Working hard....

My team and the hike we took in a local national park in Ocean's Springs.


News about our second round project, we will be in the GULF, which means we will be transitioning in the Gulf as well rather than driving all the way back to our Denver Campus. Also, as of now, we still do not know if we will be moving to New Orleans for the second half of the project...either way I like what I'm doing and where I am, so it doesn't matter. But I really would love to be closer to the city! This week was probably the hardest week for a lot of us. With lack of sleep, and drilling in screws for the last week, I've become pretty lethargic, but still pulling through. I think Andrea and I screwed in about 800 screws..or something. We will have this Sunday off and I am looking forward to that. I'm about to watch Into the Wild for the second time, but until then...Love to all! Thanks Mom and Dad for the mail I received today, a pleasant surprise! :)

Andrea
Julia driving the cargo van
Jess using the rotozip

Symposium Work Out Video (my team at our table)

"Your enthusiasm for life is inspiring, and your hip flexer stretches always let me know "It's going to be a good day!" -Julie Hay

Our next project/house

That was written by Julie, one of my teammates during our team building activity we had this evening. My face hurts from smiling and laughing so hard. Julia had the idea to pass the sheet of paper around with each of our names on it and to have everyone write one positive comment about their other teammates. I'm not kidding, it really helped, especially after a long day. We are always so busy and running from one thing to the next. This really enabled us to let loose and have some quality time together....because we all work so hard that by the end of the day, everyone just wants to eat, shower, do their computer stuff and head to bed....and or play table tennis....haha..Jer and Ari are playing right now and of course I have an itch to play, but I feel like I really need to blog this out before I forget it all. At the end of our positive comment activity, all of us read aloud one that we thought stood out or really liked. I felt especially touched when Ben, my TL read my comment toward him aloud....:) I LOVE MY TEAM! Anyways, I really don't mean to be obsessive about it, but it's honestly crazy that we live, eat, work, and socialize with each other every minute of the day and still manage to be sane. We also played another funny activity, where we each wrote in a short sentence something we wanted to do in our lives before we died. I wrote that I wanted to go sky diving. Each time we would fold it, and pass it to the next person.....and it would go from drawing to sentence to drawing..etc....So of course by the last sentence, the "dream" everyone had ended up being totally changed! I'm sure I sound like such a dork trying to explain this, but it really was quite humorous. Oh I also went out to our favorite little sushi restaurant with Julia right after work today and stuffed my belly! I can't get enough of it. Did I tell you I had sushi on Easter Sunday as well?

Back to the Project...Last week and yesterday, to make ourselves useful since there wasn't as much work to do in the house, a bunch of us went to a local school (or what used to be a school) and did some evasive species removal on all sides of the building. This included a ton of vine pulling, cutting, trimming, and moving huge meshes of leaves from one pile to the next. Basically busy work, but the yard in front of the school looks a whole lot better! I also started installing insulation into a new house that our team is working on yesterday and this morning. Needless to say, yesterday I did not wear gloves or goggles and totally didn't know that insulation is made out of fiber glass and got it all over me. My skin felt like little needles were inside it and it just was NOT comfortable at all, so by the end of the day I was a bit crabby, but this morning I totally rocked the insulation, cut and stapled the rest of the rooms that needed to be done with one other person and felt very accomplished. It didn't feel like it went through my clothing this time either, AND I haven't even showered yet and I feel fine! The rest of my day for our team included laying sheet rock/dry wall on all the boards in the house and screwing them in with a gun. I screwed in screws with a gun all day long, and felt pretty hard core about it. My hands are a little sore, but what's new. I feel like I've gained a ton of arm and shoulder muscle already and it's only been three weeks. The rest of the week is going to be pretty busy, we might not even get a day off this week because we are really aiming to get this house done so we can head on over to New Orleans, start a new project and have some decent work cut out for us. We are going to do some ISP this Saturday in Biloxi, work on the house Saturday afternoon, and hopefully just work the morning of Sunday and potentially get Sunday afternoon off! Craziness! I can't wait to rock this house with all of our hard work!! To everyone that I've talked to on the phone recently--it has been wonderful hearing your voices! I miss you all! Congrats to everyone who turned in their IS and I hope you had fabulous IS Mondays!!

