We made it back safe and sound this morning at about 2:30 a.m. The weekend was a wonderful success and everyone had a blast. Our team had two rentals cars and the one I went it headed out Friday after work. We stayed at my friend Michelle's parents house right outside of New Orleans for the night and got up to explore the French Quarter and Bourbon Street for the day Saturday (fyi I was wearing my Favre t-shirt and got mixed reactions to say the least... there were some fellow Minnesotans who gave me a thumbs up and high fives... but majority were Saints fans of course but none got too mean). It was such an experience and I wish we would have had a ton more time. We walked around the shops and Michelle's parents took us out to lunch, then it was time to head to Baton Rouge to meet the a large group of our Amerifamily. People from two others teams in the area met us there and we ended up with 27 people staying at Michelle's house that she lived in when she attended LSU. There wasn't any furniture so it was perfect for all of our sleeping bags and "junk".
The ball was a ton of fun and quite the experience... I also have pictures from it but I have to figure out this whole camera card problem. Sunday we woke up, ate, cleaned and headed to New Orleans again to watch the Vikings/ Saints game down in the Big Easy. We had gumbo at Michelle's parents and watched the first quarter there before heading to a bar. Not THAT was an experience to say the least, the game was amazing which I'm sure everyone was watching it. But, imagine being a bar FULL of crazy Saints fans full of alcohol and being the only one in purple ad gold. We stationed our self close to a side door in the case of the Vikings winning for things getting too rowdy. We finished the horrible ending game and began our four hour drive back to Orange. The city was going crazy when we left with everyone honking and shouting things at each other. It was really cool to be in the city where a team won such a big game but would have much rather been in MN with us winning. The drive sucked a lot... not only was it four hours but we were all exhausted from the fun weekend. But, we made it back safe and sound and into our beds sleeping by 3:00 in order to get up by 6:00 for work... we were all struggling today a bit.
This week is full of new volunteers and hopefully learning yet some more skills. Today some of us did some taping for painting and then painted and did some caulking. This weekend we are taking a team trip to Galveston to learn a little about the storm and see the city. I am very excited for it and also excited to get to sleep in on Sunday since we are only going for the day on Saturday. Tomorrow for PT we are planning volleyball so that should be a blast. Well time to finish laundry in order to get my warm towel to take a much needed (most likely cold) shower and head to bed nice and early. Hope all is wonderful back home and everyone is dealing with the Vikes loss alright.
Missing home,
Nicole
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wa Wa Wee Wa
So, my computer hasn't been reading my camera card so I have "stolen" some pictures from people on my team... more to come though once I figure out what's up with my card/computer.
The gym when we arrived with about 20 people sleeping in it (thankfully there isn't anyone right now)
Waiting to leave for work can get really boring so we entertain ourselves...
Two person pyramid... we also have a 6 person one I'll be putting up later
Three person... we're getting good :-)
Paul showing his excitement for breakfast!!
Lunch break with some much needed stretching
SOOO bored chipping away at mortar for 3 days (Beth and I portraying a scene from Titanic)
Kelly and I playing in the broken tiles
Volunteering at the food bank
Jess ad I loving us some morning time
The kitchen is where we love to make food enough for 50+
The stage we live on with the REALLY THICK plywood to enclose us (guys on the left and ladies on the right)
The view of our area from the top bunk... mine is the bottom one on the right Wednesday, January 20, 2010
So tired...
Well, we have already been here a week and a half and it has flown by. Every day we are pretty much constantly moving from 6 am to 7:30 pm. Our day is filled with work, PT, cooking dinner and finally some computer/reading/cards time. There are 6 interns from the University of Cincinnati who are really nice and fun. Our team was put into pairs and each pair was matched with an intern so we share the duties of the intern. My intern is in charge of doing the laundry of the dish towels and such. Along with the chores we are assigned a day to cook. This includes being up and ready by 5:30 in order to cook for about 40 people, then heading to work after cleanup and finally cooking dinner for those 40 people starting right after work. I have yet to have my day, which I am thankful for, but those days will be even longer. We sleep on bunk beds with air mattresses on top which isn't too bad besides the fact that everyone can hear when everyone else moves. All of the volunteers from last week left and only about half as many are here this week so there aren't any in the gym sleeping which is really weird and nice.
