I cannot believe it’s that time again.. time to pack my bags and leave. The week before leaving is the absolute worst. I feel like i’ve finally adjusted to being home, and have happy friends, love my job, and enjoying spending time with my parents.. But that is exactly when it’s the perfect time to leave. Being in my comfort zone means it’s time to push myself to the limits and head onto new adventures.
My LA plans have kind of gone kaputz… Sooo i’ll be working on sorting something out tonight. Many friends are busy and have flaked. Hopefully everything works out. I will be in LA for 3 days then San Fransisco for 6 days, is the plan right now. After my days in San Francisco I will head onto Sacramento via train to begin my summer as a Sierra Service Project Site Director on June 9th.
While my adventures in Arizona aren’t quite the same as my traveling adventures they have still been a blast! I was participating in Ultimate Frisbee League and my team made it to semi finals on the windiest day in Arizona History! haha maybe not in history but it was insane. Trying to throw a friz through the wind was insane. It changed our team, well and every teams game. I was so lucky to have a great team and learned so many things playing. For the end of the season awards I was given “Southern Comfort” because the level of comfort I got with the disc over the season improved so much. I made a lot of goals during the season and did my best to accomplish them all. I still have tons of room for improvement but my game has definitely changed.
My friend Adam and I have gone on two camping trips, both extremely different. One trip was roughing it and awesome. We camped on a forrest service road near Pine, AZ. We originally intended to visit Fossil Creek but they limit the number of people who can do the hike each day. We hiked around this reservoir for the day and then set up camp. We had an awesome fire and an amazing meal (steak, corn on the cob, potato salad, & grilled sweet onions) that Adam made. There were three adorable adventurous dogs with us. The second camping trip I would call glamping to say the least.. Or glamourous camping. Some friends rented a cabin in Pinetop. We went horseback riding and enjoyed being outside, threw the frisbee, and ate at a local brewery. The air mattress we were sleeping on deflated during the night and ended up sleeping outside on the hammocks. It was beautiful to wake up to the fresh air and sunshine. We ate breakfast then headed back down to Phoenix. It was just a day trip for us but well worth it.
Working with Molly has been an absolute blast! She is like a record player with all her new words, phrases, and mini sentences. It’s been so much fun trying to understand what she is saying, and just her speaking in general is great. She has grown so much during my time with her. It will deifnitely be hard to leave her but I know she is in good hands. Her new nanny has been working with me all this last week and she definitely likes her a lot. It’s crazy though how attached you become after spending so many hours a week with her. I can only imagine what it’s like to have your own kiddos…!
I got to visit my site (Walker River) where I will spend the summer directing my Sierra Service Project Site. It was really great to meet a bunch of people on the reservation and see where we will stay, some of the houses that have requested to have work done. There are a lot of exciting things for the summer. The community is so excited to have SSP back again and I think it should be awesome! I went on a thursday and flew in and out of Reno the same day!
Sierra Service Project also held a community work day in Phoenix at UMOM. I didn’t lead but went to volunteer with my dad. UMOM is a long term homeless shelter. The volunteer coordinator gave us a great tour of the facility and they have some awesome things to help people like resume help, a medical office where they can be treated for free, a cafe where they can learn to cook. The people can stay up to four months at UMOM. We painted the inside of the youth gym. We had a little spiritual sandwich where we talked about the cost of living and the difficulties for a homeless person who has a minimum wage job and daily expenses to make any money without help. It was an eye opening experience for a lot of the youth. SSP is planning on adding a lot more weekends of service and opportunities for SSP community to serve at UMOM in the upcoming years.
My friends threw me an incredible going away party Friday night before my flight on Saturday. All my close friends made it and everyone had so much fun. Adam surprised me with a cake and a little toast session :) Saturday was really hard to leave. Some of the guys and I at my going away party :)
Lots & lots of Love & Hugs!
Nicole
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