1 Year Later

Sadly, I have taken a year long break from blogging. A post should be arriving within the next week, so stay tuned!

Wicked Quick, Wicked Fun, Here Come Fawl

No I didn't spell Fall wrong accidentally, I was just giving you a hint of an accent that some people use out here. I realize I get lazy with my tongue and I start using those words, my friends are sure to make fun of me for it. haha.

So, unintentionally I have left my blog on a dusty bookshelf this summer. I feel its sense of abandonment. I enjoyed this summer, marking it as one of my better summer's of my life. I had a job this summer, which I typically don't have during the summer and thus go through stress and frustration of not having one. So that was a huge help.

So many changes hit this summer. Quick recap: I quit my job at the daycare, graduated from college, went to Maine with the parents, moved in with Rachel, went to the Colorado to see my brother, started working at Wheeler Summer Camp, went through multiple job interviews for Americorps, got Americorps job, Wheeler Summer Camp job ended, and throw in a bunch of random, fun shenanigans and there was my summer! So essentially, you can stop reading now, unless you are intrigued and want more details, haha.

So I'm going to start with my Colorado trip! I went for about 10 days. We ran around doing all sorts of fun things from the Denver Zoo, a Lariat Loop which is a scenic driving route, to Golden, CO to the Red Rocks to the Butterfly Pavilion to a Rockies Game and so many other fun things. My parents also came out to see us and we had some good family time together. My brother had the fine opportunity to have his work wine and dine us and he treated us to making our desserts for dinner that night. It was a great opportunity to see his work.

After that, I went back to Providence and started my new job! Here's how a typical day would go for me. Arrive at Wheeler School and pick up Mini Bus (aka the short bus!) and drive it to a shopping center about 25 minutes away, pick up a bunch of kids, take them to the Wheeler Summer Camp "Farm" which is about 30-35 minutes away from the shopping center where I pick the kids up at. Then I drop them and the bus off and I join my group of 2nd graders. I had 2 co-counselors and a group of kids aged 6-8. My group average size was 17-25 kids which isn't too bad with 3 people. We as counselors would take our kids from activity to activity. Activities ranged from Sports to Performing Arts to Art to Nature to Swimming Lessons. In the afternoons, we usually had free swim and free electives (where the counselors put on a bunch of activity options and it gave the kids a chance to pick their favorite choice). On Wednesdays, we typically had a special guest come out and put on a show for the kids whether it be reptiles, a band, dancers, storytellers, a talent show, etc. On Fridays, we usually had closing camp activities for the week. Each week had a theme and activities in general throughout the week would revolve around that theme then on Friday we would have a big activity for it to wrap it up. Our themes included Safari, Alice in Wonderland, International, Summer Survivor, Top Chef, Talent, Carnival and Heroes vs. Monsters. After a day of camp, I would then load up my bus kids and take them back to the shopping center, drop them off, then drop the bus off at Wheeler School. Overall, it was a fun experience.

So after almost 7 long months of searching and learning to patiently wait and trust in the Lord, I finally got an Americorps job. Amazing how after I tried out for so many opportunities that the one job I ended up with was a job that I can not only see myself doing but also enjoying. So I'm excited to start that opportunity. My job will be working for Head Start (a daycare center) as a Special Resources Assistant. I will be an Assistant to a Special Resource Coordinator and together we will screen all new incoming kids (aged birth to 5 years old). If they have special needs we will set them up with therapy and lessons to help them out. I'm excited this job starts in September and will be a year long commitment.

So some random shenanigans of mine include......

Rachel and I went camping in New Hampshire, conveniently though it was thundering and lightening and pouring rain when we went to go set things up. Luckily it slowed down enough for us to set up our tent then we cheated and went into town to find supper. In the morning, we went kayaking on this river which was so fun.

A bunch of us ranging from 2-5 people at a time exploring new beaches in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Although, things slowed down when beaches in Massachusetts started closing due to shark sitings haha.

