day 30

we stayed the night at laura's friend's house in bettendorf (i have no idea how that's spelled, so i made it up)
her friend (whose name is ann) has the coolest dad EVER.
when we got up in the morning, we had breakfast and then......

you guessed it!

WE DROVE!

day 29

i woke up early(ish) and ran. then....

we drove.

we gotta swing through indianapolis ril quick and SEE MISS GABRIEL AGAIN!!!!!!!!!! woop woop!!

then we drove some more.

and we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove.

we pretty much just kept driving......

and driving and driving and driving and driving...

i think you get the idea.

day 28

we pretty much had another regular day at the tourney!
it was championship sunday, and it ran pretty smoothly..
the only thing that really went wrong was that our stupid inflatables could NOT stay up!!!! it was windy, but not like insane hurricane-ey winds or something like that, so idk what the deal was. that dang soccer ball one was being impossible. i wanted to set it over at the corner of the soccer complex for a little "time out". we kept trying to stake it to the ground in different ways, but it wasn't working. by noon, we were having to run and set it back up every like, 10 minutes. it kept falling on people, which was awkward because it fell slowly enough that only oblivious people should be getting caught in it. whatevs..
[i have a feeling that i'm going to stab that thing with some scissors by the end of the summer]

anywhoo, after the tourney we packed up...same old, same old.
the group of guys that we were PAYING to help us pack up weren't doing squat, so that was frustrating. but then out of nowhere the wind picked up and we could see huge scary storm clouds rolling in, and all of a sudden those lazy guys were up on their feet packing stuff up faster than gangsta rap.

all in all, we were done cleaning up from the tourney pretty early. that was nice. then we went back to the hotel and slept for a verrrry long time. when we woke up, we went to dinner (laura, stefan, and i) at an irish place. not surprising, since everything in this area is irish. i got fish and chips, because that's just what needs to happen in irish-ville.

after dinner it started raining uncontrollably, so the three of us decided to end our tri-date right and we all watched a movie. i dozed in and out of it and laura definitely passed out after the first 7 minutes, but stefan was a trooper and he watched all of it. haha i'm sure it was a fantastic movie though....the parts i remember watching were just dandy.

so after the movie ended, stefan went to his room and laura and i went to bed.

shazam.

oh, ps - i realized during our tri-date that stefan's name is spelled "stefan" and not "stephen" so....i apologize for the confusion that i'm sure all of our readers have suffered over the past few days. but i'm not going back into our old posts to fix it so......y'all can deal. =]

day 27

we had to get up earrrrrrrrly. :(
we left for the fields at 530, then when we got there we set things up and just kind of got ready to go. then the tourney started. things went well, we had refs for all of the fields (ref coordinator dan, aka demon dan, isn't working this tourney), etc.
basically we just sat around in hq for most of the day. we had to go do little things, like record scores and fix goals, but nothing major. one annoying thing was that our stupid upper 90 inflatable kept blowing over, so we had to go keep fixing it and re-staking it to the ground. ugh.
but overall it wasn't bad. last round of games started at 130 so we were done by 2 and ready to roll around 245, meaning we didn't have to miss much of the usa vs ghana game. (in hindsight, it probably would've been better to miss that game anyway)
after we watched the game, i chatted with miss gabriel on ze phone while i juggled a soccer ball and just wandered around the hotel. meanwhile, laura slept like a rock.
around 6 we showered and got ready to go, then stephen, laura, and i went to the columbus crew soccer game vs dc united. woop woop! it was fun - crew won 2-0 (although their first goal was kind of iffy - stephen and i saw a handball, as did the dc players) - and then it rained during our drive back to the hotel. now i'm just chillin in the room, gonna watch a movie and fall asleep....

we get to sleep in until 630 tomorrow! ...... :(
haha

gute nacht!

day 26

um..

so we set up the goals and unloaded stuff/laid stuff out and.....it was a long day.
then we showered and went to check-in at sport's authority, where over 10 people asked us where things were in the store and what prices for things were. and every time we had to explain to them that WE DON'T WORK HERE (hence the blue polos that say "kick-it 3v3 soccer" on them)
wowza.
after check-in we went to pf chang's for din din. it was very good, but it was freezing inside the restaraunt.

now we're back at the hotel, ready for bed. long day tomorrow! rollin out at 530! AHH!

nighty night!

day 25

we got up, had breakfast, went to the fields, unloaded juicy juice, painted the field lines, went grocery shopping, and then.....
laura, stephen, and i had a DATE NIGHT!!!! haha we made tacos in me and laura's room and then we watched like 3 episodes of NCIS. tomorrow night we might have another date at the movie theater next to our hotel. haha but more details on that later..

after stephen left, laura and i fell asleep on the couch (we barely fit, but whatever)

then we woke up long enough for laura to go from the couch to her bed, where she went back to sleep. so i went for a 65 minute run and then jumped in our hotel pool (fully clothed) when i got back. the run was amazing - there were lightning bugs everywhere and it was cool and humid.... a perfect summer night =]

when i got back to the room, laura was finally conscious. i showered, then we watched chelsea lately.

now it's time for bed! we have a lot to do at the fields tomorrow!!!

day 24

we drove thru the night last night. at a gas station, laura and i had just finished filling up with gas and were just sitting in the truck thinking about how we really should clean off the bug-covered windshield, when these 2 guys who must've been psychic just randomly climbed up and started to clean our windshield. haha laura and i were LOVIN it! so we gave them some free kick-it shirts before we went our separate ways. they were going to california....i almost jumped in their uhaul. but, for laura's sake, i restrained myself.
otherwise nothing too exciting happened during our drive. it was pretty rough to stay awake at one point, but when i took the wheel around 330, the sky started to brighten around 4 or 5 and soon i was watching the sunrise, jammin to jack's mannequin and SO JAZZED TO VISIT GABRIEL!!!! so i didn't feel all too tired. laura fell asleep at a stoplight though, so....

but anyway, when we got to indianapolis, laura pretty much passed out on the couch at the house gabriel is living at and i was too excited to sleep so i went to gabriel's work site and volunteered for the rest of the day helping out with the kiddos. it was pretty fun! then gabe showed me around the community center thing (which is like the central place for her summer project), introduced me to some people, etc. laura finally woke up at like 4 in the afternoon. then she went to a cafe to get on the internet while me and gabe went for a run. that was sweet cause we could catch up on life while we ran. =]

after that i showered and we all went to a potluck at the community center before laura and i hit the road to drive the rest of the way to columbus.

the drive was pretty uneventful as far as i know. i drove, then slept.

now we're at our hotel (which is sweeeeeeet btw) and tomorrow we paint the fields! gute nacht!

day 21-23

Ref coordinator dan is awful at his job. As if we didn’t already know. But for the first round of games this morning, we were already short EIGHT refs! So all of us road crew and both event directors had to grab a whistle and go ref fields. I’ve decided that reffing is not for me. I kept forgetting I was the ref and I would just be watching the game when all of a sudden some parents would yell at me “that was a foul!” or the two teams would be like “who’s ball is it?” and I would honestly not have a clue. So I did what I do best and I made up an answer. Let’s just say some parents/players didn’t really like that. Haha oops. I wonder how they could take me seriously when I was wearing my bright red sunglasses with stars on the lenses.
So it was a long day. I didn’t get to have lunch until like 4 in the afternoon and I didn’t get to reapply my sunscreen so my nose got very burnt. Boo.
After the tourney finally ended, we packed up and headed out. I’m gonna miss hilary. She wins best event director ever in my book. She’s soooo much fun!! While the boys and laura were packing up the trucks, hil-dawg and I went to “take trash to the dumpsters” which translates into: we went drag racing in the golf carts and almost crashed into Rachel and sarah…twice.
When we got back to the trucks, we found chris and sean throwing cans of sparkling juicy juice as high as they could and then watching them explode when they hit the ground. So hil-dawg, Stephen, laura, and I joined in. so much fun!
After that, laura and I peaced out because we were going to drive through the night so we could be home by Monday morning. We drove through torrential downpour and even hail (but I had no idea it hailed since I was sleeping like a corpse….per usual) so we didn’t get home til 6 in the morning.

