What's been going on?

Hi everyone! I'm going to put the 100 thing on hold for now and tell you what I've been up to lately. Wanna hear about it? okhereitgoes...

Two Fridays ago Erin, Stuart and I piled into Stu's car and drove two hours to Reno. We went after work, so when we got there Reno was lit up in all it's glory. We had a fabulous White Trash Extravaganza with the casinos, pawn shops, trashy souvenir shops and our sketch motel room with a mirror the size of the entire wall behind the beds. We had a great time livin' it up in the biggest little city in the world.

Then the following Sunday, I got on a plane (which almost didn't happen because of departure date confusion. Luckily I got on standby) and flew to the Gulf to visit the four Silver teams working down there. I stayed in the Hands On Gulf Coast housing in Biloxi for three nights while I visited three of the teams and worked with each of them for a whole day. Then I stayed at Camp Hope while I visited the Silver team that was cooking for the camp. Now, you may remember that working in the kitchen at Camp Hope was one of my projects last year. But since I left, Camp Hope has relocated into a partial redone middle school that is down the road from the old location. This new Camp Hope is fantastic! Full walls that go all the way up to the ceiling, several lounge areas, a huge kitchen, no concern over getting sick from just living there, it was a palace compared to the old camp. I now laugh every time someone complains about this Camp Hope. They don't know how good they have it!

It was the first time I had been in that area since I left it last August. I drove by the boxing gym that I helped rebuild last year and just sat and watched one of the boxing practices. It was so wonderful to see the gym being used as it was intended to be used and just sit and remind myself that, yeah, I was a part of this. And this is good.

So now I am back in Sacramento. I loved visiting all of my teams, but this week made me realize how much my muscles have weakened from sitting in my office since October.

What is in store for me now, you ask? Well, I am still supporting my Silver teams and making sure that they are all taken care of from my end. I will also be helping with the Summer of Service, or SOS, program that NCCC will be running here this summer. SOS is like a mini NCCC experience for high schoolers for three weeks. You could also think of it as summer camp with service thrown in. There will be 100 14-17 year olds living here on base with 30 Corps Members acting as their team leaders and 3 Team Leaders acting as unit leaders. It is going to be one crazy, fun, rowdy time and I can't wait to do whatever needs to be done for the program.

That's all I have time for now. Next week The Momma is coming down here to visit for the first time, so I'll write about that soon.