Last Days of Training=Drama at the Preschool

Thursday- Well we had to be at training at 8 again today and we had to practice the skit that we had to perform for the parents that night at parent orientation.  I was Safety Girl!  Woo-hoo!  After that we played some tag games that we could teach our kids, and then we started working on the tshirts and packets again.  After a little bit it was time for lunch, and then back to work on the packets and get ready.  We learned some more songs also during this time, and started shooting the video that was supposed to be played at parent orientation, but the editing program didn’t work so we couldn’t edit the video after we shot it.  Around 4:25 everything was set up and ready to go for parent orientation at 6:30, but parents were arriving at 6:00 to go ahead and pick up their tshirts and packets.  We were told to go get ready cause we had to wear our staff shirts and jeans.  We got back around 4:45 and had subway before then got ready for orientation.  Everything went super smoothly, and a lot of the parents said it went much better than years previous so that’s so exciting!! After that we all went to go get ice cream at only the best place ever for ice cream, Creole Creamery!  It was AWESOME.  

Friday- LAST DAY OF TRAINING!  It started at 8.  We had to to put all of the chairs up from the orientation and then we had our devotion.  After that we started the wonderful CPR training.  I am now officially certified, as well at First Aid certified.  That is pretty much all we did, but it took all day.  We did work on stuff we needed for week one with our groups for a little bit.  After training we had staff night!  We went to a place called Juan’s Flying Burrito and it totally had the best guacamole ever!  After that we went to Sucre which is the most delicious dessert ever! They have a bunch of different things to get, but it was really really good! After that everybody was super super tired and then we all got to sleep in Saturday! Yay!   Oh I forgot about the stuff that happened Friday!  On our way to Sucre we saw like a police chase that was like super scary close to us.  Now for the scariest part of the day we went into lockdown right before lunch.  We found out that there was a guy running from a shooter that jumped the fence and got onto campus and ran into the preschool!  He was covered in blood, and the preschool had get all of the children back away from the windows.  It was very terrifying, but everything was okay because the actually shooter didn’t actually come onto campus.  That is all hear-say though so remember that.  That was terrifying to not know exactly what is going on and just hearing a shooter was on campus which wasn’t really true.  Anyways that was enough excitement to last me all summer!  

Team Blue

Okay so let’s start with Tuesday.  Tuesday we spent most of our time with a behavior aide person telling us about different ways to discipline, the types of parenting you will see, how to keep children on tasks, autism, and ADHD.  Pretty much all of this was just like a review for some of my classes.  I felt so smart listening to Ms. Kathy talk.  Her specialty is preschool so I automatically loved her and the way she taught.  After that which took most of the day, we found out what age groups and who our co-councilors are.  I am officially going to be working with “Group 5”, or “Team Blue”, or 5th graders.  I am kind of nervous since the only kids I work with these days are early childhood which basically means birth-8 years old.  I normally stay to the younger side though unless I am teaching DNOW which then normally means junior high and then even that is just girls.  I don’t think I am not going to be able to handle it or anything crazy like that, and I know that God has a reason for everything.  Bri is my co-councilor and I think we are going to have a lot of fun together, and with the kids.  We got done around 5:00, and then at 6:00 me, Jessica U., Becca, and Hannah went to eat at Camellia Grill which was PHENOMENAL!!   We then went down to the quarter and had the wonderful Cafe de Monde.  It is definitely a place you must visit when coming to NOLA.  After some time just walking around we came back to campus and went to bed.  

