Volunteering, picking up shifts, and GOAP Day

Volunteering

Last weekend a few of us went into Big Bear to volunteer at the San Bernardino Ranger Station to volunteer. I have been trying to volunteer since getting back from Christmas break. We need to do 4 hours of volunteering plus some other things in order to move up to level 3. It turned out to be a lot harder to do with our scheduling and not having a car.

Anyways I finally found a volunteer opportunity with the National Forest and thought it would be a great way to get involved and help out with the forest we work and play in everyday. It was so much fun! I went with Drew, MaryHelen, and Jessica.

Here's MH and Drew at work.

Starting in March they have a monthly volunteer day to help germinate and plant some native plants from the forest. I learned that many of the plants in the forest get destroyed not from the forest fires, which is actually good for the forest, but from the putting out the fires. The chemicals we use and the fighters going in there. The plants also die from all the trafficking of campers and hikers not staying on the trails.

There were about 20 volunteers in total. We were assigned to projects. There were two biologists in charge. They brought there children with them and as it turned out I ended up working with them and playing in the dirt. I was with about five little kids from 4-8 years old. It was so fun! At one point a little girl Maren asked me frankly, “do you go to church?” I said, “Yes”. And she replied, “Oh, well I don’t.” It was so cute. They were great to work with!

Our job was to fill these “bullets” with dirt so that we could later plant seeds in them. It was fun to see the little kids get so excited about plants and playing in the dirt. They were so helpful. I worked with a boy named David to get the bullets ready for the seeds. I told him his fingers would be perfect to make holes in the dirt for the seeds. He got all excited that my pinky was about the same size as his pointer finger. It was really cute! :)

Drew and MaryHelen worked on trans planting things such as sage brush and other native plants. I found Jessica weeding in the green house for a while and then she was pulling of seedlings off of branches collected from the forest in the fall.

Here's MH and Drew. SMile!

Volunteering felt so good and it was so cool to get involved in this process. The biologist actually said that the seeds we planted won’t actually be ready to go into the forest for about two years. Maybe I’ll have to come back then to plant them? Hmm? :)

Here's a picture of the green house. What do you think dad?

Picking up shifts

This week I was on single field but by the end of the week it turned into a time and a half because I had to pick up two cabin nights. Luckily I had got to work with two sets of great kids but it’s just a frustration of having a staff that gets sick on a rotating basis. :)

My field group this week was probably one of my favorites. We had so much fun hiking all over and now that the snow is starting to melt away we can go farther and go back to places we went to in the fall. My kids didn’t really care for the classes and the activities. What they really wanted to do was just hike around and have me point out cool things and ask me questions. Their favorite fact was a new one I learned at our in-service on Monday. I learned that mistletoe is a semi parasite and when it produces its berries, the berry explodes to spread its seed to another tree. Pretty cool huh? Its funny what kids think is neat. :)

Another thing that my group loved was pick up trash. Since the snow is melting and reveling all of the trash and things under the snow we came up with a friendly competition called “the cleanest forest competition. ” We have the cleanest cabin awarded each day and so we thought we could have the students on the look out for trash while their on the hikes. On Tuesday we hit a jack pot of trash in this ravine. There was rusted metal, broken plates and glass. It was really depressing and I think the students really got to see how sad it is when people are careless about their trash in such a beautiful place. My group ended up getting second place in the competition. It was pretty cool and they were really excited.

Get Out And Play

This Friday instead of having an in-service we had a “Get out and play day.” What this means is that we go play a game with all of the staff. We did this once in the fall before. This time we were going to play a giant game of capture the flag. We played 3 rounds and had mixed teams between the two sites. It was a lot of fun!

Here's us getting ready to start the game.

We went to a different part of the national forest that wasn’t on our property. The first round was like normal capture the flag but then for the second round they add all of these different elements. There were sashes and batons that gave you special powers if you could get them. It was a little confusing but made the game a little more interesting.

This is Jessica and Drew. The enemy... :)

I was playing offence and we found that traveling in packs was a good strategy. Running in the forest was harder than I expected. When you were running you really couldn’t look anywhere else but the at the path in front of you because you never knew when you would have to jump a log or run in the snow. It was crazy but so much fun! It was a great way to end the week. I’m glad I have a job that also knows how to have fun sometimes. :)

Here are the tough girls! Jessica, Me, Ange, and Brittani.

Well that’s it! I’m finally up to date! Next week is our last week before spring break. Woohoo! It’s going to be crazy because we have almost 200 kids coming. Craziness! I’ll just be glad when it’s over. :) I’m on cabins and I’m guessing I’ll be sleeping with at least 17 or more girls. Mmm…great. I’ll make the best of it! I’ll just have to keep thinking about Saturday. I leave to meet John in San Francisco on Saturday. I’m so excited! It’s going to be so much fun! Start looking forward to that post. It’s going to be a long one. :) I miss you all! Thanks for reading!

Spring has finally sprung and the snow is starting to melt away. We are discovering old paths and now we don't have to walk through 4 ft of snow anymore! :) Here is my cabin. MaryHelen hung up her hammock again. It's great!

