Green Gear

This is a post for mom. She requested to see a picture of some of my kids dressed in our green gear. These are some of the same pictures from our crazy snow week but these ones you can click on and it will get bigger for you to see them better. The gear is so big on them. It really funny. I need to start bringing my camera out with me again I'm definitely slaking on my pictures.

Here is Matt and his class with their giant snow ball. :)

Long Overdue Update

It’s been a while since my last post so I figure it’s about time to do a little catching up. I'm sorry that I haven't been so regular lately as I was in the start. The past few weeks have been crazy busy with juggling work and my normal life. Ha! Sometimes I really can't tell the two apart. :) Here are some of the high lights from the past few weeks. Read the topics and if they interest you read on. Enjoy!

New Jack climbing

The cook at our site, Wayne, organizes a weekend every year called, “Climb and Vine.” We went to this place down the mountain called New Jack. There wasn’t snow but is was cool and quite windy. I was excited to finally use my climbing shoes that I bought from the 'damaged and dent' sale at REI. I drove down with Wayne, Emma, and my roommate Jessica. Jessica and I really just wanted to go camping. She wanted to try out her new tent and I wanted to use my new stove. But it didn't turn out to be the kind of camping we were thinking of.

When we got there we got there we set up camp and then hit the rock. Jessica did the longest climb there. It wasn't to hard but it challenged your endurance. She did great! I went up one run that was about a 9.8. It was really hard at the top when your hands can't move or hold onto anything because they are so cold and tired.

This is a photo of me mid-climb. It was really fun but SO cold! Some people passing by made a comment to my friend about my hands. They said, "She's got some crazy gloves!" I actually wasn't wearing any gloves at all. It's just that my hands turn funny colors when I'm cold and so apparently my hands where so red that it looked like I was wearing gloves. You can click on the picture below and see it for yourself.

After we were done climbing we went back to start dinner only to find that Jessica and my tent had blown over! Oops! We put in the stakes but I guess that wasn't enough. Jessica's poor tents maiden voyage did not fair so well because the wind actually put some holes in her tent. :( It was still funny and so then when Jessica and I set up our tent for the second time we choose a better location and came up with the idea of putting rocks inside of our tent to keep it on the ground, which actually worked! :)

So besides the wind and the cold it was a fun weekend to hangout with some different people and to get off the mountain for a while.

Working at Edwards

The week before last I got sent over to our other site, Edwards, to work. I had a cabin shift that challenged me like it hasn't before. Going over to the other site is always difficult because they do somethings a little differently than we do at Nawakwa but these 15 girls presented some different challenges. At the beginning of the week I had to deal with the contagious homesickness but we got them laughing by playing some games. They really liked to talk about boys and so when they asked about John, they wanted to know everything. They wanted to know if he was cute (yes), his eye color (blue), and what he did for a living (works for health insurance, which they translated to that he was a doctor!).

The trouble started mid-week when the girl drama started. The girls started to form clicks when we waited for the bathrooms. They would stand around whispering to each other. The girls would gossips and talk about boys and relationships. It didn't really know how to deal with this since when I was growing up I tried to avoid all of that kind of stuff. I knew that the tension in cabin was high and so I sought out some advice. As a cabin we ended up having a talk about gossiping and decided to put an end to it. This helped and was just a preview to what is a head as these 6th graders are now becoming 7th graders when the drama gets worse. Yikes! :) Oh drama...drama...drama

Huntington Beach

After a crazy week all just wanted to get out of the snow and relax so we went down to Kelly's house at Huntington beach. It was really nice! I got my taxes done! woohoo! I'm such a big girl! :) And I also went for a run! Two in fact! On Sunday we went out to the beach which was so nice! The water was cold but it was just so beautiful! A bunch of us went for a run to the pier on the beach. It felt so nice but hurt my arches a little bit.

Time and a half

This past week was another one of those weeks that is just so crazy that you can hardly tell one day from the other! I was working a time and a half plus covering for my friend Kelly on Monday. I only really had Tuesday off for my phone interview with Wood Lake Nature Center. Otherwise I was working around the clock. To add to it all I taught line dancing and had a total of 17 girls in my cabin. It was crazy!

The school I was with was a privileged high maintenance fifth graders. It was amazing to see the difference between 5th and 6th grade! The first couple nights I had about 5 girls who were homesick which seemed to spread like wild fire. I had one girl who cried every night! I had another student who I was warned had some social issues and was a little demanding. Her name was Delaney and she really only gave me trouble the first day. She cried the whole time carrying her luggage until after lunch when she magically got better and had no problems. Then she threw another fit when I tried to get her wear green gear pants. hmm...I thought, my week is off to a great start! :) It actually wasn't so bad but was definitely hard.

We didn't have proper drinking water so we were boiling and bottling water all week and many of the staff was sick or on vacation. This made it a challenge for everyone to be covering shifts and make it to the end of the week. But now it is here! Yah!

3 Day Weekend!

This weekend we are just kid of rolling with the punches and really don't have many plans. Last night we got some money from our boss to go to dinner and a movie. It was a nice break after such a crazy week. We went to go see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. It was so crazy to go see a movie in theaters since I haven't seen one since Christmas. :) It was good and relaxing. We'll see what the rest of the weekend bring??? Maybe camping in Malibu? Who knows?

Other updates

I finally got to talk to my parents and found out about my mom's new job! Woohoo! She's going to work at a health center for seniors. It's all brand new and sounds really exciting.

My parents also told me that they've began working on the kitchen remodeling again. It sounds there are some big plans and of course mom wants to have more white! It's fun to hear the plans for the design and styles they are thinking of. Yeah new kitchen! :)

As I mentioned above I had an interview for an internship as a Naturalist at Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield. It would be a great position if I can get it. There was a little confusion with the position at the interview but I'm working on smoothing that out and hopefully the out come will be good. We'll see... there's still plenty of time...

