1/30 - Tuesday

Andrew doesn't think we can keep up with the date for the whole trip, but I'm determined to prove him wrong. Have to keep in practice for stubbornenss, I guess. I'm also "practicing" by making Rachel go ahead of me at every meal. :)

We're in San Diego right now. Jenny and Jessie [AIM missions director and her twin sister, who live in San Diego] say it only rains in San Diego three days per year. Well, so far we've been here for two of them! We're staying at Stuart and Jessie's condo. They spoil us rotten. ("We" is the four official mission trip team member girls - Courtney, Olivia, Emie, and me). We had milkshakes, played a game, stayed up late. Jessie insists on doing our laundry and gave each of us a mission trip survival kit - Tic-Tacs, Puffs, etc. [I later realized that I left this at their house.] Discipline got thrown out the window last night and this morning, and a lot of it is my fault. As the oldest, most organized, most time-conscious, and the only one with any idea of what to expect [since my sister went on a mission trip last fall, and I went on one last January], I should have made everyone buckle down. Andrew said as much this morning. We were assigned 30 minutes of schoolwork, which not all of us got done, we got up late and moved slow, we didn't offer to help with anything. I feel really bad about it. It will definitely be better tonight!

Yesterday we left training camp. All the girls got carsick from trying to do schoolwork in the van on very windy roads. The view was awesome, but it mostly just made us want to puke. :) We stopped at Wal-Mart. I got ponytail holders, bobby pins, shampoo, and toothpaste (first two left at home [so I thought then; I actually found them buried in my duffel bag at the end of the trip], second two confiscated at airport). Then we came to this big church, where we trained the Youth in ACTION younger team for about three hours. Ryan did some technique, we taught What Would You Do for a King, and then they wanted to learn Take You [Take You At Your Word, a song with a bunch of hard-to-remember dance steps]! Fifteen little kids! Can you imagine 8-year-olds trying to learn that song? It was organized chaos, but Andrew said (and I agree) that the team (I didn't help much with that song) did a good job of keeping them under control. I was excited and pleasantly surprised to watch the team take to leadership and teaching so quickly. ** censored **

 ^ Youth in ACTION after learning Take You at Your Word

Then tonight we stayed with Stuart and Jessie. Jenny drove us over there. The rain was glorious. We were all soaked to the skin! [I have to add this, because I don't want to forget it. Courtney and I went for a run in the rain. We splashed and laughed and almost slipped. It was so much fun!] Jessie says Californians don't know how to drive in the rain.

Funny memories:
Jenny's scream after stepping out of her car into six inches of water
Jenny breakdancing
"We all need a vacation - our schedule is severe." [Long story, but I'm going to tell it anyway. A mission trip tradition is to thank the cooks by singing a song to the tune of "Good Morning, George" from the Veggie Tales Rack, Shack, and Benny.  The thank you song includes the first two verses of the song, but the third goes, "We all need a vacation / Our schedule is severe / We're getting very tired / But stopping gets us fired / So we'll have to stay right here." At training camp, we sang the thank you song, then sang the third verse to Andrew as loudly as we could. He wasn't too impressed.]

Emie seems to be getting over her homesickness. ** censored ** Being on the road seems to help her a lot.

It's pretty hard to do Math-U-See without the "see." I'm pretty self-sufficient when it comes to math, but I may be asking for help pretty soon. [I never ended up doing this, because I was pretty sure that nobody else on the trip would be able to understand it much better than I did. I didn't really understand all of the material, but I managed to do well on the tests (which were the only part that counted anyway).]

I'd better get back to school. It is schoolwork time, but since Mom basically commanded me to journal, I'm hoping it's OK. I also caught up on Bible reading. I read the first couple chapters of Brave New World, but now it's getting really wierd and I'm going to call home tonight and see if Mom'll let me skip it. We'll see. [When Andrew first saw this book in my duffel bag, he did a double take. Then he said, "Not the best book for preserving your innocence." He also said that if it hadn't been a school book, I wouldn't have been allowed to read it on the mission trip. After reading the first couple of chapters, I could see why. Mom eventually decided to let me skip this book.]