Monday

Today I didn't really want to go work with Toledo Grows. It was so cold out today that my fingers were frozen while I ate lunch. We had to eat lunch outside on picnic benches. I did composting from 9am till 12 in the afternoon. Let's just say my back hurts. After lunch Matt came and picked up Sarah, katie, Matti, and I to go do some display beds at the Monor house in the Wild Wood Park.

I got to do the displays for a while then Matt pulled me from it to unpot some plants to take in for the winter. Then I got to go back to the display beds. Then it was time to go back to the house.

When we got back to the house we hung out for a little bit then we played Ultimate Frisbee for PT. That was alot of fun. I was on a team with Matti, Lauren, Jim, and myself. We won 10 - 2. I think I hurt my right hip while stretching and during Ultimate. It hurts pretty bad. After Ultimate we hung out and played Apples to Apples. By the way thanks for buying me that mom. My team was so happy when I showed them I had it.

Then we had dinner. It was a veggie quina bake. It was good but it should have been a side dish instead of a main meal. Then a couple of my teammates and I went to a coffee shop, which is where I am now to use the interent. Too bad this computer isnt letting me upload my pictures. Well I am tierd and it is time to go. Love you guys.

Family Reunion and such

On black Friday mom and I woke up at 3am to go shopping. We went to Kohls and the mall. We got some good stuff. We got to Becky at 8am. Then we drove to Long Island New York for Grandma Duddy's unvieling. It was sad but I am glad I got to be there. After the unveiling we went to Arrowwood for the family reunion. It was nice to see everyone. I went to bed early because I had gotten 6 hours of sleep in two days.

On Saturday we woke up and went to the best breakfast buffet EVER. It was soooo good. After breakfast Becky, Mom and I went shopping in Greenwhich. After that we went to a mall need by and went to PF Changs for lunch. It was a great lunch. Then we went back to the hotel and hung out for a while.

We did a yankee swap for the party. It was funny cause it took my family a while to understand the rules. It was a good time. Then we took family pictuers which was fun.

On Sunday we had an amazing breakfast again then we left at 11am to get me to the airport for my plane. I did not want to leave my family. I hugged Dad and wouldn't let go.I did the samew thing with mom. It was hard to leave them again but it was nice to know that I am going home in a little over 2 weeks. We sat in traffic for a while but I made my plane. I got back to Toledo by 9pm. It was a long day but worth it. I had a good time seeing my family. I have a bunch of pictures to upload but the computer I am using is being funky and won't let me upload the pictures so just bare with me. I love you guys.

Thanksgiving

Today I got up at 3:00am. I got to the airport in Toledo Ohio at 4:40am. Lauren, Katie, and I got on our flight at 5:10 this morning. We were in the air for about 17 minutes. The flight was a little bumpy but it was fast. We landed in Detroit and Katie and I had to run to get to our connections. I almost missed my connection. The plane was nice and big. I got the aisle seat and someone had the window seat. We were lucky and didn't have anyone in the middle seat. The flight was an hour and 6 minutes. I landed early which was awesome. My bag was one of the first off the plane. Mom and Dad picked me up from the airport. It was SO nice to see them.

I got to Becky's house around 9:15am. She looks so great. Today was a great day. Becky's in-laws came and Matt's step sisters and his brother. It was so nice to have everyone together. I felt so fortunate to be with my family for this holiday. After the food I took a nap for about 2 hours. Apparently Mom came up stairs to wake me up and I didn't even know that. I had a nice hour and a half nap. Then we all hung out and everyone went home.

My mom, Becky and I went through the circulars for black Friday. We are all just hanging out now and I am having a great time. I can't say that enough. Hope you all had as good a Thanksgiving as I did. Love you.

The day before

Today seemed like it dragged by. So I woke up 20 minutes late from working my ass of for the last couple of days. Today at work I did some displays in small beds with blue spruce and bitter sweet. I also helped string christmas lights on trees all over the garden. We worked until 3 and then had a holiday party at work. It was really nice. As an added bonus Shalyn canceled PT. We were all very excited.

O I forgot to tell you I played hacky sack for an hour and a half last night with 4 other people on my team. It was really fun. I am spastic when I do hacky sack as well as make crazy noises that make my teammates laugh so hard they are on the floor.

After work we came back to the house and relaxed for a while. I made oatmeal cookies and a big cookie pizza thing. My teammates loved me for that. My teammate Amy left to go home. Sarah, Katie, and Lauren went to the gym. Jacob, Shalyn, Jim, Matti, Jake and I stayed at the house. We played Mario Kart on the Wii. Let me just tell you that I suck at that. I am so good at Mario Kart on N64 but not on the Wii. When the girls came back from the gym we went to little ceasers to get pizza. it is cheap pizza in all senses. But it served it's purpose.