I basically slept all day Monday, woke up at 4 pm and ran, then went to o-town to check out christy’s potential wedding dresses with Christy and Nicole. Nicole and I decided we want to wear turtleneck bridesmaids dresses. Who wouldn’t?

Then came home, had din din with the fam, played some soccer with them, some bananagrams, and went to bed. But surprisingly I couldn’t fall asleep. I finally fell asleep around 5 a.m. and slept in until 10, when I had to get up for our Tuesday morning conference call, which I took from the convenience of my own couch while watching world cup games.

Then I watched dirty dancing, and I finally left the couch around 1 to go meet bryan in Omaha to watch the argentina/Greece and Nigeria/korea games. After that I went to schmabriel’s casa to dig around her attic for some stuff to bring to her when I visit her on our way to Columbus!!!!!!

I am sooooo excited!! Laura and I are driving thru the night to Indianapolis and we’ll get to spend the whole day there! Woop woop!!

Anyway, when I finally got home, I got my hair trimmed for the first time in 14 months! Then din din with the fam, more soccer with them, and then I met up with laura for our middle of the night drive. That’s what we’re doing now, so I apologize for any weird capitalization since I’m typing this on Microsoft word.

Anywhoo, we’ll be driving allllll night so………

Later gators!

day 20

we got up earrrrly.
when we got to the fields, we set up and did some last minute things, then the tournament started. it was pretty boring for the most part because since this tourney is like 15 min from the home office, we had a bunch of extra help. ie, we had too many people working (plus volunteers, which we also had a TON of)
so basically i drove golf carts around all day and watched the kettle corn guy stir his kettle corn.

the only issue with the tournament was that referee-coordinator-dan is awful at his job, so we always had 2 or 3 fields without refs on them. not only that, but the fields were running way behind schedule bc of the fact that teams had to wait around for refs. AND ref-coordinator-dan kept stealing all our food. he tried to be stealthy about it, but let's face it - when you're 73 years old, stealthy isn't exactly possible. every time he came to steal something, he would hobble away as fast as he could. like that makes him any less obvious.

he didn't just steal food either. he also stole our walkie-talkies and he kept taking our golf carts. kick-it already pays him a ton of money to do a job that he doesn't do well so whyyyyy does he think he needs to steal stuff on top of that?! oy.
after the games ended, we packed up what needed to be packed up, took one more joy ride in the golf carts while event coordinator hilary yelled at ref coordinator dan for being awful at his job, then we came back to the hotel to enter all of the day's results online. that took FOREVER.

then we went to din din, laughed a lot (i won't go into detail on what we were laughing about, i don't think it needs to be repeated. ever.), came back to the hotel, laughed some more, and now it's bedtime. laura got us all sick so i'm extra tired.

gute nacht!

day 19

got up and watched the u.s. tie slovakia. they should've won though!!!!!! ugh! don't even get me started....

after that laura and i had to go to the home office and drop off some t-shirts/pick up some magnet decals for our truck. the only problem being that the magnets didn't cling to our truck. at all. it was actually kind of funny watching rich (our boss) jump up to put the magnet on, only to have it fall down again. especially the first time, because he took a running start ;] hahaha and these aren't little fridge magnets - they're about 4 feet long and 3 feet wide. so that only added to the madness.

from there we went to the fields to finish setting up for tomorrow. we had to lay out our massive inflatables and tent frames and tables and unload five tons of juicy juice.....etc. only it wasn't as bad as last time because we had golf carts =) those were fun. we went off-roading, cutting cookies in the gravel parking lots and speeding through huge muddy puddles. even our event directors were doing it! lots o' fun. my favorite part was watching chris and sean load the back of their cart up with goals, then try to race me around the parking lot, only to have the goals fly off the back of their cart. ha! idiots....

after we were done at the fields, everyone left and i stuck around to run while laura went to bike at the hotel. then she picked me up, i showered, and we went to check-in at sport's authority.

check-in was great. wanna know why?! because event director hilary took 4 extra-strength aleve. you're only supposed to take 1 every 8-12 hours, and no more than 3 in a 24 hour period. yeah, she took FOUR in a matter of 20 minutes. let's just say she was a little loopy after that. when everyone was like "why on earth did you take FOUR of them?!" her response was "i took 4 before the half marathon and i was fine!" at which point someone said "yeah, because you probably didn't even remember anything after that!"

we were just cracking up the rest of the night. i thought laura was going to pee her pants when she was pretending to hold hands with a mannequin in the section by our check-in tables, which resulted in her breaking it's arm off. i took the arm and put it up my sleeve, which made all of us laugh even harder. then, to top it all off, one of the sport's authority workers walked by and, seeing the mannequin's arm in place of my own, said "oh, do you need a hand?" HAHAHA

when we left sport's authority, we went to dinner at macaroni grill. when rachel (another person on kick-it staff) spilled her water, high-as-a-kite-hilary was on the phone and she started freaking out to the person she was talking to, saying "oh my gosh! rachel just spilled her water." {the person on the other end said something} "no, everyone's staring... we're at a macaroni grill, not like a chile's or something!" haha after that, our waiter brought rachel out a new water, this time in a kiddie cup with a lid. haha what a clever guy.

so anywhoo.....today was pretty fun. i'm a little sunburnt though. :(

and it's bedtime! gute nacht!

day 18

got up. watched soccer.
went to the fields (after realizing we were out of gas - ahem* thanks to CHRIS AND SEAN)
painted fields, the volunteers set up goals, went to pick up the tourney t-shirts (once again, thanks a lot, CHRIS AND SEAN)
came back to the hotel, napped for 3 HOURS.
worked out, watched the lakers beat the celtics (booo!)
showered, now ready for bed.

that is about it.

wait, no it's not. while we were painting fields, assistant event director stephen tried to throw a stake to event director hilary and it landed on the ground. hilary went to pick it up and couldn't find it. laura helped her look while stephen and i looked at each other like "wow those guys are idiots"
after watching laura and hilary struggle, i went to look too. stephen helped out soon after.
i have now concluded that the stake must have vanished into thin air. we looked for a good 40 minutes - first just walking and looking, then taking off our shoes and feeling around, then squatting and using our hands, then hands and knees, and finally we were down to our knees and elbows just crawling around looking for this stupid stake! after the first 10 minutes, it wasn't even about finding that stake anymore. it was about keeping our dignity. well, that was a fail. eventually, we HAD to give up. but i have a feeling that at some point during the tournament you'll see one of us at that field, casually searching for that darn stake. i know for me, it's gonna nag at the back of my mind until one of us finds it.
oy. but i think that was all the excitement for the day.

also, i hate sneezing.
good night!

day 17

lazy day. it was fantastic. laura and i got up early to watch world cup games, i skyped with bryan, laura and i watched more world cup games, then we switched hotels and got groceries...
after that we had to go pick up the other road crew for this denver tourney bc their truck needed a new tire and whatnot and it wouldn't be done til morning. so laura and i were crammed in the front seat of our truck with chris and sean. the four of us, shoulder to shoulder, suffering from a mad case of butt sweat. the boys made fun of laura's driving (and for good reason), then laura and i serenaded them with some top notch sing-alongs to seether and all american rejects. those boys are lucky to have us.
when we got back, we just sat around some more, and then finally went to work out.
then i skyped with trav before i showered and went to bed.
easy peasy.

