Ice, Church, and Beer :)

I've come to learn that Texas winters are awfully strange. It may be 35 degrees one day and about 2 days later it can get back up to 70 degrees again. Last week I experienced my first real ice storm. Basically what happened is we had freezing rain and the temperatures kept dropping so by the time morning came around absolutely everything had a thin layer of ice covering it. The parking lot in my apartment complex looked a little like a skating rink and I had to pour water over the seams of my car door and the lock because everything was iced shut. But by noon the sun was shining and the ice was melting. And this weekend it got up to almost 80 degrees!

My job is going well and Dan and I found a church we both like. It's huge but it seems like they have a lot of good programs and opportunites to be a part of smaller groups. The church even has a 2 story play place in it (think MacDonalds with ball pins and tubes to climb through) and an electronic check in service for parents dropping off their kids for Sunday school. You get a receipt for your kid...does that mean you can exchange it too? :) But all of that aside it seems like a really good church, it's just big so it has to be organized.

I also found my favorite bar in the area. It's called the Flying Saucer. It has about 200 beers on tap from all around the world so basically you can go there and try something new every time. Definitely worth checking out if you ever come to Dallas.

New Job and Thanksgiving

I started my new job about 3 weeks ago. I got a job at a non-profit Mental Health Clinic in Dallas. I'm working as a case manager in the clinic. Our clinic sees low income individuals with diagnoses of bipolar, depression, and schizophrenia. It is definitely an intense population to work with but also very interesting. I think it will be a good fit for now and give me a lot of experience working with a wide variety of people. The clinic is very fast paced so time will probably fly by most of the time.


I stayed in Dallas for Thanksgiving this year and truly experienced a Bradley Thanksgiving. Dan and about 20 of his relatives all got together at his uncle's "ranch". We played football, rode 4-wheelers, some people rode the horse, played games, watched football, and all hung out and ate lots of food. It was definitely a different experience from my typical more formal Thanksgiving experience, but it was a lot of fun!

Dallas

I've made it to Dallas. I just moved a few weeks ago and am adjusting well. It's still so warm which is very nice in comparison to Seattle's fall weather. I've been working on finding a job and am working for a temp agency until I can find something more permanent. I'm very happy here so far and it's really nice being around my boyfriend, Dan, all the time. Here's a picture of Dan and I at the House of Blues last weekend.

Europe!

I spent about 3 and a half weeks traveling around Europe with two friends from college. We went to London, Paris, Rome, Lausanne, Gimmelwald (a little town up in the Swiss Alpes), Munich, Prague, Berlin, and Amsterdam. We had a great time and saw so much! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.


Big Ben


Westminster Abbey


Sacré-Coeur, Paris


Inside Notre Dame



I love the Eiffel Tower!


In front of the Colosseum


One of the Cinque Terra towns in Italy


Vineyards in Montreux, Switzerland


Hiking in the Swiss Alps


Oktoberfest in Munich!

Please PRAY for the People on the Gulf Coast!

As I'm sure most of you know, hurricane Gustav is stirring in the Gulf of Mexico. It's has already taken over 80 lives and today has strengthened to a category 4 hurricane. Near the middle of the projected path is New Orleans and Mississippi also falls in its projected path. I am devastated just at the thought of ANOTHER major hurricane hitting these people who are still struggling to recover from hurricane Katrina. The third anniversary of Katrina just passed...what a way to remember it by evacuating for another one.

After this year of working on the Gulf Coast, it is all so much more personal. I know these people, I've heard their personal stories and struggles, I've seen progress and hope, but I also left a place that still has a long ways to go before it is recovered from hurricane Katrina. Please pray for these people and that by some miracle Gustav loses steam and misses them.

It also is hard for me to imagine moving on with my life and getting a job in Dallas if this storm really does hit the area I just left. How can I just sit by and not go back? We'll see...


Hurricane Gustav

Farewell Mississippi, Hello World!

I left Mississippi about a week ago. It's hard to believe the year is already over. I am ready to move on but it's always a little difficult leaving a place that I have become so attached to. I'm going to miss so many homeowners, being on the Gulf, the work I was involved in, and the cajun food. But I am ready to have a little bit more of a "normal" life that with friends, family, activities that interest me, and working 8am-5pm instead of being on call 24/7.

The next few months are going to be a whirlwind adventure! I spent last week in Dallas visiting my boyfriend, Dan, and started the apartment search there. I'm currently writing from Albuquerque, New Mexico visiting my brother and his family. My little nephew, Mason, is one and a half and is pretty adorable. I haven't seen him in nearly a year so he is like an entire different kid. Next, I'm going to a retreat in northern New Mexico for a few days with the people from the program I was with in Mississippi. After the retreat, I'm heading back to Seattle for about 3 weeks. I haven't been home to Seattle since Christmas so I'm excited to be back to visit friends and family and to have a little relief from the hot weather of the south.

But that's not all. After about 3 weeks in Seattle, I'm off to Europe with my friends Sally and Katie for 3 weeks. We are going to take a whirlwind tour of Europe from London, to Paris, to Rome, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and flying out of Amsterdam. After all of that, I'll come back to Seattle for a few days and then fly to Dallas for good. In case you didn't catch that, I'm moving to Dallas!


Rachel and I on a canoeing adventure on the Pearl River


A large gator and a pretty white bird on our canoeing adventure.


The beautiful sunrise at Pensacola Beach, FL for our year end retreat


The prayer flags we made for each other flying from a kite at sunrise

Where have all the volunteers gone?

We are beginning to experience the slow summer months in Mississsippi with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. Most of our volunteers don't want to endure working in the hot Mississippi summer weather so our volunteer camps are starting to look pretty deserted. But there is still so much work to be done and I'm leaving in 2 months. Yikes, that's feeling very soon! Yes, I know that life on the coast will go on without me, but I'd like to finish as much as I can in these remaining months.

I am going to try my hardest to work on getting grant funding for as many families as I can before I leave. There won't be as many distractions and other things to do around here with no volunteers so hopefully I'll be able to write more grants. The problem is the American Red Cross grant that was available for survivors of hurricane Katrina has run out of money. There are still a couple other sources of grant funding for homeowners, but the recovery efforts are sure to take a hit because this major funder is no longer able to provide homeowners with money to rebuild their homes.

I'm crossing my fingers that the last grant I submitted will be approved before the money runs out. If all goes as planned there shouldn't be a program, but you never really know around here. Life in the hurricane recovery business tends to be rather messy.

I really can't believe that I've been here for close to a year. It will definitely be hard to leave, but at the same time I think I will be ready to move on. I'll be back in Seattle around the end of August. Then, in the middle of September one of my old college roommates and I are going to travel in Europe for 3 weeks. Yay! After that, I'm planning on moving to Dallas and finding a job there. My boyfriend, Dan, lives there and I don't think I'm done adventuring and living in different parts of the country. But who knows, I still may end up back in Seattle at some point. I've been thinking more and more about going back to school in a year or two for school counseling. So I'm hoping to find a job in some related field to gain some quality experience and decide if that really is the route I want to take.