I plan on staying up all night. I can't wait to see everyone. Well Iuess I will see some of you soon. By the way I made a shutter fly account with all my pictures on it. The link is http://myamericorpjourney.shutterfly.com/ If you would like me to set it up that every time I add pictures to the site it sends you and email I would love to do that for you. Just let me know. Love you guys.

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday

So Sunday was a pretty good day. We went to Wildwood Park to play flag football with people from TBG and some other people. It was really fun to watch and I also played frisbee. After that we went to Tony Pacos which is a famous hotdog place. It was very yummy. That was in downtown Toledo. After dinner we went to see the Toledo minor league hockey team play. It was a good experience and they won. After the game Matt a guy who works at TBG took us around Downtown Toledo.

Monday we worked in downtown Toledo with Toledo Grows. We worked with some other kid laying garden beds and compost. Shoveling compost and pushing wheelbarrels all day is hard work. We were all exhausted after work. After work we had dinner, spaghetti and sauce. Then I went to the super market and got stuff to make a pasta salad for a pot luck. Then I pasted out.

Tuesday we worked at TBG. I worked with the Garden Forum putting in new displays for the holidays. I worked with my teammate Sarah who I love. Now that I am exhausted again I am going to do PT, then clean, then pass out. I am so excited to see my family and get some rest. Here are so pictures.

Toledo Update

As you can tell it is hard to find the time and resources to get on the internet. This week went by really fast. On Thursday I identified plants and trees with Matt who works at TBG. After that I did some weedineg and cleaning of different areas. I got to drive the golf cart again. I love it. But it makes me miss driving my car. Hopefully I will get to drive when I go to Becky's for Thanksgiving. Hint Hint. After work on Thursday we went home to relax. We started telling life stories to try to get to know everyone a little better. I really liked that. On Friday I separated Canaans which are a type of flower. They are the weirdest looking bulbs I have ever seen though. After that I cleaned up the pioneer garden and some other areas. While doing this I told some stories with Sarah. That was nice. After work we did PT and played Ultimate Frisbee which was really fun. I actually scored and threw the frisbee well. After PT we told more life stories and then we had dinner. After dinner some of us went to Starbucks to hang out and other people went to the movies.

Now it is Saturday morning and I got to sleep in till 10:15am. Which was AMAZING!!! Today we plan on going around the gardens to take picturs, then do some laundry, and go out tonight to a bar possibly.

Living with 9 people in a house isn't as bad as I thought it would be. We all have a pretty good time. Sharing a room with 5 girls isn't bad either. I am having a good time here. Here are some pictures of what I have been doing.

I made it to Illinios


Our lunch stop


Next stop, Indiana


I-Zoom instead of Fastlane


The Hooka


The room I am sharing with 5 girls


Finally made it to Ohio


Matti's favorite tree


Me with the leaf vac


Lauren teaching Shalyn to knit in our dining room


Our swan family

Toledo Ohio

Sorry I haven't written in a while. It is hard to find internet access. So I am safely in Toledo. The trip took 11 hours because we had to stop every 2 hours to switch drivers and change seats. The ride wasn't bad at all. We left Vinton Iowa at 6:30am and arrived in Toledo at 6:30 pm. We were greeted by Phillip who is an executive at Toledo Botanical Garden also known as TBG. We went to this AWESOME pizza place for dinner called Amies. We had a BBQ chicken pizza, a Greek pizza, and loaded meet pizza, and a caprese pizza with chicken. It was GREAT. Then we went to pick up some food for dinners and lunches.
O I forgot to tell you that I am sharing a room with 5 other girls. The room we are staying in is smaller than my room at home. Also there are two bunk beds and two people sleeping on mattresses on the floor. There are three boys who are sharing a pink room the same size as our room. The TL (team leader) has her own room. We have a fire place!!!
There first night we got here I had a minor melt down but I recovered quickly. On Tuesday we started at the TBG. It is a 65 acre botanical garden that has an artist village. The artist village has a glassing blowing place, a stained glass place, a pottery place and ALOT more. I got to watch two guys blows glass and I will have the opportunity to glow a glass orament. I am so excited about that. On Tuesday we also cleaned up some garden beds. Then we all had dinner together which was nice. I made a hungarian dish with my teammate Amy. It was noodles, cabbage, and bacon. It was GREAT.
Then we met another AmeriCorp member that is part of the State and National branch. He is 23 and is living at the intern house by himself. He is really nice and his name is Ethan. A couple of my teammates and I went to a Hooka Bar. It was an experience. I smoked Mango flavored tobacco. Then today I raked leaves, pulled weeds, and cut back a perrenial garden. OOOOO I forgot something important. I get to drive golf carts around the gardens and I am so happy about it.
Tonight we had PT, then finally unpacked. Now I am going to eat a bean soup. I am trying all these new things and I am liking them all. If you guys want to know anything else just let me know. Love you all.