Now to today. (Wednesday) Today we got to training and went straight to curriculum stuff after devotion.  Bri and I planned out the first two weeks for the study.  The them for the camp is “Heros.”  The first 5 weeks are Old Testament heros, and then the last 5 weeks are talking about how God/Jesus is our main hero.  Bri and I have some pretty awesome ideas of what to do with “Team Blue” and I will most definitely be posting pictures of a lot of stuff once we get started.  After that Dr. T and Dr. Stringer talked to us about kids and salvation, but we didn’t get far before the next speaker got there to talk about problem-solving with kids.  Her name was Leslie, and she was very nice.  After that we got a list of our kids, and had to call all of the parents to remind them about parent orientation tomorrow night.  I have one boy and he is autistic and his mom was telling me all about how much he loves coming to camp every year and has already been talking about it since Christmas.  I am thrilled and can’t wait to meet all of my kids.  After that it was around 6 and at 6:30 we ordered pizza and started putting together the kids teachers, and parent packets.  We were there until 9:00!!! I got back to my dorm around 9:30, and now I am doing this.  I am finally watching tv since I’ve been here and I watched House Hunters, and now How I Met Your Mother, and some Good Luck Charlie.  Oh, btw, I HATE that Scotty won.  He makes me so mad, and angry, and I hate the way he sings, SO MUCH!  Okay back to NOLA, tomorrow we have to be there at 8 instead of 9, and I am super tired so I am going to bed very soon!  Tomorrow is supposed to be the most stressful day of all summer so this should be fun...prayers are welcome!

First Day

So I am officially in New Orleans!!  I was here for the weekend with the family and we went down to the french quarter and walked around!  It was really fun.  Today was the first day of camp though and we had orientation.  Dr. T is amazing and I will be talking about her a lot for the rest of the summer.  She is the director of the preK camp.  She is in love with orphans, and is an UA graduate!  Roll Tide, y'all.  Her roommate/bff is Dr. Stringer who is the camp coordinator which means she is all of our bosses.  Krista is the nicest person in the WORLD.  She is the director of the camp I am working with is the kids.    I love it!  All we did today is learn awesome games, and songs, and toured the campus!  There is a LifeWay in the student center! OMG!  Becca, Jessica (my roommate), and Hannah all live in the dorm as well.  Hannah is from Montgomery and knows everybody from BTW apparently.  I didn't ask about Bethany or anything...yet.  Hannah, Jessica, and I are all state missionaries and are all from Alabama.  Roll Tide.  I will attempt to blog a whole lot more once more things start happening, but for now life is awesome, and I was always meant to be a camp staffer.

OMG I forgot!!  There is a freaking two-story Target here.  AMAZING.

NOLA

Okay let's forget I ever posted anything before this.  IT'S ALMOST NEW ORLEANS TIME!!!!!!  I am in love with camps, and cannot wait to be there being a part of one.  I am in the midst of getting fully prepared to make my way to Louisiana. Today I went shopping all day looking for space bags!  It was truly a very difficult task, but Target is the place!! Who doesn't love Target?!  I really cannot get over that the time is almost here for me to go to NOLA for the entire summer.  That's such a long time doing something that I love doing.  3 days till I am in NOLA for the summer.  Let the countdown begin, y'all!

