Unemployed and Homeless

Another week, another adventure! This week has been relaxing, exciting, and pretty much planned by the seat of our pants. :)

No Program
On Monday I was at upper camp in the dinning with some of the girls using the internet because there still wasn't power for our housing. Upper camp was being run on a generator so that was okay. While we were there we got a phone call telling us that program was cancelled for the week. This was exciting for us and a smart decision for the the admin. We were all happy and started to think of what we were going to do with our week, relax, see if work would pay us to do projects...etc.
No Water
Then a little while later we got another phone call telling us that the forest rangers have advised us to evacuate the mountain, the water is now contaminated. What?! As we found out later one of the filter systems runs on electricity and so it has not been working and therefore the water is contaminated. hmmm....now it gets interesting. I had texted my mom with both messages right after we had gotten each call and now she was starting to get concerned.
Getting Out
The few of us that were in the dinning hall went back down to lower camp (where I live) and started to figure out how people were going to get off the mountain and where they were going to go. The first thing that needed to be done is we needed to start digging out peoples cars so they could actually leave. This was quite a challenge with the cars being burried under four feet of snow. :) It was a struggle for some and a very funny sight to see people start to dig in snow was at even level with their windshield. :) After about 2.5 hours of shoveling with many helping hands we were able to get out the cars that were needed and put on some snow chains. Now where too? :)
As we were shoveling we made many plans. We thought of San Fransisco, Texas, Minnesota, Utah, Arizona, Mexico, Los Vegas... the list was long. We just figured that since we had the week off we might as well do something cool with it! We couldn't make a decision quick enough so we just packed a little bit of everything and went to figure it out at Kelly's house in Huntington Beach. That was a great decision because Kelly has a hot tub. So to unwind from a heck tick week and a crazy day we had maragritas in the hot tub and planned the rest of the week.
We decided that we were going to go to Surprise, Arizona (just west of Phoniex) to stay with my friend Alan's parents. They live in a retirement community and Alan said it would just make their day if we came to visit. :)
Arizona it is!
After about 7 hours of driving we pulled in to Alan's place. It was later in the evening, but his parents had waited to have dinner with us when we got there. Every meal they made for us was great! I think they really like to cook and cooking for nine instead of two is more fun. :) That night we have Chinese noodles and then it was hamburgers on the grill (sorry to make you Minnesotans jealous) and then porkchops. They made sure we ate well all week!
Our typical day Arizona went like this, Kelly would wake up to sit on their patio to bird at about 8:30 in the morning. Then I would join her shortly after to read. Then Alan's parents would get up to start breakfast and would have coffee for us soon. Then most of the others would get up and come out to the patio to relax in the morning sun until breakfast. Then Brittani would wake up just before we were going to eat. Our mornings on the patio were my favorite part. It was so relaxing and enjoyable and his parents spoiled us with their hospitality. :)
Then we would find something to do with ourselves for the day. (Which I'll get to in a minute.) Once we got down with our day we would come back and have a wonderful dinner with Alan's parents. We would usually sit around and talk for a long while after dinner. Then we usually would put in a movie and fall asleep to wake up to the Arizona sunshine again the next morning.
Arizona Hiking
During the day we did a variety of things. The first day we went hiking in the White Tanks. It was about a seven mile hike through the mountains to some fresh water near the canons. It was great! Everything was so lush thanks to all the rain the week before. We all had a great time and it was so nice to be outside and not have to be layered in winter gear. :)
Frisbee!
The next day we went to find a field to run around and play frisbee. It was so much fun! Alan, Drew and I knew how to play so we spread ourselves out and taught the others. It was really fun to be playing again!
Me on TV
Just before we were going to quit a guy came up to us. He asked if we wouldn't mind coming and playing in the background of his shot. He was shooting a scene for a new tv show that is on the WE network called Sunshine Days. It will air some sometime in April. The shot was two old men talking on a park bench and the wanted some active people in the background. It was pretty funny and we werent' really sure what were supposed to do. So if you happen to be watching the WE network and see a girl playing frisbee in the background that's probably me. :)
Swimming
After getting all worked up from frisbee we decided to go to Alan's parents' work out facility. When got there we were probably the youngest group by about 20 years. :) Some people wanted to use the machines, others wanted to hit the pool. I wanted to do a few laps and then relax in the hot tub for a while. It was a great day spent doing all things I like to do, frisbee and swimming. :)
Back to Work we go... :(
We left Arizona yesterday and are now back in Huntington Beach. We had a great dinner with Kelly's family and today the plan is to go to church, run some arrons, and go see Avenue Q. Kelly's family is going to go and so a few of us decided to stay later and see it with them. It should be fun and the it's back up the mountain.

The status with work is that we do have program next week. They are working on the power and the water but until those are fixed we will be running on generators with propaine and drinking bottled water. (Yes, we are an environmental school :) ) Looks like it'll be another interesting week ahead. I'll let you know how things go and I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I can load them. That's all for now! Talk to you soon! Miss you lots! Love you all!