The beginning of sheet rocking


Julia displaying her "A" gear


Me using the screw gun

Spring Break in a nut shell...

I've started to write in my blog a little less formal just because it's easier for me to get my words out....

SO......I have been in New Orleans for the past few days staying with family friends of mine, Kat and Ryan....newly weds as of last year. It truly has been one relaxing, but eventful weekends and Kat and Ryan have been TOO good to me, treating me out to all these fabulous restaurants, taking me around the city, and just being really good company. Ryan works about an hour from me in Mississippi and was so kind to come pick me up and abduct me for the weekend. We went out to a cute hole in the wall Italian restaurant the first night I was here, followed by a relaxing Friday and my first time trying OYSTERS! They were delish! I died and went to heaven, basically. Ryan and Kat had a bunch of their friends and kids come over for the fish fry...Ryan slaved away at the grill all night and made really good food..including about 8 pounds of potato salad and cole slaw..yuuuum. Okay, so I may be exaggerating a little bit about the amount. Saturday I went into the city and tried turtle soup, craw fish, and a meat pie! Again...delish. Turtle soup was especially amazing! I apologize for so much food ranting, but ya'll know how much I like food! And yes I'll be saying ya'll now...I mean I am in the South you know. Last night we also met up with a bunch of my other Americorps friends and had a night in town on Bourbon....'til about 6 a.m. Happy Easter to everyone by the way! Today Nate, Jen and I walked around the Quarter all day and got tons of beads from two small Easter parades that circled on Bourbon..followed by an amazing sushi Easter dinner with Kat, Ryan and their friends Stacey, Chris, and baby Keenedy...who is absolutely adorable! I'm quite sad to leave tomorrow, but I know I'll be back because.......

***Project news: We will be leaving for New Orleans around the first of April to start a new project the second half of our first round! Yaay! But it hasn't been spoken to the public yet..TOP SECRET!

To my family, I missed the cabbage today.....ok and of course you all! Many hugs and kisses and love you all! Mom and Dad, sorry it's snowing at home and in the 70's here, you'll just have to come visit soon!

New Orleans spring break...

Kat and Ella
Kat and Ryan's orange tree
Nate, Jen and I at the Easter Parade on Bourbon
Kat and Keenedy...so cute
Kat and Ryan's backyard
Oysters!

Cafe De Monde


I don't think I had enough beads

Ari, Julia and I at the Shed, best BBQ ever
Ben..my team leader..Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice
Our version of St. Patty's day the Saturday before, but my green shirt was dirty at the time....
J, Jess, Jen, Nate and I at the Shed.....Water unit reunion!
Johnny! Our construction/site managers

Jes and I
Ari, Jes and I
Flooring
Flashback....our first day together back in Denver at the Three Sisters
Steel Toes!
Jer and I on our first day of mudding
The house we worked on for the first week with half of Sun 7
We grew some guns by the end of the week....
Ocean Spring's beach

If you love what you do, you don't need anything to motivate you...

Southern Mississippi Facts

-there were 65,000 homes DESTROYED (completely gone)
-there were 78,000 homes rendered uninhabitable
-there are 10,000 families still living in FEMA trailers (were intended to be lived in for just two months, and people are still living in them today..they are not what you consider healthy)
-there are 7,000 families on waiting lists for case workers (someone who will listen when you ask "I need...")
-the suicide rate has gone up 400%
-the child abuse rate has gone up 400%
"Plus it's been 2 and 1/2 years and we are only about 20% done with restoration. Every year there are less and less volunteers, every year funding runs drier. I know I said this in an earlier post, but really just think for a moment all you could accomplish by coming down and volunteering for a week, or donating to the red cross, or buying a home depot gift card for a home owner down here. YOU could really make a difference in someone's life. " -juliawelch.blogspot.com

