wrap my brain around what that must be like, and this guy thinks nothing of it because that's just the hand of cards he's been dealt. Since we can't give him his own septic tank or well because his property is waaay too small, we're looking into fundraising a TON to give him a $5,000 composting toilet. I don't know much about them, but I know that the toilet itself is essentially a septic system which turns all of the waste into compost. If we get to do this project I am going to be so so so excited, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and praying every day!

After we get some more work done today I think we're going to meet up with a few other staffs and go for a hike/swim at the state park nearby! That could provide some much needed downtime, not to mention some much needed time playing outside :)

Here are some pictures from this week! The man in the wheelchair is Robert (the one I gushed about a few posts earlier, not to be confused with the guy getting the $5,000 toilet), and the little boy's name is Thomas with his dad Marshall kneeling behind him. We're essentially rebuilding all of the floors in their trailer, aka we get to be there for the rest of the summer, aka I get unlimited playtime with Thomas and his ADORABLE sister Kelsey. My life for the win!