the real work starts in the morning!

day 16

sooooooooo.

today we had to be into the home office at 9 to do some stuff. as laura and i guessed, it was pretty pointless. we sorted some parts in the warehouse, kicked a soccer ball around with the warehouse guy, laid out our inflatables (which were soaked with rain water from last weekend), and somehow managed to get them back into the truck (they probably weigh like 300 lbs when they're rolled up. no joke.)

and that was all. oh but while we waited for rich (our "boss") to give him the inventory of medals we counted, we walked by the conference room like 20 times to see if he was out of meetings yet. awkward. haha we tried to make it casual, but we were definitely just creepin on by the conference room, completely obvious.

when we FINALLY got out of there around 2, we came back to our hotel and napped for like an hour and a half. then we went to a park to work out.

wowza.

we should've seen it coming (the park was called "martin luther king park") but when we got to the park, laura and i were the only white people in sight. like, i honestly think we did our workout in the projects. sooooo ghetto.

but we survived! no gun shots [no caps were busted] and nobody threatened to "cut" us.

a successful trip through the hood. yay =]

after that we came to back to the hotel, showered, laura spilled rice all over our sink, and we left for BOULDER!!!!!!!

we walked around and looked at the creeps and street performers for a bit, then we went to bj's to have a PAZOOKIE (a giant cookie that might be a taste - or like 4000 calories - of heaven)

after that we made a sign that said "miss you" on one side and "boulder suckaz!" on the other [guess which side was my idea ;D haha] and we went around to some hippies and took photos with them, holding up the sign.

when we finally left boulder, we had to fill up with gas. since the gas station itself was closed, laura just squatted under our truck and peed. i'm not even kidding. i just sat in the truck and pretended to have some very important business to do on mah cell phone.

now we're back at the hotel, ready for a good night's sleep - we have 3 soccer games to watch tomorrow!

i love worldcup. ;]

night yall!!

Days 14 & 15 - Laura's Perspective

Day 13 Recap
Remember how I said I was going to take a shower to get warm? Pretty sure I would have been better off taking a shower outside. Appartenly our hotel doesn't believe in water heaters. Oh and we were given these laminated name tags to wear at events. Let me tell you.... driving around a golf cart with my precious name tag made me feel pretty high up. I loved it.
Day 14 - Greeley, CO
So Sunday morning I wake up, pack all my belongings out of the terrible hotel, meet up with Stefan (previous road crew member, now is Team Services Assistant) and waited for Hil to call and give us the scoop. Turns out, the city of Greeley wouldn't let us play because it rained all night and was still raining off and on that morning. We went to the fields to clean everything up and once again, our volunteers were absolutely amazing. Everything was cleaned up and repacked in the truck within half an hour. Another benefit of being the road crew is that I barely have to clean up. Basically everybody goes up and cleans up all the belongings and then I just get to tell them what I want loaded in the truck and in what order. It's awesome. After everything was packed up, the staff and I went to Centerra for some lunch. We were able to catch the whole Germany vs. Australia game. Germany dominated Australia. I'm talking, a 4 to nothing sweep. After that, I drove to Stefan's and stayed there for the night since it was close to the airport. Those boys' mamas' raised them right because I felt like I was receiving royal honor. They made me dinner, made up my bed, let me be in control of the remote, let me choose what temperature the house would be all night so I would get some good sleep. Yep, I definitely got spoiled.

Day 15- Denver
Today I had to go into the office to lay out my inflatables because they were still drenched in the rain water. We had just turned them over to dry out the bottom part and then it started downpouring. So much for letting me air out. I also had to switch a couple more parts out but this time it wasn't so bad because I actually had someone in the warehouse with me, informing me of where the parts were located. Finally! So remember how I locked my keys in the truck? Well apparently I wasn't supposed to call Ryder ( even though the person in charge of the trucks told me to) because they are going to send the company an obscene amount of a bill. Well today I went in to Rich's office (he's our tour manager) to turn in my expense report. He was looking it over and made a comment on how I found pretty cheap hotel rooms. I replied, "Yay, I thought I'd try to save you guys some money for that Ryder bill." Kind of sarcastic. Kind of serious. He didn't say anything for the next three minutes. Those three minutes were the longest ones of my life. I thought maybe it'd been too soon to make a joke about that Ryder bill. Little did I know, he was still looking over my expense report and after he got done, he finally realized what I said and laughed. But those three minutes were absolute torture! I kept thinking of ways to apologize for my comment. It was miserable. After being at the office, I went to get Shan. It was lovely to have her back, but she made me move all my luggage out of the front seat. She's so needy. =] And the rest you already know because Shan already blogged about it. Tomorrow, our blogs will finally be just one blog with two minds behind it.

-Laura

day 15/shannon's summer project day 10 (last day)

i got up at like 630 this morning fully intending to run. instead i longboarded to the beach and watched the waves roll in as i reflected on the week. i didn't wanna leave at all :(

when i got back to the bahia i showered and packed, because sthefany was giving rides to the airport and i was in the group that left at 8. (which ended up being 815....oops)

i said bye bye to kelsey (crap-face) and then we left for the airport.

nothing exciting really happened then. i flew to denver, grabbed my stuff, then laura picked me up in our massive truck. haha that part was kinda weird. the airport people were just like whyyyyyy is a truck picking this lady up from the airport?

then laura and i came to stephen's house (he was a road crew member last summer) to do laundry/nap alllllll afternoon. stephen's roommate made us dinner, and now i we're getting ready to leave for our hotel. we'll probably work out when we get there but otherwise that's about it. i'll update if anything interesting happens between now and when we go to bed.

word.

day 14/shannon's summer project day 9

my last full day on project :(

i skipped my run this morning on account of i neeeeeeeded sleep.

i finally got up and went to our morning session. we did worship and then a prayer journey thing. there were a bunch of stations set up all dealing with prayer/quiet time schtuff/etc. kinda hard to explain but it was sweet. i felt really good afterwards.

then kali was baptized in mission bay, which was really cool to watch.

after that, i went to the beach with janelle and nichole to lay out. [we had all afternoon free] it was supposed to be peaceful buuuut it wasn't because there were flies everywhere, and about 15 min after we got there, the people next to us got attacked by seagulls. they had a couple of styrofoam boxes with tacos in them, and one seagull swooped down and pecked the box open before the people could do anything about it, then before we knew it, there were like six million seagulls flocking the beach by us. me and nichole and janelle just started to freak out and crack up because we thought for sure we'd get pooped on. ahahahaha it was hilarious. but no one got crapped on so that was good news. ;]

after the beach, i went back to the bahia to meet up with kelsey and go shopping. we got some schtuff for our peeps, and then we went down the beach a little ways on our longboards and met up with a couple of the guys from the full summer summer project. they were surfing so we watched for a bit/chatted with them/chatted with each other, then i left her and boarded back to the bahia bc i thought i had something to do which ended up not happening anyway so i then boarded back that way and kelsey and lindsey and i met up bayside by the rec center. we boarded a little ways to some more shops and perused/hung out, then we went to yogurtland and had some yum yum frozen yogurt. mmmmm. =]

afterwards, we boarded back to the bahia for a wrap-up group meeting, then everyone went to 205 to hang out/finish the ice cream from the night before. lindsey and i almost peed from laughing so hard for many different reasons. we were just in hyper moods and we started making our own workout video choreography and doing cheers [who's that spartan in my teepee? it's me! it's me! hahahahahahahaaa] and then some dancing broke out, which just lead to more laughing. we ended up on the floor in tears because we were laughing so hard!

