Choose another map, showing:

• USA (west)
• North America
• Transatlantic
• The World

Other entries in Denver

Summer of Service Update

I love it. I love working with the kids. I have a great group. I love being in Denver. Overall, I'm pretty good these days. Their graduation is on Saturday which is totally nuts. Even though I work 16 hour days and these last 2 weeks have been ridiculously long, it's weird to think that it's almost over. I really lucked out with a group. My kids are awesome. They continue to impress me, with the conversations about heavy topics that we have to their success at team building activities when we were camping to the work that they get done. It's awesome. They tried to scare us during training, which was probably a good idea because we were definitely prepared for the worst. I haven't really encountered (knock on wood, we have a few days left) any of the issues they said we might. (for some reason my enter key is not working so this will be a GIANT paragraph) They've been doing really well with projects, even though some are less than desirable like invasive species removal (aka weeding) and trash clean up. We've done projects at the foodbank, working at City Park to prepare for the DNC, working in parks and natural areas, etc. We've done some pretty cool trips too - taking advantage of Denver during the summer. Yesterday we went up to Rocky Mountain National Park and went hiking. Then we took a drive up to the alpine tundra (over 11,000 feet!) in the park. In the evening, we took them rock climbing! It was great. Everyone on my team did it, even though a few of them were a bit nervous/afraid of heights. I'M SO PROUD OF THEM! Sometimes I feel like a mom. Ha. I did their laundry this morning (only uniforms) and I get proud of them. If there were a class required to be a parent, I'd be all set. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, there isn't.        I've done some fun things too, other than working. I went to the Mile High Music Festival, which was SUPER awesome. Hung out with John! Let's see, I saw Gavin Degraw, Tom Petty, Spoon, Jason Mraz, Michael Franti & Spearhead, OAR, etc. It was a great day. Went to a bluegrass festival, Dragonboat festival (with the kids - was realllllly fun with lots of free things yay), took the kids to a soccer game, went up to Boulder and then up to Ned where the firefighters are, aaaaand i can't think. It's my day off and that means really my "day less on" because I still worked like 5 hours today. Anyway, to sum up this incoherent blog, this summer has been great, I love working with these at-risk teenagers, I've really gotten to see a lot of Denver/Colorado, and I'm happy! The group of Crew Leaders I'm with are great, which is good for hanging out on our days less on. haha I'm really excited though for the teams to get back though. I miss them. Because next round I'm going to......(see next blog...don't you love the cliffhanger?)

Add to del.icio.us Add to reddit