A group of 6 of us headed to Maine to stay at a friend's mom's lake house. We went on a 4 mile hike straight up and straight down a mountain, then we went swimming and kayaking although we only had 2 kayaks and 6 of us, so some of us were hauling dead weight around haha, then we played tennis, went for a walk and then we decided to wrap that day up, whew. On the way home, it was so random, we had packed a picnic, uncertain where to stop, so the lead driver pulls into a Lowe's parking lot because they saw a hunk of weeds for us to eat lunch at, however, I sighted a picnic bench, so thank you Lowe's employees for letting us use your break bench for lunch haha.

Going to the Wickford Arts festival which was fun to see so many oil paintings. Then after eating supper, we went to Smith Castle, a wicked old house involved in the colonial wars located on a swamp. The facility was closed but the grounds were open and we were on a photography mission in southern RI. After we hit up Smith Castle, we went to some historic watermill then we took random photos of the bridges of RI such as the Jamestown bridge and the Newport bridge then we saw the Jamestown Windmill then we went to Beavertail State Park where they have a lighthouse and rocks that you can climb on. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous, one of the best I've seen in a long time. It was amusing, Rachel was out on the rocks taking photos, not paying full attention to the incoming waves and the tide changed on her and a big wave barreled over the top of her. Luckily, her and the camera were both safe and did not fall in.

Another Chapter Begins

Yay! I finally graduated!!!! And it was 1 year early! Because we all know how much I dislike school ;) haha.

So the ultimate tricky question now is........What are you going to do NOW?!

Well! I moved out of my apartment and moved into a friend's apartment for the summer. This is the ultimate learning experience for me in some aspects......I do not have a door, haha, and I do not have a closet and did I mention that my room is essentially 8 x 10 and is the on the third floor with a bunch of eaves covering half my room. I do love how I have a skylight! I have it open and I can hear the birds in the morning and the sun comes shining in and wakes me up so I can have a nice early start to a hopefully productive day! I've been here not quite a week, I'm almost all the way moved in and I'm loving it. I have a new roomie who loves to bake and cook and experiment with different recipes with healthy foods. I think this summer will help me to become more organized and eat better!

I also live next to a wonderful, sprawling park with a small series of lakes that make it nice to walk around in the morning on a good street where everyone seems to know each other and hang out.

I have a summer job as a Head Counselor for 2nd graders. It is for a non profit private almost kind of prep school in the area that has a summer day camp program. It should provide me with new windows of opportunity and help my resume look better. I'm excited for it and it starts in the middle of June.

Knowing me and always keeping busy, I'm taking advantage of my free time (what free time? yes I quit my old job at the end of May to give myself some!) and flying to Denver to see my bro! I am so excited to see him! It's been over 6 months.

I have been applying to different jobs and Americorps programs that will start in the fall and I'm just waiting on God to show me where He wants me to go and what job I should do.

I had a wonderful graduation, my parents flew up for a week and we went up to Maine near Acadia National Park. I definitely recommend going there if you haven't already! It is so beautiful there and I feel like there is so much to see and do! My dad stepped out of his comfort zone and bought some live lobster right off the boat and then cooked/prepared them himself (we don't like to see them lobsters jumping around banging at the pot lid to get out in that deathly hot tub). We also ran around trying to get a glimpse of lighthouses out there and we also took a small boat tour which took us around various islands and a lighthouse. It was so much fun. It was a wonderful vacation and I had a fun time with my parents! Now I just have to figure out how to get them to move out here to join me on the East Coast! :D

Shoot! There Goes April!

Wow! I feel that time just shoots by as the years blow by! It seems like sometimes, so many things are happening at once that you almost lose track of your priorities and then you have a heaping plate full of stuff to do and there never seems to be enough hours in a day!

I'm still working at the same place doing the same thing as a float and a school age person. I love floating around the rooms, getting to know all sorts of crazy, funny kids and all the random shenanigans that happen! I just have to discover some sort of way to not let it get boring (haha yes, boring) for me.