after all of that fun i went to my room, attempted to pack, then decided to just not pack at all and go hang out with kelsey. we watched more south park about poop, and i was suuuuuper tired so i ended up falling asleep. i woke up at like 2 a.m. which was a good thing because i didn't have an alarm bc my phone was still in my room. so i went back to my room and slept the rest of the night.

kelsey missed me when i was gone. haha she had no one to snuggle with! :(

day 13/shannon's summer project day 8

this morning we had small group bible study at a cute little coffee shop called the olive. we sat outside and there were flowers and birds everywhere and it was sunny......just a b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l way to start my day =]

oh and i ran before that. um, it was a good run? no good details about that.

after bible study we walked back to the bahia (our hotel/resort-ish place we're staying) for a student-led meeting. we planned an outreach on the beach with a huge tug-of-war game and a huge ultimate frisbee game. after deciding who would do what, we gathered everything we needed and went to the beach to do our thang. the tug-of-war game was huge and all of the people who weren't participating were definitely watching. the boys won (boo!) but then us girls decided we wanted a rematch. our plan was to drop the boys. we played right at the edge of the water to make it interesting, so the waves were up to our ankles. however, the boys had the same idea....and they were faster about it. the boys dropped us and mostly everyone got wet. i mean, i managed to stay dry, but mostly everyone else got soaked. hehe tough luck i guess. :] other than playing games with strangers, we engaged these people in conversations and stuff like that. leah and i evangelized to a guy named junior (not kidding) and it was cool because he said he had never even heard the story of Jesus Christ. leah and i talked to him for over an hour, and he was asking questions and listening really intently to what we had to say. he didn't come to a decision, but he definitely was left thinking about it when the conversation ended. so that was really cool =]

after our beach evangelism/outreach we came back to the bahia and then went to the bus stop to go to the padres vs mariners baseball game. we sat wayyyyy up high but it was kinda nice because then we had a great view of the city and, let's face it, that's what all of us girls were concerned with. haha the padres won (i think) and lindsey and i ate the biggest hot dogs known to mankind. they had to be over a foot long and we were just dying laughing when we were trying to figure out a way to eat them without poking someone's eyes out. we laughed even harder when we tried to put ketchup and mustard on them because it came out SO FAST! we may or may not have made a mess.....but dude it like shot out of there. i have never dealt with so much mustard at such high speeds. intense.

after the game we rode the trolley/bus back and somehow a girl in our group (named laura - and she is soooo cool!) lost her bus pass so we had to be all stealthy so that she wouldn't have to pay for another one. on the trolley, the lady came around checking passes, and after she checked some of our group, she came to the next 4 seats where laura, lindsey, and i were sitting. laura pretended to dig through her purse while lindsey and i handed the lady our passes. the lady saw laura looking for hers so she turned around to get the people across from us. right when she turned around, kelsey casually dropped her pass on laura's seat before the lady turned back to face us. (this is hard to explain because it was much more intense in real life haha) the lady watched laura search for like 10 more seconds before lindsey was like "oh here it is!" and picked up the pass that kelsey had dropped on the seat. it was sooo hilarious. as soon as the lady was out of our car, all of us girls just started giggling uncontrollably.

lindsey and i started cracking up yet again like 15 min later when we ate these energy bars that the stadium had given us for free (promo) and felt like vomiting. we ate them, felt fine, then like 2 minutes later we just looked at each other and were like "ugh we shouldn't have eaten that. bleh" the rest of the ride we spent pretending to get sick. we're so immature. =]

when we got off the trolly and switched over to the bus, laura had to sneak by the driver without her pass again. luckily, this guy had no motivation for life, so he just lazily looked at us as we flashed him our passes and laura flashed him an old movie ticket. hahaha supah stealth.

by this time, lindsey and i were bouncing off the walls with energy, so we did some stair sprints until the bus came. then, on the bus ride, me and lindsey and kelsey sang some sweet jamz and did the appropriate dances to them.

when we finally got back to the bahia, i went to kelsey's room and we watched part of a south park episode about poop. meanwhile, everyone else was in room 205 setting up schtuff and hiding because it's kelsey's birfday!!!! when i got the appropriate text, i hopped up off the couch and was like "shoot we need to go to lindsey's room. she needs to talk. idk what's wrong." so kelsey and i went to 205 and when we got there, the door wasn't completely closed, so we walked in and the only light that was on was the bathroom light. lindsey walked out and tried to look seriously troubled, but that's not a look she can hold very well. she tried not to smile as she's like "hi"

...

....

.....

nothing. so she tries again: "hi" (this time, her attempt at not smiling failed)

...

....

.....

still nothing. by now i was bent over behind kelsey just shaking with silent laughter. finally lindsey just about lost it as she said, much more loudly this time, "I SAID HI KELSEY!"

finally, everyone in the room got the memo and jumped out to say SURPRISE!! kelsey obviously knew it was coming after lindsey's and my terrible acting, but she was still surprised by the number of people in the room. she thought there'd be like 5-10 of us, but instead everyone was there. there were like 5 people in the living room just hiding in the dark, and there were like 20 people who had been hiding on the balcony that were filing into the room. we had cupcakes and ice cream, we got our groove on and hung out. we watched some youtube, etc. it was just silly fun-ness. after ze little party we all kinda filtered back to our rooms and went to bed.

that's about alllll!

Days 11-13 in Greeley, Colorado

So the host hotel I'm staying in doesn't have the greatest internet connection which is why I haven't blogged in here for a couple days. So let's recap...

Day 11 - Left Denver for Greeley
This day I really just drove to Greeley and painted fields. The volunteers were great and we got done painting 24 fields in a matter for 3 hours which is incredible because that also includes taking the necessary items out of the truck, putting everything together, and clean up. Next up was checking into the host hotel. I must attract broken toilets or something because mine didn't work in this hotel. So I had to switch rooms.

Day 12 - Greeley
This day we got everything set up before the storm hit Greeley. Jif and Juicy Juice are two of our national sponsors. We're supposed to get shipments of them every Friday so that we have them and are ready for the tournament. Well neither of them arrived and our sponsorship lady decided to have her phone turned off while she was at a wedding so we had some serious phone calls to make. We finally got a hold of someone who knew their purpose in life (aka to serve me) and I received the lovely honor of driving to the trucking company's shipment location and pick up the Juicy Juice. This occurred during check in so I missed most of it which wasn't the end of the world. We have plenty of help. After check in and picking up the Juicy Juice, the staff (about 9 of us total since this tournament is pretty local, big, and Shan isn't here) went out to Old Chicago for some dinner and social time. When we got back to the hotel, I went into my room to find out that one of my windows was broken. Like honestly, it looked like a crack in a windshield. Low and behold, it was raining for the last 2 hours so my room/clothes/suitcase was drenched. Sweet host hotel we found. However, our ref assigner decided to drive up to Greeley from Denver at about 10:00 last night for who knows what reason. The tournament didn't even start till 9 which meant he wouldn't have to be to the tournament site till 8:30 which also meant he didn't have to leave his house in Denver till about 7:20 in the morning. Anyways, apparently he thinks he trumps me so I got another lovely honor of moving rooms once again. This time it was in to Hilary's room (my event director for this weekend) so it wasn't all too bad. Except the two locks on her door are broke. Yep, I feel rreeeeeaaaaalllll safe in this hotel. Thank god we're only staying here till Saturday night.