Celebrate The Day

It has been way way WAY too long thanks to my laziness.  It has been a long time, but nothing really has happened at all.  The entire week leading up to Christmas I feel like I went to Huntsville every day!!  I got to eat at Rosie's TWICE, and I think I went to LifeWay at least 5 times.  One day we even took a trip to the wonderful, fabulous Nashville.  My mom wanted to go so we just took a family day trip.  It was glorious, and I cannot wait to live there!!
The lovely day of Christmas Adam our family went to go see the Galaxy of Lights in Huntsville.  I can't remember ever seeing them before, and I want to go every year now for sure.  They were absolutely gorgeous!  There were SO many!  I want to go back again before New Year's but idk whether or not that will happen.  Let's move on the Christmas!!!  Christmas Eve was so very busy.  We had Christmas with my mom's family for lunch, then Christmas Eve service at church (where we didn't even sing O Holy Night.  CRAZINESS), and then Christmas at my dad's family.  I receive the most beautiful red coat from my mom's family.  It was the EXACT one I wanted and I'm wearing it everyday for the rest of my life!  Okay maybe not, but a lot!  I just want to say that I am very very very thankful for everything I receive for Christmas because I honestly don't NEED any of it, but it was absolutely ridiculous how much my cousin's received at my mom's family Christmas.  Meredith and I were completely stunned.  It was just crazy.  Anyways we stayed there until time to go to the service and then after that off the my Granny and Peepaw's!   My family on that side is so insane and I have the most adorable cousin ever, Lily!  My grandmother painted this gorgeous dolphin statue type thing.   Okay it's really hard to explain, but it's pretty and I love it.  We then played dirty santa and I almost lost my gorgeous "winter wear" I brought for the game.  Luckily I got to keep it!  After a little bit we came home and attempted to open our "pajama presents."  Things didn't really work out, but it didn't bother me any!
Christmas morning was absolutely amazing.  I woke up around 7:30 to go to the restroom and then when I laid back down in my bed I checked fbook on my phone and saw everybody's status about snow.  I jumped up, and looked out my window.  I have NEVER seen that much snow on Christmas day.  I can't remember having snow ever on Christmas day.  It was so gorgeous, and amazing I forgot to go look at my gifts from Santa.  I ran in Meredith's room to show her, but she didn't care.  Crazy girl.  Anyways I most definitely got fabulous gifts for Christmas.  A brand new tv was a huge, unexpected, gift. I also got some books I wanted, Harry Potter Clue, a awesome muffin pan thing with swoosh A's, some movies/tv show series, jewelry, too much money for clothes that I am very thankful for and can't wait to spend on a million cardigans, awesome daisy lights for my bug, candy, cute picture holder thing, pocket book calendar, an Alabama toiletry bag thing, a game that we must take back because "Santa" bought the naughty version on accident, and of course pajamas.   I am very thankful for everything I got, and definitely feel very spoiled.  Meredith got Glee and our mom is totally addicted.  It's so funny, but I think it's kind of awesome.
Now that Christmas is over I am just awaiting Passion!!!  This week is sure to be filled with shopping and packing.  I can't wait for New Years, but am not looking forward to be going back to school extremely too soon.  Oh well I am happy to be home now.


CHECK OUT SOME PHOTOS! :)

My adorable dog Daisy on Christmas day!

Meet Lily!  (I stole this picture from her Christmas card pictures)

Oh, it's salt.

Can I just say the past weekend has definitely been pretty awesome.  First let me start off by saying that finals week was very hard, and I legit thought I failed a class but that's just me for you.  I actually ended up with all A's and B's!!!!  Craziness has occurred.  I have NEVER done that in college.  God is just amazing!  Okay enough about school, it's Christmas break!


Saturday my wonderful, fantastic, fabulous, awesome, amazing, Jesus-loving/serving friends came to Tuscaloosa!  I met Courtney and Lacey in the best city, Nashville, at SLA.  Needless to say these girls are absolutely some of my favorite people ever.  It had been way too long since I had seen either one of them.  The weekend was just filled with just sitting around and talking about our lives and the stuff that's going on.  It was just so awesome to have deep conversation with such Godly people.  There were definitely tears and laughter during these conversations.  I love being able to be so honest with them and not worrying about what they are thinking and they feel the same about me!  It's amazing how we can go so long without talking, but nothing has changed with our friendship.  It just shows that Fuge can provide you with some very quality friends.  


Tuesday I came home and did absolutely nothing!  It was fabulous.   I just laid on the couch and talked to Meredith.  We had to go to the G'parents house and on the way home we just cranked up the radio and sang 12 days of Christmas by Relient K as loud as we could.  It was so much fun, and just shows how crazy we might be.  I love just being home not have to worry about absolutely anything.  I also love the cold weather, and I hope it stays freezing especially since the heat is actually turned on in my house unlike in Tuscaloosa (most of the time).  


I feel like this is appropriate and I hope everybody is enjoying the Christmas season thus far!  Enjoy!
Merry Christmas!

iPad

So I want an iPad.  I probably wouldn't use it for this, but it's still very awesome.