School is okay. It has been a rough trimester because my classes are difficult and require lots of thinking as any senior level class would expect, haha. I have a mixology class where we learn about all different sorts of alcohol, get to taste it, and then learn to make 40 common drinks. My midterm consisted of a multiple choice test, a blind tasting of 2 different drinks, doing an 1 1/2 oz free pour and a 3/4 free pour (instead of measuring it out, we had to get it to be exact) and also making 12 drinks in 12 minutes with the right garnish in the right glass all from memory. My other class is a whole different animal from that one. There is 17 students in my class and we have to run a restaurant with a lunchtime seating of 16-20 people. I'm assigned a partner, a menu theme, a menu date, and a service style. From there, we must find recipes from books, convert the recipes to the size we need them, cost them out, order the food, prep the food, set up the dining room to be a formal setting, get guests in to eat the food, and basically do everything A to Z of running a sit down place. It's hectic and time consuming! I'm also taking psychology and a career capstone class.

I'm now officially 1 class short of graduating this May however I'm praying that my 1 class worth of English Technical Writing from BSU in my high school days will be able to transfer over and take that missing spot!

I'm working on moving by the end of May into an apartment loaded with girls haha. I will live there for the summer until end of August. It should be a pretty amusing summer. I'm also trying to figure out where I am supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do with my life. For the time being, God hasn't told me exactly what and clearly He needs me to grow more with something and prepare me for whatever He needs me to do since He just hasn't shown me yet despite my stubborn ways of trying to know.

I feel a service calling to do something hands on with a community and possibly social service based dealing with kids. I just don't know what capacity God wants me in yet.

I had a wonderful birthday! Thanks to my friends for making it an unique one. My roommate made me breakfast and my friend Maria made me dinner that I had with her, her daughter and a friend.

Yes, Rhode Island was hit with some flooding. The biggest blow was to the Warwick Mall (a mere 2.5 miles from my apartment, I'm so blessed!). The Warwick Mall is near the sewer treatment center and they got overflowed and it shot over to the mall and caused a horrible mess and so all the inventory in the stores has to be trashed primarily and the all the stores have to be redone but there are rumors leaking around as if its really worth it to have the Warwick Mall redone when there's a vacant dead mall that didn't get hit by the flood that is a stone's throw from the Warwick Mall. Several areas got severely flooded and some people were deeply affected, some of our main roads and highways were closed for a few days due to flooding and it was an interesting experience for me.

Here Comes March

Is it just me or is this year just flying by?!

I've been slacking at this, I guess once you get so enamored with the routine of life, you get stubborn and forget to do other things like updating blogs haha. I'm in the midst of my spring break after completing a difficult trimester of schooling. I'm headed into the last trimester of school for the year and God praying, will be the last trimester of school that I ever face! I'm trying to graduate early so I have a few tests that I have to do etc. to make up the two classes I'm missing, so I hope that goes well.

Nothing too terribly exotic has been happening in my amusing life, just working like a busy bee while doing school and going to church. Church has been amazing, I have been learning so much and I feel like my relationship with Christ is growing deeper.

I'm not entirely sure of my plans for after graduation if I make that milestone this year, I'm planning to keep God at the forefront and ask Him for His guidance with what happens next.

Work is going well, we are working on the summer camp program which should be highly entertaining hopefully. I have been assigned a group of 7-8 year olds of about 13 kids as mine for the summer. I had the fun experience of taking on a class of 6 kids aged 18 month to 30 month by myself as well for the day. I'm learning that it really doesn't matter how many kids you got, there is always going to be mayhem bumbling around, how you take it is how it is going to affect you!

Anyone else getting excited for spring? I hope the weather is nice, it hasn't been the best and I think last summer we only had like 2 weeks of shine the rest of rain.

Vroooom! It's February!

Wow, I'm a slacker, I haven't updated my blog since November! My bad!

Where shall I start?

In came December and the start of cold weather. On the 16th, on my way to a delightful cookie exchange, I got the phone call. My grandmother died (dad's mother). She meant so much to me and was like one of the people I took for granted to be there in my life. I thought she'd have at least another 15-20 years left on her. Just shows you that you can't take things for granted and to be sure and cherish the things you have! So, I bumped up my flight and flew home on the 20th instead of the 22nd. Of course, RI got a huge storm on the 20th, so I was a little delayed coming out to ID but I made it! My parents, brother, Camden, and Scott were all waiting for me :D

The following morning on Monday, December 21st, we had the memorial service for my grandmother. One of our dear neighbors from the deli is a funeral home and they hosted us. Of course, they are like family to us so it was nice to know that Grandma was in safe hands! A family friend spoke the gospel, then my father spoke a few words about taking the time to love the people around you a little more. Then a few others spoke and shared their memories.

