After our kick ball game with Sun 7, the team we will be with in Pascagoula

At the top of the bell tower

WINTER PARK adventure Sunday

Julie, Jessica, Me, Arielle, Andrea, Julia, Patrice (second row)

Ben (TL), Andy, Jeremy, Jeremy (Jers)

Teams Assigned: Water 4

After much anticipation, we were finally given our teams and leaders last Friday. Of course, we were all antsy and going crazy because we didn’t find out until the end of our regularly scheduled day. We all individually had to go through a scavenger hunt around campus and find clues labeled with our name. We were all excited and nervous about it since a lot of us have become such good friends within the last few weeks. I was the first to find my team leader; the last clue led me to where we will be graduating, which is in the auditorium next to the library. My team leader is actually Ben, who I had for our first temporary team during the first week of CTI. For our first round I will be going to Pascagoula, Mississippi to refurbish houses that have hopefully already been started. We are working with 100 homes in 100 days and will be finishing between 8-10 houses. It is not definite, but we will probably be heading to New Orleans after we finish this project to start a new one that hasn’t even been announced yet; here we will be leading various volunteers with 3 or 4 other Americorps teams (2 or 3 Perry Point teams as well). Sun 7 (Denver) is also traveling and working with us in Pascagoula and New Orleans. Since you will probably hear a lot about my teammates within the next 10 months, I am just going to go ahead and tell you their names. We have two Jeremy’s, Julie, Julia, Jessica, Arielle, Andrea, Andy, and Patrice. The teams were divided pretty equally between age, education, ethnicity, and who’s able to drive. So you can better believe Friday night was quite exciting and we all went out to celebrate. Oh, and my roomie gets to go to Key West!

Saturday my team and I left at 8:00 a.m. and hiked to the Three Sister’s which is just about 10 minutes passed Red Rocks. The Three Sister’s are three big rocks. We hiked all the way to the top, and the out look was beautiful. The journey was quite funny because we all kept slipping on ice. Andrea cut her hand on a fall, but I can already tell that she is tough and a good sport, which is exactly what we need. Afterwards we stopped in Golden to have lunch at a pizza/salad buffet. The rest of my Saturday consisted of a nap and relaxation because I was resting for my great adventure come Sunday.

Sunday I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and drove to Winter Park (a ski resort) with 8 other people for ISP (Independent Service Project) hours. I’m glad we took two cars and not the van because it would have been nerve-racking driving up that mountain. The sunrise was gorgeous with pink and orange clouds everywhere as we approached the Rockies. We were trained how to work with disabled people who want to ski. This included learning how to strap in the person properly in the sit down skis as well as lifting them onto the ski lifts. Since I have only been skiing once in my life, I did not volunteer in the afternoon after training because I wasn’t really confident in my skiing skills yet. Two of us volunteered while the rest of us skied. Since we were “volunteers” we got the gear and ticket for free. Pretty sweet day, I’m not going to lie. I was really proud of myself. I didn’t have much trouble skiing, and had good control. All I can say was the day was amazing and I only fell once and even did one of the Blue Diamond trails (Intermediate). We were all pretty goofy on the way home since we had been up for 12 hours already, but overall it was one of the best days I’ve had here. I hope I get the chance to actually work and ski with a person with disabilities before I leave for spike. We stopped and ate at a restaurant on the way back. I got steak, yumm!

I can’t believe we leave in a week already for our first project!