Day 13- Rainy in Greeley
So today we had a wonderful alarm clock wake up call at 5AM. I just love those. Not. We had to be to the fields by 5:45 but had some stops to make on the way. When we got there, the rain started and it was freezing. I'm talking like people had on their winter coats; I had on winter gloves. Remind you it's JUNE and I have on winter gloves. I couldn't tell you the last time that occurred. It is now 4:25 and the rain finally let up. We played through the morning session. (We scheduled in a 2 hour break for the World Cup game. Prior to the break, we were given the OK by the City to go ahead and keep playing after the break. When we returned from the break, it began down pouring. As in not a single part of my body was dry. Then the City came back and said we couldn't play on the fields any longer. So the afternoon session is canceled which means we get to re-bracket and re-schedule everything tonight for tomorrow morning. This will be pretty interesting to do given the fact that we couldn't read half the score cards because they were too wet and none of the team's contact people thought it was a good idea to return our phone calls to let us know who won and what the score was. Like I said.... tonight will be interesting. Oh and this Dan guy (the ref assigner who thinks he is high and mighty,) is ridiculous. Every 15 minutes there was someone up at headquarters complaining that they didn't have a ref. For 4 hours straight. And of course he is nowhere to be found. Let me know you... I love my job. =] Now I'm off to shower and FINALLY get dry and warm and hopefully not get sick. More updates on the spectacular Greeley tournament tomorrow!

P.S. We met the man who owns all the McDonald's in Greeley. That man = MONEY. Good thing we were uber nice to him before we even knew that.

- Laura

day 12/shannon's summer project day 7

today was more of a free day. i went for a run this morning, then had about 2 hours of free time/time with the Lord. it was niiiice =]

zen we went to seaport village for lunch and shoppppppping. teeheehee

when we got back, me and nichole and rachel (roomie #4, in case i haven't mentioned her before....) all fell asleep. and i guess we each were sleeping in the same position? all 3 of us were on our beds face down sleeping when ashley and janelle got back. they saw us and were just like uhh...

then everyone met up at 7 to go to what's called friday night live - it's like a worship service/fellowship....kinda like a cru meeting. it was sooooo great! i miss regular cru meetings and i can't wait to get back to unl in the fall now! haha

after the regular fnl, there was swing and salsa dancing. i participated of course, and rocked it. :)

afterwards, kelsey and i went to holly's and chatted it up/hung out til midnight-ish. (holly leads the regular full-summer san diego summer project, and let's just say she's had a huge influence on kelsey's life. oh, and she's fantastic)

now i'm just heading to bed. bible study with mah small group in the morning! woop woop!!

day 11/shannon's summer project day 6

first, i ran. it was a good run too =]

next, i had some breakfast with ANGELA! we had this weird acai stuff.....idk what exactly it was that we were eating actually. but it was good and supposedly healthy. so..yay =]

after that we had a session about giving our testimonies. i learned lots and lots.

then we hit up san diego state university (sdsu) to evangelize. i was paired with kelsey and we talked to 2 girls first that were buddhist/agnostic (a strange combo, long story) and i mean we didn't see any results or anything, but i think we at least planted a seed and got them thinking a little bit. we also talked to a girl named melissa who had just started going to church about a year and a half ago, and she called herself a "baby Christian" and she seemed really excited to grow and continue in her faith. so that was a really sweet conversation. me gusta.

sdsu has a wittle tuwtle pond (a little turtle pond, in case you didn't catch that) and kelsey and i picked up a couple of the baby turtles and took photos with them ;] they were so cute!!

when we got back from sdsu, we had small group bible study and then some time to just hang out afterwards. i skyped a little bit with the one and only alex kolbo, shopped with kelsey, leah, and lindsey, and went to yogurtland for some yum yum. then we came back and had a BONFIRE ON THE BEACH!!!!! that was so cool and this guy named keto (kee-toh) came and shared his testimony. it was probably the best one i have ever heard. wow.

otherwise, we crunked in the sand, we sang to abe and his guitar, we had smores, etc. it was a blasty blast. zen it was nighty night time.

our room smells like a blast of bonfire smoke everytime we walk into it. buuuuuut i kinda like it. =]

peace and blessins, PEACE. AND. BLESSINS.

day 10/shannon's summer project day 5

today i skipped my morning run bc i was up so late the night before. so instead i got up about 1o min before i had to leave, then met my small group for breakfast and bible study :] that was all good.

then we had a session and it was realllllly interesting! it was basically about debating theories that say Christianity is false. i learned some cool stuff that i could use to argue naturalist/scientific beliefs, plus lot's of other tidbits. i couldn't include all of that information in this post though, cause that'd take like, upwards of 3 hours to read/write. haha

after zat, we got to go evangelize on the beach! we talked to 2 different groups of people. the first was a young couple who grew up catholic but now they're both agnostic. we chatted with them for like an hour and they seemed genuinely interested and curious about what we were saying. they said they had never heard that message except in a condemning way before, so it was really refreshing that me, lindsey, and leah weren't judging them or something. we ended up exchanging emails so that i could get back to them on a question they asked that i didn't have an answer for. so we'll see what result comes of that! pray for them please!

the next ppl we chatted with was a group of 3 girls. 2 didn't really take the convo seriously, but the 3rd seemed pretty interested, yet she couldn't really express her interest because her friends were there. i ended up giving them my email but i doubt they'll really use it. either way, pray for them too!

after evangelizing, i then took the opportunity to do my run on the beach barefoot. soooo perfect! i ran for like 33 minutes and the time flew by!

and zen i showered and got ready to go, then went and had sushi w/like 6 of the girls. =] after sushi, we came back to the hotel for GIRLS' NIGHT!!!! i can't give deets about that though cause....... it's a secret =] haha but i will say that the boys had boyz night and they interrupted our girls' night to give us all roses and tell us how beautiful we are. it was so cute! and i'll also say that some really good discussion came out of the women's night. got me thinkin about a lot of schtuff. so great!!

and zen it was beddy bed time. zat is all. gute nacht! ;]

day 9/shannon's summer project day 4

so this post is coming a little late, as i'm sure all of my avid readers have noticed... ;]

the day i'll be talking about (tuesday the 8th) was saweet. it was kinda cloudy and chilly, but eh what can ya do? we had morning worship and then some alone time to spend in the word before we met up to go to the university of california san diego (ucsd) to evangelize. that was a cool experience. lindsey and i were paired up and we ended up talking to 2 people. the first was a girl named christina and she was a total sweetheart! we did soularium w/her and went through the kgp booklet and she listened pretty well. she didn't necessarily pray to receive Christ right then, but i could definitely tell she was thinking about it differently than she had before. then we chatted with "that guy" (we couldn't remember his name) and he was pretty content where he was at in his life. lindsey and i just think that he'll need a bad experience or something of the sort to make him realize that he needs Christ in his life. but until then, we just don't think he's really searching for something more.

we could've had time to talk to more people, except ANGELA was following a silver van that we assumed was our group, only to wind up in the boonies with a van full of complete strangers!!!! ahhhh! so we had to gps our way back to where we were trying to go in the first place (ucsd). it used up a good hour of our time but we were laughing so hard it didn't even matter =] haha

however, on the way home, we got into more trouble. when we had arrived at ucsd, we paid for our parking which ran by 2 hour intervals. well, i convinced angela that we shouldn't pay for an extra 2 hours of parking since we'd be coming back to the car like 20 min after our parking pass would expire. i said i'd pay it if we actually got a ticket. bad idea. $50 ticket. oops. so now it's my responsibility to appeal it or pay it. i'm attempting an appeal so wish me luck! haha

after that neat experience, we met up with our small groups for bible study. twas good.