On Christmas Eve, Scott took me flying and we went flying over Kuna, Homedale and various other scenic Idaho. It was a humorous adventure since first, we had to de-ice the plane ourselves (it was a small plane that could seat like 2-4 people) then while we were flying, our radio went out, thus we lost control with the tower and they in turn, didn't know where we were since we didn't show up on the radar and that meant that other planes could hit us. So we kept our eyes peeled! Afterwards, we had a Christmas Eve party at my Aunt Rose's house! It was wonderful!

Christmas morning, my parents and I pulled out my dad's laptop and got my brother on the webcam and celebrated Christmas through that method, haha, it was weird though to not have my brother there. It was definitely a very unusual Christmas from not having Grandma and not having my brother. I enjoyed my time at home with my parents and the rest of my family.

With my luck, when I flew out on Dec 30th, it snowed a few inches in Boise and thus delayed travel plans while I was en route. So here's how my travel went for this day, I got to Boise airport at 5:45am, to my amusement, Southwest did not have anyone running their ticket counter until a smidgen after 6am. Then I flew out at 7:10am. I had a touch and go in Salt Lake City, then I landed in Phoenix. I was 1.5 hours late and had missed my flight. They re-booked me to go through Nashville then onwards to Providence and I would get in at 10:20pm instead of 6:00pm. Excited to go to Nashville (I like checking out random airports haha) I tooled around Phoenix killing time. Then I discovered the Nashville flight was overbooked and they were looking for volunteers. So I volunteered myself, got myself a hefty flight voucher (over $500 bucks yeah baby!) and flew to Las Vegas and onwards to Providence where lovely Maria was awaiting to get me at 12:30am!

On Dec 31st, for New Year's Eve, I got together with my friends and we went to Maria's house, where I made crepes (my specialty apparently these days haha) and watched a movie, then watched the ball drop. It was a nice and relaxing New Year's eve.

On January 1st, I had my bags packed again (like I ever unpacked from the first trip haha) and flew out to Atlanta, GA! I was going to the Passion 2010 conference which was a few day conference all about God with special speakers ranging from Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, Beth Moore, John Piper, Andy Stanley and some other wonderful people! Hillsong United also played as well as Chris Tomlin, David Crowder and a few others. WOW, what an eye opening life changing experience. The theme was Awaken and over 20,000 people attended. One of the most memorable parts was after John Piper spoke, Louie Giglio challenged us to go to our next spot without talking, so 20,000+ maneuvered about without speaking! This trip was also priceless in the fact that in my group that I went with of 25, with all the activities and events, we went nonstop from like 5 or 6am in the morning to 1 or 2 or 3am at night and we were slap happy silly or wicked cranky all the time and this made this trip truly memorable.

For the moment, I'll leave off here, and I will continue next week with more up to date stuff! :D Gotta love suspense hehe.

A Warm November

I feel like this year has blown by! This November seems extremely mild weather wise! I don't remember the last time I ran around in shorts and a tank top in November in a 4 season climate!

I also feel like the flu season has hit harder this year though, oddly enough. I don't know if it's due to the H1N1 freak out or what. Even in Idaho, it seems rougher from what I hear. Also, me working at a daycare, I see how much it happens, and yes it finally hit me this past weekend, teach me for not getting a flu shot.

The trimester just ended and hopefully I only have two left until I am done! My classes went pretty smoothly and I'm feeling confident with things, a couple of my finals were tough but I think I will make it! This upcoming trimester should be interesting with most of my classes happening late afternoon/night, I typically have too much ADD around this time to concentrate, so I will see about focusing better haha!