Saws, Steel Toed Boots, and Drillin' in Nails

Yesterday we were stuck in the auditorium all day learning about the Red Cross and they're disaster relief program. A little boring, but our PT yesterday was ultimate Frisbee, which my team dominated. However, today was awesome! We learned how to use circular hand saws and built book shelves today with our temporary team (WATER 6) They will be later donated to the "House of Hope." I forget what that is because I was unable to visit it during isolation week (while I was sick). I was the first in the group to saw the first shelving notch (I think that's what it's called) and ate a lot of saw dust, but I felt pretty cool for finally getting some hands-on work experience rather than being stuck in a classroom all day. The measuring was probably the most frustrating because after cutting with the saw, they weren't completely accurate, but in the end, surprisingly, all four shelves ended up being perfectly level! We worked from 8-12a.m., broke for lunch, and then continued from 1:30 to 3:30p.m. We were the last group to finish, but ended up getting second place out of the other 6 teams. On the back of the shelf we signed our names and made hand prints in paint. Our team leader, Nick, asked us to designate a leader during the whole project (or the foreman), so this one guy, Jeremy, who just graduated from high school, took the lead and did a really good job. Everyone participated, had fun, and worked well together. I hope my final team works as well as we all did today. For PT today we played kick ball! So funny, part of me feels like I'm back in middle school sometimes with all the games we play, but everyone has such a good attitude about things, that nothing we do is ever really a drag. It was kind of chilly today so I didn't try running again in the mile-high city, but I found some field hockey sticks in the back closet and hit around a bit with a plastic ball. It was about the same size of a regular ball, just a whole lot lighter, which was probably for the best because I think I might have broken some windows on the side of our dorm. So far everything is great. The shower's aren't as blasted freezing as they were the first week. I am only bummed about my huge blister I have on one of my ankles from attempting to look decent one weekend by not wearing sweats and gym shoes and wearing flats. I am having trouble trying to upload pictures on here using the internet we have in the library, but I am able to load some on facebook for those who have that.

Gelazzi and Sting Rays

Hey everyone! So I'm finally out of "isolation." I am currently downtown Denver sitting in a Gelato restaurant, hense the title "Gelazzi" eating some fine hazelnut and pistaccio gelato. Today a bunch of us went to the Aquarium and I fed a sting ray! All the fish were pretty cool as usual, but feeding the sting ray was quite amusing...Everyone was allowed to pet the sting rays and/or feed them fish and I was a bit freaked out at first, but glad I did it. As for training, I think this week is Red Cross/CPR and then we find out our permanent teams and first spike destination on Friday!!

The Plague

The Team leaders brought us food all week long since we weren't allowed to leave our dorms

One week of training finished already! This past weekend I had the chance to tour around downtown Denver, mostly on 16th street. I even got to see a friend from camp, Meahgan Wooldridge, and a friend from home, Caitlin Weller. We had our driving tests on Saturday, visited the Columbine Memorial, and visited Red Rocks. I hope I can catch a concert there at some point. Things are kind of shaky right now, especially in my unit, because everyone is sick with the flu. Unfortunately, I have the flu and bronchitis, but I feel a whole lot better than I did yesterday. All of us that are sick probably wont be able to work or train for the next five days. :(

Week one!

After a sleepless night from my travels back from Wooster and many hours spent on a plane, I am finally here! Day five of living in the little campus of Teikyo Loretto Heights University in Denver. There are close to 300 of us members in this region and living in one big dorm. Our region also includes 36 team leaders and four unit leaders. Everyone living on my hall is in my unit, Water. The other three are fire, sun, and earth. So far we have been going through in-processing, which really just includes paperwork and class-like lectures; got our uniforms and steel-toed boots, and I actually had a chance to walk around campus and take some great pictures of the Rockies! We are being put on temporary teams until our final teams are chosen on Feb. 22. My roommates' name is Gina and she is from Boston who recently graduated from college too. I've met five other people here who live outside of Chicago, and three are actually in my unit. I even played probably the biggest catch phrase game ever on the first night with at least 20 people. A couple nights a bunch of us went to 4G's Mexican Restaurant, which is no longer than a five minute walk from our dorm. Tomorrow we have our driving test with the vans for those of us who choose to drive, and yes since I was a pro at driving the mini-bus this summer, I will be taking part of that. Today we were put with our second temporary team and had a chance to venture downtown and walk around on 16th street. I am assuming all of us will be checking the night life out tomorrow night once we are finished with training! All the people I have met have been very outgoing and just so excited to start spiking out and working! I know for a fact that one of our projects will be in the Gulf Coast. We do get two one week breaks during our 10-month commitment, but it is due to change if we are called in for disaster relief. Hope everyone is enjoying they're time back home! Miss you all!

Our Admissions building
Third day! Some of us from the Water unit built a snowman on our lunch break
The Rockies!