Hello all my lovelies. How are we all doing today? Well since all my fellow bloggers have yet to write about ASP, I'm going to get the ball rolling. Basically one word I would use to describe Appalachia is beastlyishiss (beast-lee-ish-iss {like hiss without the h}). Just in case you were wondering I made that word up. Anyway, it was awesome. We started the trip off by meeting at the church at 4 pm last thursday. There we found out about what was going to go down this weekend, cars, dinner, etc. In my car was Mrs Gardner, Chris Acheson, Mackenzie Saffin, Bryan G., and myself. It was great time. The whole way down we listened to the Supreme's, and I watched "Just Like Heaven" for the first time on Chris's video IPOD. Great movie by the way. Anyway we arrived at about 10:30 and spent a little time looking around and getting settled in before heading to bed. It was an early 7 am morning so we wanted to get good rest. The morning came quickly and I was exhausted. But I was also excited to get to work. I had been on this trip once before, so I know basically how it was, but I was still a little anxious. We had breakfast, packed the cars, and took off for our work sites. Mine was about 25 minutes away which wasnt bad. When we got there, Mrs Gardner realized we had to go up a steep gravel hill with two wheel drive. Of course shes likes "Yea, we can do it." and I'm in the back seat hyperventilating. Luckily, we made it up after some tossing and turning. After the first time we did that I thought it was so cool and our whole car chanted "You got it!" as we went up the hill everytime afterwards. There were about 12 dogs running around everywhere. I fell in love with a particular one named Beauty. She was a black lab and the sweetest dog you will ever meet. It was hard to leave her! The house we worked on was originally a trailor and the work previously done was a two room addition to the home. Our job was to side, prime, and paint the outside, and lay down wood boards, and linoleum tiles in the hallway and bedrooms. I got to participate in a little bit of everything, and the work is very sticky, and a lot harder than you would think. My main job was to lay down linoleum tile. If you have ever tiled you know that its the stickiest thing in the world. If you havent tiled, you basically have to lay down floor adhesive, and set down tiles on top. By about half way through I couldnt touch anything without sticking to it. And lucky for us we ran out of GOO GONE or turpintine. GREATTT. Well its a week later and my back and knees are still me. I feel bad for complaining because the other group had to dig a 20 in deep water line. My work was easy compared to that. We stayed an extra two hours the last day and finished all our work! It was a great feeling, and the family was so thankful. Oh, and heres a little background on the family. It is a five person family, three people of which are autistic, and three people of which sleep on couches currently. It's been really hard for them and they sure do appreciate all the work we have done. Now, after their addition, everyone will have their own rooms and own beds. Not to add the two year old and I had the same earrings! She was adorable. This year was great for me. I bonded with everyone, and thoroughly enjoyed myself just like everyone else did. This is so overused phrase, but if you didnt go this year you just HAVEE to go next year. Its an unforgettable experience and so rewarding!

Other than appalachia, my life is pretty much consumed with school. I currently have straight A's and I am feeling pretty good about that. If I keep it up I get a new cell phone :D

You all have a good week and I will see you Sunday at SGM!

much love, xoxo Steph

Saturdays

Hey Everyone! How are you all doing this week?


Well its Saturday, April 14th and when I started writing this blog I was going to complain about why I hate rainy Saturdays. But then I thought about how blessed I was to have such a great family around me to huddle inside with and a strong roof over my head so I dont get wet and cold. So this is why I love rainy Saturdays. 1) Its dark outside so you can sleep in longer because the sun doesnt wake you up. 2) You get to sit at your kitchen table during breakfast and listen to you little sister babble on about all the seventh grade drama. 3) You get a chance to catch up on homework (or writing blogs :D) because you cant go outside. 4) you get to have bonding time with your family because they cant go outside either. 5) you get to take 3 hour long naps in the afternoon, I always love those :D 6) you get to have family game and movie night with your family. Thats why I love rainy Saturdays, they really are great.

Okay so I decided that I need something else to blog about besides my life because that can get pretty boring to read about all the time. And I knew Chris starting blogs about different musical artists so I decided that I was going to start blogging about fun games you can play. Not like soccer, basketball...but like board, electronic, TV games you can play with many people. If you have ever met me you should probably know that I love to play board games of any kind. So the game I chose this week is called WhooNu. Its made by Cranium and is soo much fun.. I first started to play while I was on Spring Break. For SB I traveled down to Ball Ground, Georgia to visit my Aunt Karen and Uncle Clark. Now before I tell you about my gaming experiences I have to tell you one thing, When my family gets together to play a game it can get wild. So we were at this Super Target down there in Canton and my Aunt decides to buy a game that we can all play that evening and she chooses Whoonu. No one had ever played it before and we both love Cranium games. So that night we got out the game and started playing. So basically how you play is this. You can play with up to six people. One person is the Whoozit or is it. Everyone who is not it gets four cards. The cards have things on it like baseball, brownies with nuts, jewlery, pickup trucks, etc. The people have to pick one card out of the four that they think the Whoozit will like best. Then the Whoozit puts the cards in order for their list to favorite and the players get points based on the ranking of their card. Its a pretty simple game and is a lot of fun. My Uncle Clark is probably one of the most fun and funniest guys you will ever meet. So my Aunt Karen was the Whoozit and I gave her brownies with nuts because I knew she loved them and my stepmom put down jewlery. Brownies won over jewlery. Angie said, "Okay Clark, you know to get Karen brownies for your anniversary not jewlery." By then we had been through the whole deck and decided to change decks and my dad said "Okay Clark the brownies are gone now, you cant get that for Karen anymore." So Uncle Clark turns to me and Meggie looking totally and completely confused and just goes, "Huh?" and Megg goes, "It means we changed decks, Uncle C." and he goes in his strong southern accent, "Shoot! I thought she meant I missed dessert and she was taking away the brownies!" It was hilarious. I guess it was just kinda you had to be there type things. Well thats just one type of fun experience you can have playing this game.



And I cant figure out how to past a picture sooo .......I totally recommend it as this weeks game. My family had tons of fun and you learn stuff about your family members that is quite funny and things you never knew. I will be bringing it on Appalachia for anyone who is going. BTW I AM TOTALLY PUMPED FOR ASP, ITS GOING TO BE GREAT

okay xoxox Katie