Work is going great, I'm still loving it! I've been working with toddlers a lot more and I'm also a floater but I am still in charge of coming up with the activity curriculum and taking care of the paperwork for school age. Working with toddlers is pure mayhem at times but I still love it! Having up to 18 of them and 3 of us adds to the fun definitely. I think one of my most memorable days at work is when I had the worst diaper blowout ever, a 4 year old with a fever of 104, another sick 4 year old who vomited all across the room in route to the bathroom while I had to make sure my 12 other 3 & 4 years did not get in the mess during clean up, and being bitten by a toddler who was frustrated with me for not letting him attack another toddler. Toddlers are definitely one of my favorite age groups which is kind of surprising to me.

My brother came out on a day's notice for a short 4 day trip and we had a blast tearing up the sites. I took him to Newport to see the beaches and Purgatory Chasm as well as Ocean Drive and we toured the Breakers Mansion, holy cow what an awesome home, I cannot believe that they only used it for a summer residence! We went to Hilltop Steakhouse and had some yummy steak and ribs. I took him to Thayer Street and had him experience bubble tea, we went to Prospect Park and did some night photography of the statehouse. He ran off to Ikea (almost an hour away) while I was working, haha he doesn't like the driving out here, he tells me that RI/MA drivers are horrific. I said yep, we live up to our name of being the worst drivers in the country. I also dragged him along to babysit a 3 month old baby with me and I almost forgot how much joy kids bring to my brother, I haven't seen him smile like that in ages (well it'd help if I saw him more too haha). Of course, he flew into Boston, and he flew out of Boston at the crack of dawn so I got to drive him to the airport at 2:30 in the morning when I had a final at 7:10am. Haha, yeah I didn't make it to class on time but had a forgiving professor who let me make it up, thankfully!

Church and Bible studies are still going great! I've been journeying through the book of Psalms and wow, what an awesome book that is! However, any book I journey through is awesome! I'm seeing more and more the importance of spending time with God on a regular, daily basis. Reading the Bible and praying daily is spiritual food and your body needs it just as much as physical food!

A Happy Medium

Wow, its October already, it feels like it was just January yesterday! I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by, it is amazing how fast time flies as you get older.

School is going great. I'm loving my classes this trimester! I got smart and let go of my work study job so I'd only have my daycare job and school which is a good schedule for me! I'm happy I'm not heaping my plate of life too high these days haha.

I'm loving work, it is one of my favorite jobs ever! Never thought I'd enjoy working with kids so much. Seems like God gave me some kind of gift with them, I just got to figure out how to use that. I typically work with school age kids in the afternoons but sometimes I bounce around classrooms and help out. I love the waddler/toddler age even though the group at my center is a rough and rowdy bunch! Holy cow, never thought I'd see three toddlers war it out with each other and throw each other down on the playground like that.

Summaries of some of my weekends since my last blog posting.............

One weekend....
I went to a BBQ in New Hampshire that was a Soulfest Reunion, it was a great time seeing old friends again! On Sunday, I went to a music festival with a chili competition mixed into it that was fun times and I also did some sightseeing in Massachusetts. I'm beginning to learn how many different things Massachusetts has that I didn't know about!

Another weekend....
I volunteered at a Skillet/Hawk Nelson concert with some other Soulfest buddies and of course it rained that night haha, because it always has to rain when we get together!

Another weekend....
I went to Springfield, Massachusetts to go to the Big E fair with a bunch of friends. It was an awesome fair that represented all 6 states of the New England Region. My favorite part of it was States Row, which had buildings representing each of the six states and each building was owned by that state so you could travel to six states in a matter of minutes! Inside each building were exhibits that were hosted by companies that we headquartered in that state or things that state was known for.

Another weekend....
My cousin and his wife came into town and I got to hang out with them! We went to dinner together one night and then on Sunday I dropped them off and picked them up at a Patriots' game and topped it off with dinner and hanging out afterwards.

Another weekend....
I went to a Newsboys concert in Massachusetts on a Friday night and helped out there (twas another rainy day hanging out with my Soulfest buddies haha). On Saturday, I went to a Voice of the Martyrs conference in Connecticut with a couple of friends which had some awesome speakers. On Sunday, I had church and a goodbye party for some dear friends that are moving an hour or so away because of a job promotion. On Monday (twas Columbus day) I hung out with Peter and went to an art festival in Scituate, RI.

