feeling: hungry!!
listening to: Ethan's cartoons
this week started out with a bang! well, okay not so much a bang as a 'i need to drag myself out of bed AGAIN'
we had a super long/hot and awesome wedding on Saturday up by Waterloo. 2 hour drive. we left eary and got home late. but all in all it was a great day!
on Sunday i took 3 high school girls to Catholics In Action. this retreat is held once a year in various places. this year we were in Iowa City. i'd never been to this retreat- not even in my high school time!- so it was a new experience for me all around! i wasn't quite sure what to expect. we left about 7:30 and started our exhausting 3 days! for this retreat each church group is scheduled to go to numerous different places around the city to help with yard work, painting, organizing and any other tast they find for us. the idea is to help others in need. pretty basic concept! and always a wonderful experience for both youth and adults combined! sometimes we get so held up on our own problems that we forget that there are actually people out there that do have it worse off than us. and that helping those people, even with the smallest of tasks, will put a smile on their faces and make us feel good about ourselves.
our group had some good places given to us. we did manual labor at all of them, but that was okay with us! we helped paint the Community Center on Sunday - everyone did that the first day.
painting
Monday we went to the Neighborhood Center and helped weed their garden and haul mulch. after that we got to spend some time with their daycare kids!
Alissa and Mandi with some of the day care kids
in the afternoon we went to the Ronald McDonald house and helped them do some cleaning and organizing and baking yummy treats!
Maria baking a cake!
on Monday evening we gathered again with everyone for a picnic and bonfire!
the girls with their friends from Davenport
finally it was Tuesday. we were all exhausted! up early, working all day in the heat and then to bed late is hard on you! but Tuesdays site is what we were excited about! a Habitat House! and since we were all over 16 we got to do the fun stuff like using hammers and saws and things! they had plenty for us to do and we could have easily been busy all day! we only worked from about 8:30 to noon though. we did some siding, cut some foam insulation and a few other smaller tasks. it was great!
i cut a super straight line! thats my tough face
we had mass on Tuesday afternoon and then we all headed home. we were very excited to go home, but also excited about the ideas and possibilities that the weekend brought us. they had us all brainstorm ideas that we could bring back to our own parish community. the girls came up with some great ideas that we are excited to get into action!
goal for next year... to have 6 kids going instead of 3!
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