Also here's a picture Jessica took to prove that we are working out. I've recruited a bunch of Jillian work out buddies. It's been fun!

Cookie and Fudge

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to be what we call “Fudge”. It’s a rotating position that is basically the kitchen assistant. Fudge’s main job is to do all of the dishes after each meal. Sounds like the perfect position for me right? :) It was a very fun week and the best part was that I got to work with my roommate Jessica all the time! Our normal cook went to Bolivia so Jessica got trained and took over. She does a great job!

This is a picture of Brittani as Fudge from last week but you can see where I spent most of my time washing dish after dish. :)

Being Fudge was very tiring and A LOT of work. Monday and Tuesday I was so exhausted until my body could catch up with me. Working in the kitchen means you put in long hours. Everyday I was up by 5:00am to help start breakfast and got about 3 hours off in the middle of the day and then stayed at night until about 9:00pm. Ooofta! I was tuckered out by the end of the day!

Still the week was SO much fun and Jessica and I cranked out some great food! She and I planned most things together and then while she concentrated on the kid food I worked on cooking the staff food. Jessica let me have a lot of freedom to try some recipes. It was fun! Here was our menu:

Monday: Peanut Stir Fry- Erika’s recipe

I’ve made this plenty of times for myself, roommates, and family but I have never made it for 30 people before! Yikes! I just kind of went for it and people liked it! :) Success! I survived my first day!

Tuesday: Jamacan style Veggie Turnovers

This was a recipe I had never tried before and I really wasn’t sure how it would go. I mixed the filling and the spices were really strong. It made me nervous that it would be too much for people. I added a little mozzarella to tone it down and they actually turned out to be a huge hit. People loved them! Even one of the teachers ask me for the recipe. :)

Wednesday: St. Patrick’s Day

Cookie and Fudge! :)

Breakfast = green eggs and ham, shamrock biscuits with green gravy

Dinner = orzo with zucchini, garlic and red pepper, leprechaun legs (fried green beans), Irish bread, veggie's with the Brown's dill dip

Jessica and I went all out for St. Patrick’s day. We wore all green to match and paint shamrocks on our faces. We made totally green meals for the staff and even ventured with green gravy at night for the kids. :) Everyone loved it! It was so fun!

This is me making banana bread which tasted great but fell and looked funny. opps!

Thursday: Pizza night- labels genius! Zucchini cup cakes yum!

Thursday is always pizza night and so Jessica and I just had fun with the toppings to make it a must-go pizza night. We tried to use up things in the fridge and turn them into toppings. We came up with a BBQ turkey pizza to use up the turkey and then a Jamaican pizza to use up the extra filling. It was so fun!

It was also my genius idea to actually put labels out next to the pizza so that when they come up they don’t have to continually ask which is which. So simple but yet so smart. :) For desert we usually make desert pizza for staff but instead I asked if I could make my zucchini cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. Everyone loved them! :) When Jessica told me that she was ordering zucchini because they were in season and on sale I got excited. I have so many recipes for zucchini! Last year Terry grew a zucchini that was so big that John and I were able to make two loafs of zucchini bread, zucchini brownies, AND zucchini cupcakes all from the same zucchini. It was crazy. Anyways, the cupcakes were a huge hit and another teacher asked me for that recipe too! :)

Friday: Jessica and I didn’t do anything too fancy for breakfast. Our goal was to get as much packed up and ready to go as we could so we could get out of there as soon as the busses were loaded. We did a pretty good job. We all got out of there the earliest we ever have before. It was so great!

Being Fudge was a lot of work but it was a great break from the field and cabins and it was so much fun to do some cooking and be with Jessica. :) Hopefully I’ll get to do it again sometime before the end of the year!

Camping in Malibu

Two weekends ago a few of us decided we needed to go find some sunshine for the weekend. We were tired of the snow and needed a break, so we went to the coast! It was an awesome weekend! We left Friday night and pulled into the camp ground at about 10pm. It’s not the best to set up camp in the dark but it was fun to wake up the next morning to discover the site that you couldn’t see before. It was also nice to have a full day to play on Saturday.

Everyone woke up when they wanted to and relaxed for a little while. I was the first one up in my tent and decided to go check out the waves. I walked down to the beach which was just across the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). The walk reminded me of Cannes, France when we just had to walk on this under pass and then poof there was the beach! It was so beautiful to watch the sun get higher with the morning and to watch the waves role in. I sat there and read for a good while and then I walked back to see if anyone else was up.

Here is the beach. Gorgeous right?

Everyone was awake when I got back so we all had breakfast and made a plan for the day. The camp ground we were at was full for Saturday night so we had to find a new place for sure. Our plan was to hangout around here at the beach until we had check out and then drive up the PCH and to find this other camp ground that Aaron knew about.

This plan was great. We tossed a Frisbee for a while in the sand and then everyone did their own thing for a little while. Aaron went surfing (burr!), the girls went for a walk, and the boys kept playing Frisbee. I walked along the beach and caught up on some phone calls. Once it was time to check out we loaded up the cars and headed out.