we finished the night with a trip to the park. played some ultimate frisbee, played a game w/rocks and jolly ranchers, was tackled by kelsey, assaulted by kelsey AND grant, then struck up a convo with a random lady at the bus stop while i waited for kelsey and angela and steph to get out of their little staff meeting so we could go to belmont and ride the roller coaster. the girl i was talking to was an artist and we just had a really good convo about life. i enjoyed it a lot actually. =]

after that, kelsey and grant and i skateboarded/longboarded to the rec center at the bay, cause there's this spot a little ways from the building where you can sit and just look out at the water and the lights and it's all quiet and peaceful. =] we chatted for a long time, then boarded back and chatted a bit more in the parking lot. i went up to my room around midnight and realized i didn't have a key. i didn't wanna wake my roomies, so i went all the way to the lobby building to get a new key. that turned into an adventure.

there was this weirdo (likely drugged up) guy that was demanding to get one more night in his same room bc he was "injured" and had to go to the hospital the next day. he also asked for a wheelchair, then made a big scene about sitting down in that wheelchair. after he spotted me, he immediately began to hit on me. he asked me to wheel him back to his room, he invited me to go hang out with him, he asked for my name.....etc. i was just like "nope, no way, absolutely not...etc." haha and then the best part is that he had a wooden flute there with him, so while the nice lady behind the desk (named marian) activated a key for me, he serenaded us with his horrid flutey music. the 2 ladies behind the desk and i were like "is this really happening? is this guy really playing a flute right now?" hahahaha soooo funny! then marian walked me back to my room so that she could make sure the creepo didn't try to follow me. she was SUCH a sweetheart!!!!!! so here's a shout out to the COOLEST hotel/resort lady ever! marian rulezzzz. ;]

hokay that's alllll for now. i'll tell about today's events tomorrow. that makes no sense if you don't read my blog every day. just read the labels if you wanna know what day this post is talking about. ok i'm done talking now. i'm delerioussss.....

k night!

Day 10 - Last day in Denver till Monday

Another pretty uneventful day. I worked out, switch hotels because I was not a fan of dried blood on a pillowcase and a handtowel, room service didn't come until 4:00PM, etc., and then I received a lovely phone call asking me to come back to the office once again to pick up some more things. I just love that place, let me tell you. Oh yeah, and in between working out and switching hotels, I had the first conference call of the summer. Every Tuesday at 9:30 (this week's was rescheduled to today, surprise, surprise) all the road crew members all call in so we can hear about each other's adventures of the weekend and find out what not to do (Don't lock your keys in the truck, yep, that was me; blown tires absolutely suck but they are Ryder's fault, not our's). Other than that, just another lovely day in Denver. I'm totally going to move here at some point in my life as well as Boulder.
Tomorrow morning begins the Greeley Adventures!

-Laura

Day 9

Another day spent in Denver. I had the honor of getting to go to the office twice today to exchange the parts that I couldn't get exchanged yesterday. After that, I went and watched Sex & the City 2 and The Killers. Sex and the City = not too great. The Killers = amazing. It was the first time I've ever gone to a movie by myself. Kinda weird. On my way home from the theatre, I realized another great thing about this summer.... I never have to worry about cops radaring me because 9 times out of 10, the truck isn't physically able to go the speed limit.

That's all I've got. Tomorrow I just wait for my Event Director to call me and fill me in on the game plan.

-Laura

day 8/shannon's summer project day 3

herrrrrrrrroooo dere!!!!

today was sooo fun! i got up and ran nice n' earrrrrrly, then went to morning worship session where we sang it up before learning about soularium. after that, we had some quiet time with the Lord before a bible study w/our small groups. all that was pretty sweeeet :]

then we had some lunchy lunch before our scavenger hunt. that's right, i said SCAVENGER HUNT! it had the weirdest things on it such as: find a person w/brown eyes and ask them what sound the pillsbury dough boy makes (and record it), find a married couple and take a photo of them kissing w/all of the team members in the background, ask someone for one of their socks, etc. SO MUCH FUN. we find out the winners tomorrow......drumroll plz...

then lindsey, kelsey, and i went shopping to buy lindsey a longboard (oh yes the gang is growing..) and to buy some toms. i got some purty yellow ones and lindsey got some striped ones. kelsey already has some bedazzled ones so she just assisted us. ;]

then we just kept riding around the boardwalk and poking our heads in and out of shops until we were late coming back to the hotel for the next thing. oopsie. we grabbed some graham crackas and grapies and stuff so we could get some yum yum on our way to the....place we went. haha it was like..the rocky coastline i guess? it was pretty and we climbed all over the rocks and i carved my name into some sandstone and there was a beach with a flock of seals on it that kelsey and i were naming.....it was thuper duper.

the "friends of the seals" (no joke, these environmentalists don't have very creative names) gave us some sass for wanting to go onto the beach. legally, we're allowed on there as long as we don't go past these certain marked out points - so that we don't disturb the seals. so grant, angela, and i were on our way down to the beach when these 2 old ladies like jumped us and gave us some tude for even wanting to reach the sand. we were like "uhh...." and had a pretty silly convo with them. in the end, we made a game plan to sneak on the beach later this week; but for now, we had to leave anyway so we just gave up on those dreams. those old ladies may have won the battle, but they did NOT win the war! ;P

next we went to mt soledad, which was BEAUTIFUL. there's this huge white cross at the top and the view is superb! we looked out at all of the city lights and had group prayer and the groups kept getting smaller as our prayer topics got more specific. it was a neat experience. in the end i had a pretty good chat w/kali that lasted for a good while.

on the way home, abe played his guitar and everyone in our van sang different songs - it was hilarious because in some of the songs, all of a sudden people just like stopped singing cause none of us knew the words. haha so we just like half hummed/half made up words until we got to the chorus that we all knew. soooooo funny. =]

tomorrow angela (who is black) and i are planning to go get prunes from the store. just cause. angela is awesome - she's not very hood, but i'm slowly bringin out her inner gangsta.

you know how i do.

now i'm back in me room, covered in sand and dirt, but ready for bed. ima run the boardwalk again tomarrah, so why shower right? right.

i think that's all that happened today....idk it's hard to capture every detail. but i'm getting closer to all of these people and it's great how we can encourage each other in our walks with the Lord =] very exciting!

gute nacht!

Day 8- Denver

So today I could FINALLY sleep in. It was great, except for the fact that throughout the night I kept getting woken up by a clicking noise in the AC thingy. So annoying. After my workout (which is really kicking my butt right now due to the altitude), I was planning on going to the office to switch out some bad parts. When I got to the truck, however, I noticed that my keys were sitting on the passenger seat instead of in my bag like I thought. So after an hour and a half on the phone with the office and Ryder and the lock smith arriving, I was finally able to leave. When I got to the office, I figured I'd just be there for about an hour if that. Boy was I wrong. I kept asking one person in the office to help me with the location of things and this person kept saying they will be right out when they were done. Well after about a half hour of waiting, I decided to start walking around the warehouse and find the things I needed by myself. I located about half the items that I needed. Then I went back in to ask once again where some things were and this person tells me they don't know and that I need to come back tomorrow during the hours that the Warehouse guy works. Really? You couldn't have told me that as soon as I arrived today? Thanks for wasting two and a half hours of my day.

Next up was some laundry/D'Adamio time. Her dad made us supper and it was soooo nice to have some homecooked food again. Corn on the cob, salad, and a cheeseburger has never tasted so good to me. And since I was with D'Adamio, we just had to make a DQ run.

That's about all the major events that happened today. Oh yeah, and driving through rush hour traffic in Denver with the Ryder truck all by yourself = a very stressful drive. Note to self: Never do that again.

Sleep time. Gotta be all rested so I can hang out with Mr. Warehouse guy tomorrow.

