An update soon I promise...been a little...let's say lazy lately. It feels weird not to be working all the time. Do people still even read this? Thank you to all that have! I appreciate all your support through my travels and experiences this past year!

Alex, Tony, Claire, Amanda (CTC Staff)
My team and the completed 80 ft. bridge

The Plaque with our team mentioned on it (above Jelly's head and to the right of Jay)
The bridge


We went rollerskating as a team and out to a tapas dinner for our team dinner as well as Ben's 26 birthday. What a fun night. Well so much has happened since I last blog. I graduated from NCCC on the 19th! Yaay, I've been home in Chicago since the 20th and now the flash of finding a job and REAL world is haunting over me every minute. Not too happy about the whole economic situation obviously, knowing that it's going to take a while to find a job with benefits is real discouraging, but let's focus on the positive. The last few weeks of my AmeriCorps experience was amazing. I can't tell you how much I am happy I did this, it has changed me forever. My team truly lucked out with amazing projects! I really think we were the most lucky team out of our whole unit. Building the bridge was awesome. The last two days were the hardest physically considering we had to pull all the scaffolding and everything back up the gorge with the zip lines. My arms felt like jello, but we did it the day before my team had to leave to drive back to Denver! Our sponsor Tony took us all out for a nice dinner that night. I really miss Alex and Claire the most. They were so much fun, and if I could go back and work there I would. We'll see what my options will be in the future. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, as are the holidays. I could write forever, but for now I will make this brief. Thanks to all who have made this last year phenomenal for me!

Let's get SPOOKY!

Visit to Wooster homecoming, then back to TN and the start of building the bridge

Wooster marching band during the homecoming game
Minton and I in our old cage on our hockey field

Minton, Lammy and I


The creek where we are building the bridge in TN

Scaffolding
Jerry taking a nap..what looks like a dead man in the leaves


Rock step building crew
Steps we built and set

Getting interviewed by the Red Cross reporters
Jelly and I
What it looks like inside an ERV
The window I served many many clam-shells of ERV food out of
A fallen tree in the neighborhood I served, West Orange, TX

Back in TN

We are back in Chattanooga for the next month. For the past week and 1/2 I have been working on an ERV every day, lunch and dinner. I'm not sure if I already said that before. You could tell after awhile that my team was getting quite tired, so we're all looking forward to being back. Now I can actually enjoy my Halloween and the fall leaves! A lot of other teams were assigned for a second term on disaster. I didn't care what we ended up doing, but now that it's been 23 days since we first went down there, I'm happy to be back in TN! This weekend we have Columbus day off so Jelly, Jerry and I are renting a car and taking a road trip back to New Orleans. I will be visiting Kat and Ryan again as well as some of my other friends on different teams. Also have tickets for Citizen Cope on Sunday, ya, I can't wait for my mini-vacay! Until then...

Bridge City, Tx

I only am showing these on my blog for the purpose of giving you all knowledge of what it looks like down here. We all know the news doesn't show the full truth ever on disasters like this. We felt guilty riding around Bridge City taking pictures because these are obviously people's homes and all that they have. The pictures were taken from inside our van, and only when people were not present. This is pretty much what it looks like in Orange as well, except contractors are beginning to pick of the trash put out on peoples' front lawns. Everyone's house where I have been serving on my ERV in West Orange is being mucked. No "whole" houses have been knocked down as I saw here in these Bridge City neighborhoods, all the walls are standing, but anything the water touched, has to be removed from the house.
Signs like this are in front of almost every house




These two are the worse I have seen


Now although many people have power and are back in their house, 80% of the people we are feeding are capable of getting food themselves or cooking it themselves, but they are still working all day long mucking and cleaning their homes. So after a long day of work, a hot meal from the Red Cross ERV is much appreciated. I cannot count the number of times I've been thanked. It is really something to see. I can't even really explain it in words. I wish I could show you the people I'm serving.

Moving to Orange, TX still on disaster

I want to say thank you to everyone who has been reading my blog and keeping updated on my crazy adventures! We are leaving the Baptist church today in Beaumont and heading to another Baptist church in Orange, TX this morning. The man in charge still has not returned Ben's phone calls so I really have no idea what it will be like there, but I know for a fact that it is another kitchen. We will only be about 20 or 30 minutes away form Beaumont.

For fun last night we went bowling and I kind of got to watch the Bears game..not really, but they beat Philly! Go White Sox and Cubs!

Once we got back to the church there were all these little scooter thing for about an hour until I got a horrible headache. After I slept for about 1 hr 1/2, Jelly woke me up and 1 am to pull our prank we've been so carefully planning for the last 2 weeks...see we found this bear/chipmunk...costume..who knows..all I know it it was pretty funny looking. Jelly put it on and we were planning on scaring the crap out of Ben, snuck in the room, turned the lights on, then Jelly proceeded to do this rawwing dance at Ben and everyone in the room. Andrea woke up and started laughing, Ben rolled over thinking it was just a weird dream, and Jerry started saying "What the....get that out of here..." all baffled disoriented, thinking that he had some kind of bad dream this morning...it was quite funny because I was the one video taping it on my camera, trying to keep myself from laughing in the corner....oh gotta love our crazy team.

click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo_XmFI586M

Jerry was on the aviation news during our Habitat project a long time ago, I didn't realize this until just now. Check out the link. Our house supervisor Aaron Fruman is in it as well.

Today was quite a day. Red Cross and the Baptists did something very nice for us today, they recognized each one of us during their morning meeting and we received pins. Reporters from the Red Cross also came, took our pictures, and interviewed us for the local news. Julia, Jess, and Andrea were then taken to the studio and were on Texas's local news channel 4 KBTV!

Puppies.....and more

Chocolate female lab!
7 day old puppy dachsunds, NO JOKE! Three out of the four of them, they're eyes weren't even open, I held them today.
Puppies with their mama dachshund
Another lab puppy!
Male puppies

Cute girl puppy!
Three boy lab puppies out of a litter of six


Fuzzy!

Arni, me, Jelly, Ben's nasty hair he never washes, and Jay..Arni wasn't really ready for this photo, but he is our favorite (younger) Baptist here that runs the yard (where all the trucks and pallets are)
Getting more snacks out of the trucks
The ERVs
The animal shelter!!! Three of many Dachsunds

Jerry at the Red Cross headquarters
Map of the disaster sites
Driving to Beaumont
We have so many pallets of stuff

Headquarters
Driving down to Beaumont, some of the devastation we saw on the way to the Baptist church

Our room in the Baptist church, yes we get our own room as a team...it did not stay clean for long
The outdoor kitchen where we cook all the food that gets sent out on the ERVs