twas the night before thanksgiving...

hello everyone,

i'm lounging here in my bed on thanksgiving eve. it's all quiet here, and very relaxing right now. i'm so completely wiped out right now from the day. i'm probably going to bed soon actually.

yesterday i got the stomach flu passed lovingly from teammate to teammate this past week, and hopefully stopping with me. yesterday, i was sickkkkk. i'll spare you the details, but let's just say i still can't successfully keep a meal down. yeah... so i've been feeling pretty weak i suppose, and not up to my full potential.

today we switched it up a bit and got out of the schools. we spent the day in a local community and we started by cleaning up an elementary school playground. there was so much trash there, and some of my team also worked with graffiti removal. it was sad to see such a cool playground made to look trashy with all of the spray paint. after this the team walked around the neighborhood with community members and picked up trash along with graffiti removal.
one of my teammates had just repainted over a sign to remove the tagging, and walked back before it had even dried and it was re-tagged. it's pretty pathetic.

anyway tomorrow is thanksgiving. it doesn't really feel like it, but it's alright. my team is here with me and we're all feeling mighty similar. i'm thankful for them and to know that i do have a huge loving family i could be with right now. that knowledge is more than enough for me.

i'm thankful for love, slurpees, sunshine, and the One who never stops blessing me with it.

-Abigail- InProcess.

Hi there; how are things?

Just a small update. Learning Landscapes is a fun program to be involved with. They are making a huge difference in Denver Public Schools. The playgrounds they provide for the kids is inspiring. I've been thinking a lot about my home town, Saginaw, and ideas on how to get things like this started. We've all seen the statistics on how much physical activity helps a child with life in general, and on top of all of that, these playgrounds build a sense of pride in the community.


I'm really appreciating living with a team of people. I think it's really preparing me for a lot of things in future. Everyone has so much to offer and each of my team members has a specific strength to give to the team. We all can learn a lot from on another. We enjoy working together and have really great team work, and consideration for one another so far.

So real quick little story. I went running today and was listening to my iPod and descending as I was running when all of the sudden... A coyote bolts out in front of me! It was about 3 feet from me. I had a mini heart attack (it woulda been the same if anything would have bolted out in front of me) But I did turn around and go the other way. It was cool, but a bit scary at the same time.

One more thing, I have the prettiest campus around. Just admire this...

Round One

Round One of NCCC has officially started. We are stationed here on campus in Denver.
There is one other team from another unit here with us, but even so, it's so quiet here! It's nice, but I do miss everyone in the program who are away. A lot of people in the Gulf this round. We're fairly sure we will be as well next project. coooool beans.

So since my last update, lots of things have happened.

I'll do my best at a quick overview.

So, really exciting night last Wednesday. I went with my friend Jill to Rob Bell's tour Drop Like Stars. This was his best, I think. He is one of the best speakers I've ever had the privilege of listening to. He's captivating and interesting. In my opinion, the way it should be when you are talking about Jesus! It's exciting!

Here's a picture of the crazy dude : ] I would highly recommend getting a copy of this tour on DVD or trying to see it for yourself.

So after this, I got to meet some people from the church Bloom I'd attended, including Michael Gungor which was cool for me because he's a great worship leader/writer. Next I got to meet and chat with the lead singer from the Fray. He was at the tour, but not a lot of people recognized him it seemed like. It's funny how if people knew, they would have probably been swarming. I'm a dork though and I got a picture with him. The next person I got to meet was Rob Bell himself. We helped them load up their tour bus afterwards because I was with someone who knew him. Really neat to talk with him and the crew afterwards.

________________

On Satuday almost all of the teams had left for their projects. There were a few teams that hadn't left yet, so we had fun this weekend being silly.
we played a hallway game of bowling with our nalgenes.

I promise you, life's more fun without much money to worry about.











Me and Roomie are on the same team, and I'm so glad. we're a great pair. We took this awesome picture and want to make christmas cards out of it!
i love her <3
we both love Dove chocolates. you can always send them to us ;]







On Monday we started our first projects. We had orientation, and our sponsor is such a sweet lady. The rest of the day we went into a grade school. We helped with the art class. We painted banners that the kids had drawn to illustrate different good qualities. These banners are going to be hung in their new playground.
This project is wayyy fun. The time will pass by so fast from this point on.