I have gotten the chance to learn some more home building essentials... Paul and I worked together putting trim in a couple rooms throughout a house that is almost ready for the homeowner to move back in. It was pretty tricky at first and semi frustrating to get the hang of which angle each side of the trim would be to match them perfectly. Scott was the name of the guy we worked with that day and he was very helpful. He taught us everything there is to know about trim and was very willing to teach us. He is another volunteer from Ohio staying for two weeks and we hope to get dinner with him sometime before he leaves.
As for today and yesterday... hmmm... how to put it... haha my hands feel so sore, along with the arms and back. We are all in pretty rough shape from the back to the hands. Why you might ask? Tile Removal would be the cause of that. Yesterday our whole team was sent to the same house which was exciting, we were told what we would be doing and the busting up of the tiles was rather fun but also hard work. One of the site supervisors brought us donuts and then told us it was because of the "crap work" we had to do, which was not a good sign. Once we demolished all of the tiles (which was a ton) we had to move on to the mortar which is NOT fun at all. We work with a couple chisels, crowbars and hammers. Our hands are so sore from holding onto the tools and the vibration of hitting them together. It is the most tedious work I think I have ever done in my life. Feels like it anyway. We have all suffered some battle wounds from the flying tiles hitting out arms and legs, along with the occasional one to the face. We make sure we have goggles, gloves and either earplugs or our ipods in the help with the noise. This brings us to the title of this blog (blob)... not only were my hands hurting today from yesterday then we were told we were doing the same thing today and most likely tomorrow and to top it off we had our PT Baseline test today. The baseline consists of as many push ups you can do in a minute, as many sit ups in a minute and the running a mile and a half. My goal was to run the whole time which I accomplished so I am happy with the outcome. This explains a little about my being so tired.
The family we are clearing the tile for is super cute... a younger couple with a little girl and 2 dogs (which of course I went running for). It is so rewarding to meet such wonderful people that we are making a difference for. Makes it that much more enjoyable and meaningful work, even though the actual labor is pretty horrible. Our team did an ISP at a massive food bank Saturday morning which was a lot of fun. We prepared boxes of food for people in need and ended up packing 1,200 which was a great accomplishment. After the food bank we went into the city of Beaumont which has a mall and is a more populated area. We shopped around for dresses to wear to the Mardi Gras ball most of the team is going to in Baton Rouge this weekend. One of my teammates went to school at LSU there and invited us and a couple other nearby teams. It should be really fun and great to see my friends on other teams too. We rented a car and are heading to New Orleans Friday evening after work and then up to Baton Rouge Saturday afternoon, and back to Orange on Sunday for the BIG GAME!!! This past Sunday a group of us went up to Chili's to watch the Vikings game and I decked out as many people as I could in my apparel. It was so great to win especially being in Cowboy territory.
This week has been a busy one and we are all looking forward to getting away and enjoying ourselves outside of work this weekend. With that said I think I am going to put some pictures up, do some reading and hit the hay. Good Night!!
Love,
Nicole
I have gotten the chance to learn some more home building essentials... Paul and I worked together putting trim in a couple rooms throughout a house that is almost ready for the homeowner to move back in. It was pretty tricky at first and semi frustrating to get the hang of which angle each side of the trim would be to match them perfectly. Scott was the name of the guy we worked with that day and he was very helpful. He taught us everything there is to know about trim and was very willing to teach us. He is another volunteer from Ohio staying for two weeks and we hope to get dinner with him sometime before he leaves.