This is my roommate MaryHelen and my friend Chelsea.

If you have never driven on the PCH you should make it a goal to do some time. It is spectacular. It’s kind of like taking the scenic route to the North Shore but instead of all of the forests and trees you continually have the Pacific Ocean at your side. J It was great! We didn’t actually make it up to the camp ground Aaron knew about but instead we pulled into another place which was just as great!

Here’s a picture of our site. The ocean was just on the other side of the trees. Can’t get better than that right?!

We set up camp and then went exploring. We found a path that led us down to ocean. It was rocky beach which was so fun to skip rocks and listen to the waves hit the rocks. My favorite part is when the waves pull back and make the trickling sound on the rocks. It was so nice to sit there and just take in the sights and the fact that I get to experience this. The rest of the weekend is just better told through pictures so enjoy!

This is Matt and I walking down the steps to the beach.

These were the huge rocks that were so fun to climb on and hear the waves crash in.

This is my roommate Jessica and I.

Roomates!

We all gave the skipping rocks a try. It was a challenge to hope the waves.

No words needed, beautiful!

The cliff was huge! Jessica and MaryHelen are sitting there on the rocks.

Before dinner we made sure to watch the sunset, beautiful!

I took this for mom. There were so many flowers in bloom on the coast it was great!

This is the group watching the sunset.

So it was a wonderful weekend and made us all happy and rejuvenated for the week! I love California! Woohoo for beach camping!

Whale Festival Weekend March 3-5

Time for an update again! I’ll start where I left off and narrate some of the pictures I’ve posted.
After the movie night paid for by our boss a few of us spent the night in Redlands. It was so nice not to have to drive back up so late at night. We kind of hung out in Redlands for the day and then started to make plans for Sunday. Lots of people have been going in and out of being sick so we wanted to keep it low key so we would be well enough to work on Tuesday. But no need to worry about me, I’ve been healthy and kick’n through it all thanks to my vitamins. (Thanks Grandma! :) )
On Sunday morning we woke up and got on the internet to search for something to do. We just wanted to get off the mountain and out of the snow for a while. We ended up finding this Whale Festival at Dana Point that was happening for two weekends to celebrate the migration of the gray whales along the coast. Although we didn’t actually see any whales we still had a fun time and learned a thing or two.
The drive down the mountain was so pretty! Here are a few photos from our short stop for a photo opp. It had snowed about 2 inches which blanketed the trees so beautifully.

This one is for Dad. Can you tell what kind of tree it is by its branch structure? Hmmm… Quiz time! I’m not the expert but I’m pretty sure it’s a Douglas Fir. Am I right?

When we got into Dana Point and found the festival we were a little disappointed. It appeared that there were just booths and kiddy rides on the side of the road. But we found out there were other event held around the town. So we walked around to find the most interesting ones. The walk was beautiful along the port. There were so many boats, you would have loved it Dad!
Our first stop was the sand sculpture competition. I haven’t been to our Aquatenia personally but have seen photos and I think these guys could learn a thing or two from the Minnesotans. :) Take a look at the pictures and you be the judge.

They added color by using jello powder which is cool for the effect but then were do you think that jello runs off into???

This is a pirate face from Pirates of the Caribbean.

This one is my personal favorite because they used the different colored sand to be artistic.

This is a picture of the pier. It was a beautiful walk along the water.

After that we went to the Oceanianic Institute . It was basically a marine life museum, kind of like underwater World but not as big. It was neat to learn about the animals that live here on the coast and get a better perspective of what some of our students grew up with. When they come up to the mountains it’s so much different for them in terms of plant and animal life.
In the museum we got touch some starfish and sting rays. We got to look at a ton of different fresh water fish and things.

Here’s Jana having fun in one of the interactive tanks. :)

Included in our museum ticket we were allowed to go on this ship. We had fun taking some silly pictures. Enjoy them :)

This is us in front of the ship. Alan, Jana, Ange, Kelly, Drew, and me.

We got the brilliant idea to see if Jana and Drew could fit inside of the trash can. Sure enough they fit! :) It was pretty funny!

This is Alan trying to be tough to turn the tiny wheel.

Jana got to ring the bell nice and loud on the hour. It was funny.

This is me directing and steering the ship. Anyone worried? :) Good thing it was lock in at the harbor otherwise we might be in trouble.

This is Ange sailing the ocean blue and discovering new lands! Okay, not quite but it's fun to pretend. :)

Or last stop was to go to check out the jetty. It was so pretty! The waves were so cool! I stood there and just soaked in the fact that only a few hours ago I was in the snowy mountains and now I’m here standing on rocks by the waves. What a cool state and I’m so lucky to experience it all!

This is my favorite picture and my new background to my computer. Every time I look at it I notice a new rock!

This is another pretty picture. The coast is so gorgeous!

There are more posts to come. I'm no where near up to date but in due time... blogs to come are about my weekend in Malibu and last week when I was Fudge with Jessica. I can't wait to post pictures and write about it. Now all I have to do is find the time. :) Miss you Minnesota!