A TOAST

Sitting in my room this morning looking at my blank walls wondering what it will take to make this room seem more like mine and less borrowed i decided to decorate. the problem was that i didn't have anything to put up. no pictures no posters i had already hung the letters i had received from friends and family on my one wall but the white of the other 3 was over powering. then i remembered that i occasionally stick things in my bible that i like to come across and so i cracked open the stiff but well loved binding of the holy book. much to my surprise the thin pages of my bible were choke full of goodies with meaning and home all over them. among the things i found were the following:

school Pic of jill N.

pics of my sisters

camp photo of the trip staff

the best letter my little sister ever wrote me that makes me cry every time

photos of the one and only Lydia Luse

a sherpa note from the beautiful Cait Snyder

a drawing from JR

a book mark with a poem made by the wise Heather Lenahan

notes from sermons and new testament

a cross bookmark made by the talented Dasha

and an add i ripped out years ago with a toast on it:

A Toast

to nearest

to dearest

to the crew

to cahoots

to the ones who've been there

to the ones who'll be there

to dropping everything

to saying anything

to no judgements

to no doubts

to loyalty to trust

to favors

to life longs

to been to long

to nothings changed

to having history

to having your back

to moving away

to never to far

to growing up

to settling down

to your second family

to FRIENDS

I went looking for a reminder of home, and found it in the one place i should have know held home all along.

Dear Friends and family i miss you.

Holiday in New Zealand

Here i am sitting in a nice warm room in Kaikoura New Zealand as it is cool and drizzling outside. i am not in a hostel or a tent but comfortable on the bed of a really good friend from the states. Alicia and I worked at La Vida together along with john who also works here. they both work for creation care studies in new Zealand and Ali has been here for 3 years now. i flew in on saturday and an here for the week visiting and exploring their county side. Sunday we went to church and just hung out resting and getting tours of town and the old convent they live in. On monday (the only good day in the forecast) Ali and i lest and headed north-ish to Nelson lakes for a day and night of tramping (what they call hiking) we had amazing weather and hiked up a valley to a hut and had an amazing but windy ridge walk down the the car the next day and back to the convent in time for tea (in NZ and Oz tea can mean dinner) on our way to nelson lakes on monday we stopped off the side of the road and had about a 5-10 mon walk up la path to pa spot where mother seals drop their baby seals off for a day or two while they go hunt. the babies make there way up a stream to a pool and waterfall and play. there were SO many baby seals it was amazing an watching them i couldn't stop laughing. they have no legs! if you have ever seen a seal walk you will know what i mean. that is NOT what they were made to do. anyway after an early evening last night i got up today feeling good and refreshed. another girl who works here also has a friends visiting so while Ali was working me and the other visiting girl went on our own adventure. we drove over to a seal colony on the other side of town (still only about 10 min away) and took a walk along the coast. we saw a lot of seals, some sea anemone, 3 star fish and a suicidal cow. there was a cow farm on top of the cliffs we walked along and then down some stair and along the water back to the car park. at one point along the water we found a dead little cow that had clearly gotten out of the fence and jumped down the cliff. well he could have been pushed but i am no detective so i will not be making any calls here. after our walk we wandered in town and i got a few post cards then made our way back to the convent for a lovely lunch. I then got to feed some eels that live in the stream across the street with john. we dumped the fish guts from the fish john had speared the day before in the the stream and 4 eels about 2 ft long each came out and ate them. i then ran errands with john and got some NZ sheeps wool yarn and i am back here trying to start a hat and blog at the same time. its almost time for dinner then a night out with the staff. fire and NZ beers on the beach. looking forward to a wonderful remainder of my holiday week. i really like this place.

Trips tripS TRips

In the past month i have some great trips and a few not so great ones. i had wonderful group of all girls. they were lovely and so easy. then i have a not so easy group of co ed year 7s. 9 boys and 4 girls all under my care and the care of a teach (who switched out halfway through the week) both the teachers i worked with were on their cell phones most the week and didnt invest much in the kids. meaning that it was mostly me who was running around trying to make everything happen. the kids were for the most part really good. but they were year 7. so they did a lot of things wrong. I got to work with several great support staff for different activites that we did so that was good and i got some good feedback from them that i handled my wild group very well considering the energy level. after that week i was proud of my self. last week was on canoe support so that meant that i was a helper on the canoe part of 2 different groups journeys. We were in Kangaroo Valley in NSW (my first time in the new state) it was so pretty and very foggy every morning with only 1 day of rain that was not so bad and loads of warm sun. I started on one side of the lake and canoed across with a group then on wednesday at lunch dropped that group off and went right back with a new group. the first half of my week the GL had it all under control but the 2nd half the GL was tired and loved having my help. luckily i got along very well with Bri ( the GL) so didn't mind stepping in and acting as a GL 2. i had a great week with the boys even though it was very tiring. Because of our numbers we had uneven number of people so i was paddling a canoe solo for the entire week. but i am stronger now. i have great pictures but they are one on this computer so you may want to check facebook if i ever get to uploading on there. thankfully that trip lead in to 2 weeks of holiday so here i am in New Zealand recovering and enjoying time off before the first week of term 2 starts. one down 3 more to go!