As for today and yesterday... hmmm... how to put it... haha my hands feel so sore, along with the arms and back. We are all in pretty rough shape from the back to the hands. Why you might ask? Tile Removal would be the cause of that. Yesterday our whole team was sent to the same house which was exciting, we were told what we would be doing and the busting up of the tiles was rather fun but also hard work. One of the site supervisors brought us donuts and then told us it was because of the "crap work" we had to do, which was not a good sign. Once we demolished all of the tiles (which was a ton) we had to move on to the mortar which is NOT fun at all. We work with a couple chisels, crowbars and hammers. Our hands are so sore from holding onto the tools and the vibration of hitting them together. It is the most tedious work I think I have ever done in my life. Feels like it anyway. We have all suffered some battle wounds from the flying tiles hitting out arms and legs, along with the occasional one to the face. We make sure we have goggles, gloves and either earplugs or our ipods in the help with the noise. This brings us to the title of this blog (blob)... not only were my hands hurting today from yesterday then we were told we were doing the same thing today and most likely tomorrow and to top it off we had our PT Baseline test today. The baseline consists of as many push ups you can do in a minute, as many sit ups in a minute and the running a mile and a half. My goal was to run the whole time which I accomplished so I am happy with the outcome. This explains a little about my being so tired.
The family we are clearing the tile for is super cute... a younger couple with a little girl and 2 dogs (which of course I went running for). It is so rewarding to meet such wonderful people that we are making a difference for. Makes it that much more enjoyable and meaningful work, even though the actual labor is pretty horrible. Our team did an ISP at a massive food bank Saturday morning which was a lot of fun. We prepared boxes of food for people in need and ended up packing 1,200 which was a great accomplishment. After the food bank we went into the city of Beaumont which has a mall and is a more populated area. We shopped around for dresses to wear to the Mardi Gras ball most of the team is going to in Baton Rouge this weekend. One of my teammates went to school at LSU there and invited us and a couple other nearby teams. It should be really fun and great to see my friends on other teams too. We rented a car and are heading to New Orleans Friday evening after work and then up to Baton Rouge Saturday afternoon, and back to Orange on Sunday for the BIG GAME!!! This past Sunday a group of us went up to Chili's to watch the Vikings game and I decked out as many people as I could in my apparel. It was so great to win especially being in Cowboy territory.
This week has been a busy one and we are all looking forward to getting away and enjoying ourselves outside of work this weekend. With that said I think I am going to put some pictures up, do some reading and hit the hay. Good Night!!
Love,
Nicole
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Orange, Texas
MADE IT!! We arrived here at our church we're living in on Monday after lunch. We got a tour of the area we will be living and then headed to Walmart for essentials after dinner. We are living on a stage in a gymnasium... the eight of us girls are blocked off by plywood from about 30 volunteers sleeping on the gym floor (on air mattresses). The thin plywood also separates the girls from the 3 guys on my team and 3 interns that are working for the Fuller Center. Now when I say thin I mean THIN. We can hear everything and worse yet everyone can hear what we are saying... which is not what they want to be hearing I'm sure. We have taken advantage of the gym with some volleyball and lightning, there are also a few rooms upstairs that we are able to use with N64 (which I have already used... brought me back to being little) and a TV we will be able to watch DVDs on with the help of our computers. However, there are about 90 volunteers living in the building that usually only holds 50 so there are people in every nook and cranny. They said this has been their busiest week and that it should settle down after this, but heck the more volunteers the better!!
Our work day starts with being ready for breakfast at 6:30 (so the MANY alarms begin around 6 in the morning), then get our work assignments around 7 and head to the work sites, we usually get back around 5 just in time to change for PT dinner, shower and then we have been so pooped we just hit the hay by the time it's lights out at 10 pm. We have been assigned groups within our team that we work with on different houses. The groups and houses have stayed the same over the week since there are so many volunteers to account for. I am with my friends Jess and Ashley... we have been putting the siding up on a house. The first couple days have bee pretty discouraging since we we're just thrown into the job not knowing anything about siding and told to the the section just by the front door. We had to redo a lot of our work due to our site supervisor not telling us exactly how to do things... but he takes the responsibility for it and always says he's sorry but it's just a bummer that the rest of the volunteers see that we have to redo things and think less of us. It is also a bummer how evident it is that people think we are less capable because we are females, that is something that will be very hard to get used to.
