Wow, what a beautiful ride. The weather was really nice and so was the
scenery. I was sweep with Kathryn so we took it nice and slow, over
many rolling hills. I very much enjoyed the hills after lots of
fairly flat land. It was the longest ride I have accompished thus far
and that felt great. Because we were sweep and therefore the last
riders in, we came in late. I need to give a shout out to Kathryn
because this was her first day back on her bike after resting her knee
for a couple days. Not only was this the longest day any of us have
done, but it had hills! I am so so proud that she made it the whole
way, even through the last couple miles of horrendous hills right
before the church. It was a great day to sweep :) Dinner that evening
was amazing and so was the sky. There was a thunderstorm and then a
double rainbow. Jen, Laura, Andy and I stood outside for several
hours, just watching the sky change. The rainbow, sky, clouds and
sunset combination was breathtaking. So beautiful. I love nature!
Build day 1 and 2
Yes build day!!!! Slept in until 7 am which was great, and then
shuttled over to the Kansas City Habitat office. From there we split
into two groups, one for the warehouse to build walls, and the other
to deconstruct and reconstruct front porch steps from one of the first
Habitat houses built in KC. The KC Habitat is actually one of the
oldest Habitat affiliates (7th) of Habitat for Humanity International.
I worked with the porch group with our great constuction leader Jim,
who was a lot of fun to work with. It reminded me of working at my
home and school Habitat build sites. We finished that project in a day
and a half, and then moved back to the warehouse to build some dog
houses and organize lumber. The dog houses were made from scrap lumber
and to be sold at the ReStore, which I thought was a great idea. Lunch
both days was amazing! They grilled for us and had kabobs and pasta
and baked beans among other great foods. At the end of our first build
day we got free tickets to the Royals baseball game! So much fun! The
ball park had waterfalls, fountains and fireworks! The night of our
second build day I was able to meet up with two dear friends from
home, Jessy and Erica, it was so nice to go out to Panera bread and
Coldstone with them. A town hall meeting with warm fuzzies and later
journaling and blogging ended the night well.
Sent from my iPod
Hi Kristen!
ReplyDeleteTo follow up from yesterday's post, orientation is going great. I've had a great time getting to know the rest of the girls. "Break out" did mean splitting into color teams-i'm green. We used those groups for our challenges today, but I'l tell you about that in the letter I sent today. I guess the letter that I sent from Chicago airport didn't work, so I'm resending it now.
Yesterday was pretty good at ski. We did our lost swimmer drill and I managed to wrangle myself a spot that didn't include diving 13 feet down into a bunch of muck :) I lined the girls up and counted them off as they dove! I did a pretty awesome job if I do say so myself :) I also know that I have practiced that several times and some of the newer girls are afraid of the lake, so this was a good time for them to acclimate themselves to what they would have to do in an emergency situation. I wasn't being ALL selfish :) The only bad part was that someone tossed thier goggels onto the dock when they finished and they bounced off the other side. Goggels sink...and they were aiming to go straight into the drop off...so I lunged...and cut my knee to shreds. We put sand in the paint so that the dock isn't slippery when whet and I definately felt that yesterday! I'm fine, but I'm going to have a very cute knee for a few weeks :) Then we got to be annoying little kids so swim could practice running the buddy system. I think I played my role excellently! Then Miranda lit off demonstration flares on the beach so the ski staff would know what to expect in case of emergency... the pyrotechnic parachute flare may have landed somewhere on the owners front porch....not where it was intended to go! Don't tell Jim and Sue!
We didn't really do much today at ski because the "safety in camp" lecture dragged on forever. We practiced how to backboard if the injured person is wereing a wakeboard and started going over the study guide I made. We just finished meeting to go over it a few hours ago...took forever! I'm excited for tomorrow when we find out our bunks!!! I want to be with the junior B's (10 year olds) but so does everone else, so we'll see. I'll probably text you tomorrow when I find out. Have a great day biking tomorrow!