I guess I like to pack it in, I seem to always be busy running around and seeing new things. I love exploring! I put something like 2000 miles or more on my car this past September. One wonderful thing about New England is the fall foliage, so many amazing bright beautiful colors makes a good bang before old man winter settles in!

A New Start

The Lord has blessed me and I praise Him for all the storms we go through together, as I know the rainbow at the end of each storm will be glorious making each storm worthwhile despite the trials and tribulations it may have brought.

I just started a new job and the wait was so worth it! A friend of mine hooked me up with it and I love it! It has a great schedule, a good amount of hours, and it is something I love doing! I work at a daycare center in the school age classroom. I monitor children aged 5-12 and other age groups from time to time such as preschool and pre-K. I get to help them with homework and do activities with them. A majority of the children are inner city kids thus being very tough and coming from all walks of life. The people I work with are great as well and work can actually be fun sometimes!

School starts Tuesday September 8th! I'm trying my best to figure out all my classes and graduate a year early (this year yay!). I'm declaring a concentration in Entrepreneurship and a second one in Food & Beverage Management. A concentration is kind of like a minor or a specialized focus on an area thus making my school's degree programs more versatile. My classes that I am taking are Microeconomics, Business Plan, Dining Room Management, and Dynamics of Tourism.

I am still going to my Thursday night Bible study and we just started a focus on growing your faith in Christ. Church is going great as well, we just wrapped up an intensive and complete study on 1 Corinthians.

I also had the fine opportunity of camping in a tropical storm which can make camping very amusing from building a tarp structure over your tent using random stick poles and having to find shelter somewhere to make dinner. It poured the whole night!

I am excited for this upcoming weekend! There is going to be a volunteer reunion bbq in New Hampshire for the group of volunteers from Soulfest so I will get to see some good friends again! Praying for good weather, although no Soulfest event would be complete without rain I suppose haha.

Oops Where Did July Go?

Uh-oh, August is almost gone already too! Where did the time go!?

I left off with end of June and now it is almost end of August! I've been applying to jobs like crazy all summer with random interviews and random things thrown in there! It's been crazy!

4th of July was great time hanging with friends, followed up by an amazing 45min long firework display in some hick town in Connecticut! To help with the no job scene I began pouring my time into the Rescue Mission and Parrot Sanctuary. The Parrot Sanctuary located about 40 min away from my house is a refuge for abandoned parrot types of birds and other funky animals such as porcupines, wallabies, rabbits, tortoises, frogs, geese, chickens, ducks, and others. I usually help with the food/water changing of dishes and reloading and cleaning cages.

July ended with my time at Soulfest which was wonderful! Soulfest is a 4 day festival jam packed with Christian music and booths of Christian ministries along with some Christian colleges. I went up on July 22nd to help with pre-festival for a week then the actual festival was July 29th to August 1st. It is located at a ski resort in New Hampshire, absolutely gorgeous up there! All the volunteers camped out on one of the ski slopes (volunteer hill!) and this made quite the adventure as it rained a vast majority of the time and a lot of people's tents got flooded or a mini river would form and shoot under tents! During setup, volunteers would report to breakfast at 7:30am and get their assignment(s) for the day. I usually bounced everywhere from kitchen duty, hauling stuff around, setting up artist reception areas, stapling drapes to the ceiling (oh fun times!), put up fence sections, digging trenches, running data cable, hanging up signs, and so many things! Our days usually ended with dinner at 6 and then sometimes I would help clean up the kitchen. We also had about 3-5 stages to build of various sizes that other volunteers helped build.

Overall, it was just intense and a lot of fun! During the festival, I was a runner meaning if an artist needed to be picked up or their driver or if they needed something, I'd get called to do it. It was kind of entertaining to do this!

Some of the artists/groups singing at Soulfest were Casting Crowns, Newsboys, Skillet, Third Day, Sanctus Reel, Thousand Foot Crutch, Phil Wickam and the list goes on! I also met this wonderful guy who was also volunteering up at Soulfest, his name is Peter and we have been dating for almost a month now. He is studying film and production type stuff in Massachusetts and is in his last year at college. He loves photography as well and takes gobs of pictures everywhere we go.