Unlike our last round in AR we are all split up throughout the day which is a really big bummer but probably will turn out to be for the better since we live in such tight quarters. I am just glad we had the AR project when we did because it gave us the chance to bond. We sleep in bunk beds with air mattresses that aren't that bad. I just have this Ameri-issued sleeping bag that is a mummy one so there is little room for my legs to move apart and I am a very big fan of moving what I sleep. We will see how that goes. Most of the groups that come here are church groups with a couple college ones, and I am proud to say that they get a TON of their volunteers from MN!!! They say we come down very often... there is even a group here right now from the Mankato area but I am not assigned to the same house so I am unable to really get to chat with them. But, my teammates who do work with them really like them and think they are wonderful so that's a good sign.
So far so good, with little time to come on here and write as much as I would like. Hopefully after we get more into the swing of things and catch up on some sleep I will have more time. I also would like to post pictures so hopefully I will have time for that too. Along with explaining more about where we live and the eating arrangements and stuff. Speaking of eating... time for dinner!!!
Love, Nicole
Oh I almost forgot... I'm not sure if I wrote about the fingernail I smashed in AR pulling a tree... well let's just say the nail is no longer there... pretty gross :-)
Our work day starts with being ready for breakfast at 6:30 (so the MANY alarms begin around 6 in the morning), then get our work assignments around 7 and head to the work sites, we usually get back around 5 just in time to change for PT dinner, shower and then we have been so pooped we just hit the hay by the time it's lights out at 10 pm. We have been assigned groups within our team that we work with on different houses. The groups and houses have stayed the same over the week since there are so many volunteers to account for. I am with my friends Jess and Ashley... we have been putting the siding up on a house. The first couple days have bee pretty discouraging since we we're just thrown into the job not knowing anything about siding and told to the the section just by the front door. We had to redo a lot of our work due to our site supervisor not telling us exactly how to do things... but he takes the responsibility for it and always says he's sorry but it's just a bummer that the rest of the volunteers see that we have to redo things and think less of us. It is also a bummer how evident it is that people think we are less capable because we are females, that is something that will be very hard to get used to.
Unlike our last round in AR we are all split up throughout the day which is a really big bummer but probably will turn out to be for the better since we live in such tight quarters. I am just glad we had the AR project when we did because it gave us the chance to bond. We sleep in bunk beds with air mattresses that aren't that bad. I just have this Ameri-issued sleeping bag that is a mummy one so there is little room for my legs to move apart and I am a very big fan of moving what I sleep. We will see how that goes. Most of the groups that come here are church groups with a couple college ones, and I am proud to say that they get a TON of their volunteers from MN!!! They say we come down very often... there is even a group here right now from the Mankato area but I am not assigned to the same house so I am unable to really get to chat with them. But, my teammates who do work with them really like them and think they are wonderful so that's a good sign.
So far so good, with little time to come on here and write as much as I would like. Hopefully after we get more into the swing of things and catch up on some sleep I will have more time. I also would like to post pictures so hopefully I will have time for that too. Along with explaining more about where we live and the eating arrangements and stuff. Speaking of eating... time for dinner!!!
Love, Nicole
Oh I almost forgot... I'm not sure if I wrote about the fingernail I smashed in AR pulling a tree... well let's just say the nail is no longer there... pretty gross :-)
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Back in Denver
So, I made it back to Denver safe and sound and have finally done laundry and gotten all unpacked just in time to turn around and repack for Texas. I look forward to being able to write another blog about my amazing first project but don't have the time right now. This week back has been full of debriefing and now briefing for our next project. Water three will be traveling to Orange Texas to do hurricane relief from hurricane Ike. We are living in a church gymnasium with about 40 other volunteers. From what we understand our team will have the stage with the girls one side and the fellas on the other. We are all very excited to have Internet and cell phone service at our fingertips. We are also planning weekend trips to Mardi Gras and a couple other things throughout Louisiana since we are about 20 minutes from the states border. It's looking like it is about in the 60's down there and will only get warmer which is fantastic weather to be in. We will be going through a week long, or so, training of everything there is to know about building a house. Everything from foundation, to flooring, to roofing and cupboards. It is going to be awesome to know it all.