-Laura

day 7 for shannon/summer project day 2

yo yo yo!!!!!!

today was our first full day but i already feel as comfortable as if i've been here for a couple weeks! this morning i went for a run along the beach with grant, then i showered and got ready and went to morning worship with my roomies. nichole, janelle, and ashley are my roommates. they're a lot of fun and janelle [my snuggle buddy/the pete to my jeremy] talks exactly like my minnesota friends (specifically chelsea rosemann!! ahem!) so that's a lot of fun. nichole and i take a ton of videos on her sweet camera, and she has such a sweetheart way of being sarcastic. i can't even think of a better way to describe it! haha and ashley is more quiet....i haven't really been able to get to know her yet, but i do know that she likes art and that she's pretty easygoing.

after our morning meeting we went to a church and met some people and then they sent us off on a prayer walk through a predominantly hispanic neighborhood. we went on a prayer walk, which means we basically talk to people about their needs and ideas and then we pray with them/for them if they want us to. it was such a neat experience! so sad though....one guy told us about all of the gang violence and how unsafe it is for children to be around the neighborhood alone, another told us how hard it was for people to find work, etc. we noticed a lot of people selling their belongings because they had no other source of income. :( also, we saw a ton of single mothers. it was eye-opening and sad. i walked around with abe [a really friendly, chill, hippie guy who is just so out there and excited about life] and with tiffany. tiffany has cerebral palsy [a mild form of it - she can walk with crutch-things and she can talk just fine] and it's really cool to see how well she handles it. she's really a beautiful person on the inside. she isn't afraid to try new things or get involved or anything like that and i admire how open she is about her condition. she's more than willing to answer questions and she even pokes fun at herself sometimes! Christ is really alive in her and in abe as well. really, most of these people just radiate their faith and it's a sweet thing to see =]

after prayer walking, we went to another neighborhood - a place where homeless people literally line the streets - and we handed out blankets and just acted friendly to these people. they were truly grateful for our prayers and the blankets and even our smiles. most people look at them with disgust and they really enjoy a friendly face when they see one. :]

after that we went back to the church for lunch and shared our experiences from the streets. there were some really sad stories shared, anything from rape to gangs to high school dropouts...just a bunch of tough realities that most of us don't see or interact with every day.

after that we had most of the afternoon to hang out/do whatever. i took a wittle nap and was rudely awakened by kelsey so we could go longboard shopping. haha the window above all of our beds opens out to the walkway between rooms, so it's super easy to creep through open shades or to wake ppl up. so anywhoo, me and kelsey went and bought me a new longboard! it's gorgeous =] and it rides soooo smoooooothly!

then kelsey and i longboarded for a bit/chatted about life until dinner, when we met up w/the other 2 girls in our small group for burritos at la playa. after we ate, we had what's called soul to soul. basically, we just share our life stories w/ each other. we talked at la playa til it closed, then sat on the beach for a couple hours, then moved to a starbucks for another hour or so, and finally walked back to the hotel around 11. i had so much fun chatting with these girls. kelsey and i showed them (btw, their names are lindsey and leah) how to longboard. lindsey picked it up pretty fast and i think she's gonna get a board tomorrow! leah needs a little more practice i think ;] haha

kelsey and i get along really well and i'm excited to hang out with her more throughout the rest of the trip. angela is still sooooo COOL and i like to pick on her/bug her about everything. haha she's so fun to joke with cause she takes it so well! and she's also a longboarder, so i'm hoping to get her to board with kelsey and i soon!

there's a girl named kali (pronounced kaylee) who is very loud and talkative. we can both tell fake stories with a serious look on our face, so we like to mess with people and pretend things happen when they don't. people have the same general reaction of "idk if you guys are being serious or not!" when they say that, kali and i know we've done our job. :P

......that's really all i can think of at the moment and i have to get up early tomorrow to run with kelsey soooooo..

nighty night hood rats!!!!! 8]

-shannon

Day 7

Well I made it back to Denver all in one trip. There was about a two hour time span where I could barely keep my eyes open, but once I combated that with some phone calls to people, I was good to go the rest of the way. 9.5 hours is a long time in a vehicle by yourself. However, it allowed me to stumble across these two ideas.... Without Shannon I can A.) blast my country music and sing my heart out to it without feeling the least bit bad about it and B.) I can finally get my room service EVERYday. =] I also solved my mystery of how to make our drivers seat more comfortable. I have two new ways of sitting with my body at certain angles and it is amazing. I would go into detail about this but both of the new ways are extremely unsafe for driving purposes and I wouldn't want to be the reason for some accident. Therefore, I reserve the right for myself and only myself to use them. Ok maybe Shannon. =]
-Laura

Day 6 Recap after Shannon left me

Yep, this is my(Laura's) first blog post... ever. So as Shannon is loving her life in California, she left me hanging in SLC. After Shannon left, I mainly stayed in Headquarters all day long which was great because I got sun here and there, but mostly I was in the shade. Let me tell you.... I'm going to have a rockin tan after this summer is over... well... just on my arms, face, and legs. Anyways, as Shan mentioned before in headquarters you just answer all the questions and deal with issues that come up. I had two separate incidences where a distraught parent came up to me, telling me that their child has been gone for over an hour. Over an hour?! That's two games worth of time. Keep track of your child for goodness sakes! Luckily we ended up finding both of them so that was good. I also was allowed to fill in the scoreboards and seed teams into tournament play. That was pretty cool... until there was a 3 way tie for first, and 4 way tie for those other spots. Then I handed it over to Jim so he could deal with all the crazy soccer parents who were breathing down our necks and 1 inch from standing on top of me. Psychos! Handing out medal went good... it didn't take too much effort to ask a coach what place they got and how many he had on his team. =] If you thought Shannon resented that blow up thing, then I absolutely despise it. For the last half hour of the tournament, it kept falling down.... on top of people and the scoreboards. Every 3 minutes it would fall down. Sooooo annoying. However, I did learn that when that happens and it doesn't seem as aired up as it should be, it means the generator is running out of gas. Thanks for telling me Jim... Not. I got to learn that one on my own when the tent thing was completely flat on the ground. Tear down was great. I just got to tell people what to take down and when to load it in the truck. I can honestly say I did not take down a single item. I just got to load the items in the truck which was pretty easy except for the stupid tables that go up in the top part of the truck. I'm 5'2 1/2 and I can fully stand under the bottom table. Then try loading 5 more on top of that by yourself. Not fun and my arms are going to be HUUUUUUGGGGEEEEE after the end of this summer. I can lift a lot in the weight room but it's toooootally different when you can't just lay on your back and grip a bar. After everything was loaded into the truck and inventory completed, Jim and I headed up to Park City to meet up with Jeff (the really cool guy who bought us lunch one day and took Shan to the airport). Park City is soooo sweet. I got to see where one of the downhill skiing things during the Olympics was held. Downtown Park City reminded me a lot like the Old Market. Today I FINALLY got to sleep in and I have body aches in places I didn't even know could ache. They weren't kidding when they said it can be a physically demanding job. Now I get the joy of driving back to Denver all by myself because Shannon left me. 9.5 hours in BIG truck going through some mountains by myself.... I just love my life.