I love you all and thank you for the constant support I've been shown,

In Process,

Abigail

Americorp NCCC

i love it here, i love it here, i love it here!

it's so awesome when you feel so reinforced by your feelings, they let me know this exactly where i need to be. already my lens on life has been changing, i can feel it. i know it's for good though.
i feel like i already have a deeper meaning to what service is.

it's not glamorous. it's not fun all of the time, but it's good.

a really neat part about this program is that there is a huge emphasis on Service Learning. this ensures that there is no way you can get through a project without taking some of the responsibility on your shoulders. not like a weight to be taken on by yourself, but to be shared with our community.

So we found out our permanent teams Thursday and where we were serving on our first project on Friday............... we are staying here in Denver doing Landscape Learning. It's going to be an incredible project for the first round. It will include working directly with elementary school kids and on their playgrounds doing landscaping. We will be at different schools every week including Columbine (which will be interesting in and of itself) I'm not upset at all about staying here the first round. I mean, what a cool city to be in and what an awesome project to get?

On Saturday we had some team building and went to one of the best parks I've even been to. It's called Washington Park, and there were people everywhere just moving. This is such an active community. This picture is of the little pond in the middle of it.




We took an (almost) team picture at the park.
We were missing one guy, Mike.

I'll just name off my team from this picture starting from the left top of the branch

Emily, Steven, Gordy, Amanda, Yasi, Meghan, Tana, Me, Julia, Dequan, Sarah, Melissa, and my awesome team leader- Lauren.
So we have a full team of 13 people not including the TL. The 15 passenger van trips will be interesting : ]



On Sunday me and some friends went to volunteer at a Children's Museum.
It was one of those places that you know you would have loved growing up. There was everything... trains, firetrucks, grocery shops, art, clay, a mini dance studio.
Things like this make me want to move to Denver.


Love you guys,

Abigail

lots of excitement.

This week has been fun & exciting! We've been in lots of final trainings and been eating a lot of bag lunches though not for much longer!... i'm not too sad about that part : ]
on monday we had unit time, which is supposed to be bonding/learning with your unit (about 60 of us) we went to the Nature and Science Museum. It was so sweet. there were cool exhibits about animals/space/gems/the human body and other sciencey things. i felt like a little kid in a candy shop. i kept getting excited about all of the cool things. i felt like i could be in there for hours.
there was an awesome human body exhibit that involved you getting a card in the beginning, and you would insert the card and be tested on different things. At the end you got a print off at your health etc. There was this cool "control your brain waves" game that you see in this picture.
you tried to move a metal ball across to your oponents side by using your brain. i guess it's all about relaxing, and i failed miserably, ha ha. there was also a- see what you look like at age 70... i chose to not get a picture of that, because it freaked me out.... because i looked so good ; ] ...yeah that's it!

the next place we went on our day was Boulder, CO. This is a neat college town. These girls Liz, me, Jessie, and Tana went exploring for the time we were there. We wandered about, saw some really weird/cool stores and got drawn in by the candy store : ]
This lady we ran into on the way back who took this picture for us taught us a universal handshake. apparently it's all the rage across the world. ask me when i come back and i'll teach you!



I love Denver for how random the weather is. This picture shows how crazy it can get. There was still snow on the ground from the huge snow storm we got 2 days prior, but in this picture it shows most of it melted and we were comfortably in shorts and t-shirts building snowmen.

So... exciting news... We found out our permanent teams last night!!! We had a day long class on diversity which was good but very long because we were all filled with anticipation. Our unit had a giant scavenger hunt to find where our team leader/team was. It was fun because a group of us would be walking together somewhere and wondering if this was our team, and then we would end up going separate ways. We wound up in the NCCC offices with a masked figure sitting behind the desk. We all had to answer a riddle before it took it's mask off. Once we got it, it was our team leader and we were with our team!
My team leader's name is Lauren, and she's so nice. She will be awesome to spend this year with.
As far as my permanent team, I'm totally happy. It's always a bit sad when you make friends who won't be on your team, but that will make it exciting to all meet back here for transition week. I will have pictures of my team soon to show you guys. We find out where we'll be serving/what we'll be doing tonight! So excited.

Today is training for specific jobs that we have on our teams. I'm the portfolio editor, which basically is putting a project summary together each project. It will be a good job for me, and nobody else wanted to do it. I can edit/delegate/and make a deadline : ]

love you all so very much and have an awesome day!

in process-
abigail d.