In August, I went camping up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was great being in the mountains again and almost felt like being in the mountains of Idaho, even though I think Idaho's mountains are bigger. It cracked me up to see a site labeled "Boise Rock" which was this boulder the size of 2 living rooms that a man named Thomas Boise used for shelter in a horrible winter storm.

School begins again in September and so does my work study job! Happy to see though that end of my summer hasn't been as bad as the beginning of it, haha!

A Month Later

Wow, a month of summer already gone! Where did it go?

I've been applying for jobs like crazy. I got accepted for one selling Nissans for a good dealership and went through training with them. I realized though that this job was not a good fit for me when I figured out that I would be working 50-80 hours a week and not necessarily make a lot of money. They also sent me home until July 1st (2 weeks time) because I went to Denver for a weekend. Needless to say I won't be returning back to that job.

I've applied to 50+ jobs and started taking different approaches to working because so many people are applying for jobs that you just have to have an edge and do things differently. I have a small pet sitting job taking care of 3 cats and cleaning their litter box. It pays the food bill and its a start. I'm also starting to work with temp agencies and posting to do various odd jobs. It has been an interesting process!

I went to Denver for 6 days and it was great! I had a fun time with my family and it was wonderful to see them. My brother had his portfolio to display where he came up with a restaurant concept and had food to sample to future employers who came to check him and his fellow classmates out. Afterwards, he graduated, I bet he is relieved to be done with school! Then the family headed up to the mountains along with Grandpa Jim and Jennifer. We stayed in a nice cabin for a few days and visited Estes Park. I also got to see a Connecticut friend of mine that is working in Estes Park for the summer.

This past weekend, my friend got married and it was a beautiful wedding. The rain was vicious though as we were in a national park and under a shelter. It being a low budget wedding (you could never tell though!), I happily stayed to help clean up. We had a good joke going when there was a lightening storm happening in the distance and us taking apart a metal event tent that was the size of a carport. After we had everything all packed up, it started raining buckets, it probably was some of the worst rain I've ever seen!

Church has been going wonderful, I know God is there for me even though this summer has been a really rough one, but I'm starting to understand that every summer I've had usually are rough haha. But on the bright side it is really making me put more trust and faith in God which is something I definitely need to do. He is amazing, unchanging and will never let you down!

Where Do I Start!?!

Boy, it has been crazy around here!

I recently moved into my new apartment and am loving it! It is definitely the best place I've lived in Rhode Island thus far! Thank you so much Mom for helping us clean, pack, and move! Thanks also to the wonderful people that helped us move on moving day! Maybe I'll get some pictures up so you can see what it looks like ;)

I loved having my mom here and definitely am missing her! We went all over the place! We went to the casino where I had my internship, to Mystic (Connecticut) and a bunch of random places in Massachusetts! We made sure to also go to the beach one day and it was so peaceful with no one there to walk along the beach and talk to each other. I enjoyed the time spent with my mom so much, every moment is to be cherished since time is short!

Knowing full well how I love to cram as many things as I can into my life, as soon as I dropped off my mom at the airport, I drove off to Connecticut with Melissa to meet up with a few other people then the 5 of us hit the road! We headed to Kentucky to see the Creation Museum! Wow! What an amazing place! I highly recommend it! The website just does not give it enough justice. I went to workshops, planetarium shows, interactive shows, beautiful gardens, and an amazing 2-3 hour tour! It was about a 14ish hour drive from Connecticut with another 45 min to my apartment which isn't too terrible when you have a minivan and 5 people that all got along well! I can mark some more states off my list since we drove through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky! By the way, Pennsylvania is a never ending state that just goes on and on for hours!

My summer job plans have fallen through and I'm seeking a new job, trusting in God that He will provide at the right moment, I just got to have patience! Well, I better get back to unpacking and cleaning up my new place to make it like home! By the way I do have a new address, so if you need it, please let me know! Thanks!