That's all for now! I hope this was interesting and I didn't bore you with too many details. :) Thanks for reading! I miss you Minnesota! I hope you are all well! Thinking of you lots!

An update about work and the kids

It was another wintery week here at High Trails. Now it is the weekend and a chance for us to recuperate and regenerate for another busy week ahead. Next week I’m working time and a half plus taking a shift for my friend who needs the day off. So basically I’ll be working 24/7 except for Wednesday during the day. It’s going to be crazy but it’ll make my pay check that much heavier. :) Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.

This week was fun and easy. I was on single field and had a great group of kids. They loved being in the snow and so we came up with some pretty fun activities to give them a great snow experience. The first day I could tell that they were so antsy to play and explore all that white stuff so I gave them my snow talk and just let them play. I always tell my students some winter advice from my years of experience in the freezing tundra I call home. :) I tell them that they have to be careful of their hands and feet getting too cold. I tell them the warm places on their body (ex. arm pits) when their hands get cold. I also tell them some tips for making a great snow ball. It’s strange how these kids have no idea about snow. It’s fun to see them learn things as the week goes on. One of the best things is that since our snow is so deep out here some of the kids don’t realize that the have to walk lightly so they don’t fall through. Many of the kids at the beginning of the week just fall though so that they can have a good laugh and land in the snow. :)

We got to start out with adventure day (climbing, archery, orienteering, and adventure course) which they totally loved. They named our group the KFK which stood for Kentucky Fried Kids. :) It was pretty funny. Since we started out with the fun day I told them that we could do some snow play on the other environmental days. The first day we went to the designated sledding hill which was great but then the next day we had to top that so my friend Joe showed us this secret sledding hill he found which was huge! It was a hill that went down into the valley. We started at the top and then slid down. Joe went first to pave the way and then the kids got all excited. It was so steep and such a long run that it took some of the kids a good 20 mins just to get back up the hill. I had to help some of the ones that were really struggling. The kids convinced me to go too and it was crazy! Hills like that are hard to come by in Minnesota. We had a blast and I’m sure the kids won’t forget that fun!

I taught line dancing this week which I haven’t actually done for a while. It was very fun but also a little crazy. I taught two classes back to back. The first one was for the other school that I didn’t work with. I taught them the Macarena as a warm up and then when I was about to teach the second dance I found out that they already knew that one and the next one I was going to teach! What?! I didn’t know what to do. They were a performing arts school apparently and so the students were just good at everything! I looked at my friend Matt, who also teaches line dancing for some advice but he didn’t know what to do. There was another dance I sort of knew but hadn’t ever taught it so I wasn’t sure if I should do it. What ended up happening was that Matt, Jessica, Wayne, and I all ended up teaching this dance together. It was kind of a mess but we all just went with it and the kids had a great time. J We made sure to end it on a good note so we finished with the Cha Cha Slide. The kids loved it!

So as if that wasn’t enough for a surprise when I taught my second class I found myself in for another one. Joe had told his and Emma’s cabin to say “meow” every time I said the word dance. It was pretty funny when I was explaining everything in the beginning. For example, when I started telling them that, “we were going to be doing three dances tonight”. They all responded with “meow.” :) It was pretty funny and even though the evening wasn’t perfect it was definitely a great memorable night!

Well, that’s what’s new with me. This weekend is pretty uneventful. Today is Valentine’s Day and sadly I can’t be with my valentine but a bunch of us girls are going to be girly and eat chocolate tonight while watching The Notebook. Can’t get much better than that. Bring out the Kleenex! :) Thanks for always reading! Miss you!

Catalina Pictures

The Ferry Ride

This is John and I on the boat with Catalina in the background.

This is the ferry's wake. Imagine water skiing behind that big thing!

This is when we pulled into the port and started to unload.

Welcome to Catalina!

We stayed in the town of Avalon. It was so cute! Here is a little picture tour of the town.

These are all of the sail boats docked at the harbor and the big casino building. This is the pretty main street that had cute shops and restaurants looking right out at the ocean.

Every house had cute beach like decor. This is John with his new mermaid girlfriend. She's so scandalous John she doesn't even have a shirt!

I took this photo for dad. There were such strange plants on the island. People didn't really have potted flowers instead they had these greens that looked so cute.

Everyone decorated with these beautiful tiles that I'm sitting by. The whole town was covered with them. Mom would have loved it!

This sign was just crazy and I had to point it out. :)

I'm not sure what kind of flower this is but it was everywhere! It looked so pretty with its colors but also very pointy.

This was just so funny and reminded me of Carolyn and Chris with, "Dumb dumb, me want gum gum!" hehe

John and I went into a couple shops and at this one we found some awesome sunglasses. What do you think?!

Early Sunrise

John and I thought it would really fun to get up super early to see the sunrise over the pacific. It was a very early morning but it was well worth it! Just look at the pictures.

This is us once the sun rose. Sleepy face!

This is the harbor before the sun came up.

I like this shot. I tried be photo stylist like mom. :)

Here comes the sun! do do do!

Kayaking around the Island

John and I went kayaking for a few hours before heading back to the main land. It was so much fun and a really great way to see the island. The water was such a crazy color and it was just neat to say that we were kayaking in the pacific ocean!!!

We got really close to seeing some sea birds. These are pelicans.

Here's me paddling telling John not to tip the boat!

John and I brought lunch with us and found a great spot to stop for a bite.

I like this picture too! :)

This is John paddling.

Our trip was fantastic! We had so much fun and got to do some great things! Please read a couple posts back for the full story. :) Miss you all!