***The first week of work has almost passed already! Time flies by! I wake up and have breakfast at 6 a.m. everyday, are ready in the van by 7:15 and start working by 8. Our construction/site managers Johnny and Keith are awesome. Keith was the founder of Hope has a Face. We have mostly worked with Johnny so far by drywalling, sanding, and painting the inside of the house. Tomorrow all we have left to do is put the final paint touches on the house and begin the flooring. For our first house project Water 4 (us) and Sun 7 have been split up, so I have been working with the Sun 7 team leader, Caitlin, and five of her teammates as well as five of my own teammates. The days are long and tiring, but I feel really accomplished by the end of the day, especially at the rate we are going...and I'm not even working with my full permanent team! We don't have a radio yet, so a lot of times we just find ourselves singing out loud and just cracking weird jokes to keep us going and not think about how many times we had to re-sand or re-dry-wall the wall.

:) On another note, last night our team went out to a BBQ restaurant about 10 minutes from where we reside (The Shed) and I will tell you, I had the BEST RIBS EVER! They were so delicious, fell right off the bone..we sat outside and apparently they have a band come play on the weekend. Even without the band, the music was great.....played some blues! I have a priceless pic of our TL Ben with sauce all over his face. Not only was the food amazing, but we were able to meet up with three of our other teams from our unit...so it was a nice change up and really good to see people that we haven't in....not even a week and 1/2. This Saturday was plan on seeing them as well because all of the Gulf Coast Americorps teams are heading to Baton Rouge for a Symposium, which basically is bringing Americorps members to further develop our life as a corps member and to explore avenues pertaining to post-corps life. We are able to sign up for two different classes....a personal development for us all.

Next weekend is our spring break, so I have a long weekend and can hopefully meet up with other members and possibly spend the weekend in New Orleans!

Love and miss you all and DO PLEASE feel like commenting and updating me on all your lives! I do want to know what's going on with you all too!

Along the Mississippi Coast....

Cadillac Ranch Amarillo, Texas

A room full of cots and snoring...

We finally arrived in Ocean Spring's, Mississippi last night and we are staying at a place called Camp Victor. They house many volunteers for different things. Our Americorps group is staying in the food distribution room and are sleeping on cots all together. I am less than two feet from my neighbor, so this is a good example of what it would be like if we were working in a disaster situation. Lights are out by 10pm. Today we did community mapping/service learning and drove along the coast of Mississippi as well as in the 7th and 9th ward of New Orleans. I really had no idea how abandoned the 9th ward was. Even driving on the coast of Mississippi; tons of palm trees were slanted, the base of houses left in place, many dead trees, you could even still see sand on the roads and in the grass. Some people have moved back to the 9th ward, but overall, it is pretty deserted. I didn't have a chance to take pictures because we were just driving around briefly to help us recognize what our purpose is here in the Gulf. A couple of my teammates have gone on alternative spring breaks before and pointed out streets to us where they helped rebuild a house last year. We also had a fun PT today. Everyone but Julie and I ran to the beach, which is less than a mile away to play games in the sand, etc. Julie didn't go because she has been feeling sick with a cold. I of course busted out a bunch of my silly camp games. Tomorrow we are meeting back up with our sponsor to orientate us about the program we are working for: 100 homes in 100 days (Hope Has a Face).

Road Trippin'

For the past couple days we have been driving from Denver, through Texas to Ocean's Springs, MS; where we will be staying (just about 20 min. from Pascagoula). A lot of us were sad to say goodbye, but hopefully we will be able to transition together in two months. We meet our sponsor today and start work tomorrow. The fire teams and the alternate fire team are staying in CO for the next month to train and work in Boulder.

Our 70 degree weather on Saturday