- Laura

day 6/summer project day 1

so orientation was fun! we had pizza, played telephone pictionary, learned each other's names (for the most part), and went over some of the rules, schedules, etc. i am soooo excited! i already love the people on this trip! my small group leader, kelsey, is soooo cool! we longboarded to this frozen yogurt place after the orientation meeting (while everyone else drove there) and it was sweet (pun intended). it's like perfect night weather for longboarding. and the sidewalks were nice and flat too =] sooo much fun!

angela is another staff member and she's soooo funny! we hit it off pretty well i'd say. haha sarcasm flies between kelsey and angela and me, so yall can understand why i like those 2 so much. ;]

everyone else seems super cool too. i'm excited to get to know everyone better as the next 9 days go down.

tomorrow morning i'm running with grant at 630, so i gotta get to bed! night guys!

day 6/day 5 recap

herroooooooooo!!

this is shannon writing from SAN DIEGO! i'm here for summer project - flew out this morning from salt lake citayyyy. so far, i've met a few of the girls and a few staff members and they're all so friendly and awesome! me and nichole, one of my roommates, went and explored the beach a little bit and then amy (staff) took us grocery shopping. now i'm in our room blogging.

obviously.

as soon as i meet the rest of my roommates, i'll give more details. one of them is janelle, and she seems really fun and outgoing, but i haven't really REALLY been able to chat/hang out w her yet.

so anywhoo, more on that later.

yesterday was LONG. we got to the fields at early o'clock and started unloading the truck/setting up goals. that took forEVER. then we just started setting up tents and the huge blow-up scoreboard tent thingy and the sponsor tents/freebies and the referee tent....etc. we also checked in the last few teams and soon it was 6 pm and games were starting. during the games we basically ran the headquarters tent, answering coach and parent questions, selling tshirts, directing teams, etc. then i went around fixing goals and picking up trash, repainting goal boxes that needed it, blah blah blah.... when the games were over we packed up the things we couldn't leave out overnight, layed down the things that would blow away, and deflated that stupid scoreboard tent that i now resent [notice the rhymezzzz]

once we left the fields, we grabbed dinner at olive garden. event director jim told me and laura that when the company buys us food, they pay up to $27. so i tried to eat $27 dollars worth of food because jim bet me i couldn't do it. turns out, i couldn't. i made quite the effort though. like, i think food was pressing on my lungs i was so full! jim was just laughing up a storm though. hmph.

then we went back to the hotel and had to make some schedule changes, field changes, and post the scores from that day's games. finally, a bit past midnight, we got to go to our room and shower/sleep. a very long day.

then this morning, we set things back up, i went around repainting the goal boxes and half lines, and games started at 9. around 915, a super nice volunteer parent from the host club drove me to the airport! here's a shout out to jeff! thank you for the ride and for lunch the day before!! you rock, sir!!!!

then, i went through security (successfully this time) and met up with my friend grant at the airport until our flights. he's going to summer project w me too!! but his flight from slc was indirect, so we weren't on the same one. shucks.

after i landed, amy picked me, nichole, sarah, and lindsey up from the airport. and that brings me to where i started this blog.

tonight we've got an orientation of sorts with all of the project members. i'm excited to meet everyone!!!! more later!!

remember the alamo,

shannnnnnooooonnnnnnn

day 5

long day.

like.......really long.

woke up at 7....now getting ready for bed..

.....have to get up at 6 in the morning. :(

i will tell all about it tomorrow. i leave for summer project in the morning. i raised all my support (yay!!!!) and i'm extra double excited to see what God has planned for me :]

night yall...

day 4

ah i can't believe i didn't put this in yesterday's post! ok. so we got to our hotel yesterday and wow. it's....not very nice. when we got in, i went to the bathroom then tried to wash my hands. but when i turned the knob for the sink, all i heard was a "woosh"-ey noise. so i tried the bathtub. same dilemma. hahaha seriously best western? no water? laura and i just died laughing. then, when the water came back on like 10 min later (following a noise that sounded something like a dinosaur in labor) we both ran to the sink and were like "quick! wash your hands before it's gone again!!" it was like in land before time when their river ran dry! scary!

anywhoo..........today we actually did something productive!

we got to the fields early and started painting all of the lines. it took the better part of the day away. 1. when we got there, the sprinklers were on, and 2. the grass was wayyyy to long to play on so we had to call some guy to mow it. neither was a huge setback though cause they turned off the sprinklers for us and also cause the lawn mower guy showed up faster than a jimmy john's delivery guy to mow the fields for us. AND he showed up with the biggest lawn mower i have ever seen. that thing could mow my backyard in one sweep.

after we painted lines (and got sticky paint all over our hands and legs) we had to go to kinko's to print off the schedules and field maps. um....nothing cool happened there. however, it was very frigid inside. to pass the time at kinko's, we looked up all of the synonyms for "frigid"

boy, we know how to have a good time!

then we went to sports authority for team check-in. that was lame as well. we had to wear khakis, which was awful to begin with. there were parents there who volunteered to help us and....that was great..until like 13 of them showed up to help. i didn't even see a few of them because they didn't do anything but chat with each other. it was like the real housewives of salt lake city. oy.

we also had some parents come in who were unhappy with their team's schedule and they expected us to magically create a new one. that doesn't just happen. yet, we've been working really hard to make it happen. so.....i'll let everyone know how that goes. [no i won't. i wasn't born yesterday - i know that that's not very interesting to read about.]

then dinner before another walmart/target run.

our event director, jim, is pretty cool. he secretly loves having a female road crew to work with. we're so....competent. =]

laura and i did a 1030 pm workout too. we did sprints. my legs don't generally do that. ow.

also, i got to talk to my momma on the phone tonight for the first time since i left. hi mom =]

last but not least: here's a shout-out to carol's work friends. i hear yall have been reading me and laura's blog. i'll have to tell miguel what you guys are REALLY doing at work.

just kidding. ;] maybe.

day 3

hokay so..

today we drove from denver to salt lake city! it went aight....i slept, then drove, then slept. laura drove, slept, then drove. it was nothing extraordinary. BUT we varied between speeds of 35 mph up the mountains, and 80 mph downhill.

so that was great.

tonight we went to dinner w our event director, jim. then we went to a super sketch walmart to buy this camera we had to get and.....an hour and a half later, we went to another walmart and got it. sooo annoying. now we're back at our hotel and ready to go to bed. tomorrow the real work begins!!!!!!!!

sorry for the boring-ness of this post. nothing really happened today! haha

day 2

so......our truck only gets up to 43 mph. we miiiiight need to find a solution for this problem.

otherwise, pretty boring day. we filled out some paperwork, our "boss" told us a bunch of stuff, and we loaded a TON of peanut butter into the trucks (jif is a sponsor). but mostly, we just stood around in a circle and juggled with the rest of the road crew. ooh! but we got to test drive our truck and it's......weird. first of all, the seat is bouncy - like, it doesn't stay in one spot while you drive. second, it has a 12 ft clearance, which is a HUGE change from driving a normal car. the seats are like 3 feet from the dashboard, so when you drive your arms are fully extended and, to make matters worse, the steering wheel is MASSIVE. oh! and it's sooooo loud!! when the truck is idling, you can barely hear the person next to you. ah.

but for some reason, both laura and i kinda like driving the truck!! haha it's scary at times, but it's really fun!!!!! especially because ya know how we thought it only went 43 mph? yeah, um...laura had it in 3rd gear so....the truck is fine. it was just operator error. now all the boys make sexist jokes about female drivers. oy.

tonight we went to rich's house for a little road crew/event director cookout. it was sooooo fun! we played horse and i, shannon marie smith, WON!!!! [not surprising.] all of the people laura and i work with are young and super fun to be around. it wasn't awkward or anything to hang out with them - it actually feels like we've known each other for years! most of the event directors used to be road crew members so they give us sweet tips for when we're on the road.

after a while, rich's kids aired up their amazing inflatable obstacle course. soooo cool! but i got stuck in it for a while because there was like an 8 ft wall to climb over and i was struggling against gravity and extreme un-coordination. finally one of the guys (tricky ricky) helped me over. but it was insane!!!!! laura made it through like a champ though. she had no problem. i think the army might be in her future. those people seem to like obstacle courses.

anywayyyyyyyy.....me and laura need to get up early so we can work out before we hit the road in the morning. tomorrow we're off to salt lake city baby!!!!! woop woop!!