Induction

Induction was on Friday the 13th. How freaky is that. But hey I did it. I got through CTI and all of it's trainings and waking up at 5 am to do PT. Induction wasn't that fun because not many parents were there. But I took a lot of pictures. I am so proud of myself that I did it. Now I have 9 months to help change the world. World here I come. First stop is Toledo Ohio. The Toledo Botanical Gardens. O by the way I just finished packing for a month and it was very hard. I think I will get better at this packing thing along the way.

Here are some pictures from induction.


Jim and I before Induction


Oak 4 poster


Meredith and Sarah


Meredith and I


My roomie (Laura) and I


Sarah and I (So glad she is on my team)


Laura and I (My Mass buddy)


Charles and I


Being goofy before induction


Lauren and I before induction


Sarah and I after induction. We did it!


My roomie, Love her.


Oak 4 after induction


My roomie and I after induction.

AmeriLympics

So today was AmeriLympics. It was a good day. We had NO trainings and got to be outside. Oak beat Cedar all day which was nice. My team ended up winning 5 events, tieing 1 event and losing 1 event. We won at kickball. We won at the boot toss which was tossing a boot and seeing where it would land. Then we did cherades, we won at cherades. Then we played ultimate freesbee which we tied at. It was a really good game. After ultimate freesbee we did the egg relay which we won. After the egg relay was dodgeball which we won. The last even we did was dizzy bat. We lost at dizzy bat. I fell on my face twice. As you all know I don't like being dizzy. That was my day and now I am tierd and going to bed. Love you guys

Feeling better

It is now Tuesday and I am starting to feel better. We have finished our last full day of training!!!!!!!! I am so happy about that. Now it is time to start getting things together and get to Toledo. I am leaving for Toledo early Monday morning. I have to pack for a month in a small backpack as well as pack clothes in there for thanksgiving. That is going to be tough. I need your help mom. You are the best packer ever. Anyway just thought I would update people. Love you guys.

Sick

Sorry about not writing the last couple of days. I am feeling AWFULL. I had yesterday off. Went to dinner with my team at Ruby Tuesday's but couldn't eat even a quater of my meal. Then I went to sleep early. I got two hours of sleep. This morning I had a meeting at 10:30 which was useless. I had to be there till 2:30 when other people didn't. I could have been resting. Anyway I rested after then tried to eat something and it does not like my stomach. Now I am going to bed. Love you guys

Disaster Trainings and Brocintus

This week has been full of different trainings. For the last couple of days we have been going through disaster trainings. Let me tell you they aren't fun. Add to that being sick and you get the picture.

To update some of you a person in my group was sent home. He was not an asset to the team and was more of a detriment. So now that he is gone my team is much happier. Also 4 people in my team including me have brocitus. I am exhausted, feel like there is someone scraping up and down my throat and everything hurts. Well good thing it is the weekend.

I hope you are all well. Sorry my blog is so short. I am going to take a nap. Love you all

More pictures

Sarah looking out over a lake



Me Lopping



Poison Oak



My teams boots (I took this picture)

Lazy Sunday, Debrief Monday, and Bonding Tuesday

Sorry I haven't written in a while. The Internet SUCKS here and with my phone sucking as well, well as you can tell I don't get to go online as much as I would like. So let me recap what I have been doing for the last couple of days.

Sunday was a lazy day. I tried to sleep in but my body is getting used to waking up at obnoxious hours and chose to do so on Sunday. As well as it being day light savings time as well. I got up and got some things done that I needed to do. Then I had lunch and sat on my butt and watched football for the rest of the day. My team had our celebration BBQ for our first project well done. It was pretty amazing I must say. Then I ended up going to bed at 9pm.

Monday we had PT at 5:30am. My team played capture the flag in the bitch black, using water bottles as flags. It was pretty fun besides being up that early, it was better than running around the track. After PT I met with my group to go over what we were going to do for our debrief about our 3 day project. We came up with a poem about not being able to right poems as our closure which was funny. The person that is a VST with me did not want to participate so I did all the work. O well. We had the debrief which went very well and we were told that by the assistant program director. After the debrief we had tool training which is basically what you thought it would be dad. "This is a hammer, this is a screw, blah, blah, blah. But we actually got to use some of the tools which was nice. Then we went to the grocery store to pick up food for the week. The people that were making dinners for the week had a budget of $16 to spend. That is hard to do when you are feeding 11 people, But some how I did it. I am making American Chopped Sewy. Sorry as you all know I can't spell. Then we got back made our own dinners and it was time for bed.

Today was the ropes course. It was a team building activity. We went to Iowa University in Iowa City. My group had a great time and I think we really did bond and learn more about each other and how to trust each other. Then we got back to campus and had a team meeting. At 6:30 I have a room inspection then I am done for the day. I hope to get to sleep early because we have PT at 5:30am in the morning. YUK. But I am actually getting used to it. Love you guys