It's been really nice being back in the dorm reunited with my team, along with all of the other teams. This week has flown by!! It started with hearing some movement up by my candy stash in my room by my desk but I thought it was just some bags shifting. Then, I wasn't sleeping well and actually woke up Wednesday morning to the sound of a mouse eating my chips... I remember the sound from all of my sister's animals chewing. It was sooo gross. I hit up there and it stopped, but before I knew it the eating had started again. I got really freaked out so I grabbed my book and watched the local EARLY morning news in the lounge. I didn't want to wake my roommate so I told her around when normal people were getting up and we proceeded to get rid of most of my food... which is probably a good thing for me anyways!! I have yet to see the little guy whom my roommate named "Charlie" but she saw him last night, but thinks he left. Surprisingly I was able to sleep fairly well knowing he could be wandering around our room. Besides that yesterday was pretty awesome because my buddy Paul and I went to the Avalanche game which was A TON of fun. They lost but it was still a blast.
Today and tomorrow will be filled with packing, cleaning and getting ready to head on the road Saturday morning. It is going to take us three travel days to get to Orange, Texas. So we are planning on staying in two hotels in TX and then arriving at about 5 pm on Monday. With work starting on Tuesday. This round will be different for our team in the sense that we all worked side by side all last round in the park. We will now be split up on to different houses so we won't be around each other all day, only those we are partnered with. We are a very close nit family so it will be strange not knowing what we are doing day to day. Our team still plans on eating all of our dinners together and I can't wait to do all sorts of team activities with them. All in all it was a busy couple of weeks at home and I was so thankful I got to see everyone I did. I am very excited for this next project and can't wait to keep everyone updated via this wonderful blog :-)
Love,
Nicole
It's been really nice being back in the dorm reunited with my team, along with all of the other teams. This week has flown by!! It started with hearing some movement up by my candy stash in my room by my desk but I thought it was just some bags shifting. Then, I wasn't sleeping well and actually woke up Wednesday morning to the sound of a mouse eating my chips... I remember the sound from all of my sister's animals chewing. It was sooo gross. I hit up there and it stopped, but before I knew it the eating had started again. I got really freaked out so I grabbed my book and watched the local EARLY morning news in the lounge. I didn't want to wake my roommate so I told her around when normal people were getting up and we proceeded to get rid of most of my food... which is probably a good thing for me anyways!! I have yet to see the little guy whom my roommate named "Charlie" but she saw him last night, but thinks he left. Surprisingly I was able to sleep fairly well knowing he could be wandering around our room. Besides that yesterday was pretty awesome because my buddy Paul and I went to the Avalanche game which was A TON of fun. They lost but it was still a blast.
Today and tomorrow will be filled with packing, cleaning and getting ready to head on the road Saturday morning. It is going to take us three travel days to get to Orange, Texas. So we are planning on staying in two hotels in TX and then arriving at about 5 pm on Monday. With work starting on Tuesday. This round will be different for our team in the sense that we all worked side by side all last round in the park. We will now be split up on to different houses so we won't be around each other all day, only those we are partnered with. We are a very close nit family so it will be strange not knowing what we are doing day to day. Our team still plans on eating all of our dinners together and I can't wait to do all sorts of team activities with them. All in all it was a busy couple of weeks at home and I was so thankful I got to see everyone I did. I am very excited for this next project and can't wait to keep everyone updated via this wonderful blog :-)
Love,
Nicole
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