Bucket List: Go On A Mission Trip

I actually went on two missions trips over back to back summers.  The first was in 2004 and the second in 2005.

I talked about my first missions trip a few days ago.  We went to Chicago to work with Jesus People USA.  This was a 100% missions trip.  We worked the whole time and only had one evening of free time.  We went to a soup kitchen, visited with the elderly, worked at a halfway house and so much more.  It was a great trip and an amazing learning experience.

The second missions trip was part missions trip part fun trip.  We went to Acadia National Park in Maine.   However, we didn't know where we were going until we got there - only the leaders knew.  On this trip we did a lot of fun things but the missions work was also super fun.  We got to help out with the Central Maine Egg Festival.   As weird as it sounds, it was a lot of fun!  There were games, face painting, crafts, etc.  We were actually featured in the local newspaper - they wrote about our trip and our work with the festival.

Bucket List: Visit Chicago

I have been fortunate enough to visit Chicago twice; once in 2004 and once in 2013.

 My first visit was in 2004 with my church youth group.  We roadtriped to Chicago to work with an organization called Jesus People USA.  We did so much work there but the things that stand out were working at a halfway house, visiting elderly people, going thrift shopping, putting tire pieces on a playground,  working at a soup kitchen and learning how the organization worked throughout Chicago.  Thrift shopping was the most fun.  We were each given $5 to shop with and had to pick out as much as we could with that five dollars without going over.  We then had a fashion show to see who could get the most with their money.  The other was putting the tire pieces down on the playground.  We had a nice assembly line going and used the single black bucket (the rest were white) to keep track of how many buckets we used.  The first photo below is with our 100th black bucket (I'm in the white holding the bucket). We also had one free night in Chicago where we walked around and ate some of the famous deep dish pizza! The photo quality isn't very good because most of these were scanned.

My second trip to Chicago was in 2013.  My friend Heather was living there at the time for an internship and needed help moving back.  I flew out there and was only in Chicago for all of 8 hours before we started our drive back.  It was supposed to be longer but some other stuff came up and we had to cut it short.   We did get some sight seeing in and had a delicious lunch before getting on the road.  It was probably for the best because it was freaking freezing!!

Bucket List: Pinkberry

Before I headed to the airport for my flight to Chicago in 2013, I looked up what there was to eat that would be good for breakfast.  Fast Food was not an option because fast food breakfast always makes me sick.  When I saw that BWI has a Pinkberry, I knew that is where I wanted to go.  It was a great breakfast and I got to cross something off of my Bucket List!

I got a super delicious Kiwi Strawberry Smoothie!  I definitely want to try their actual yogurts at some point.  If they are half as good as the smoothie, they will be fantastic!  I'll probably go here before all my AM flights out of BWI.

Bucket List: Move to the Country

I grew up in the suburbs (blah) but spent a lot of time with my Granny up in PA in the middle of nowhere.  I always knew I wanted to live in the country.  June 1, 2011, Josh and I moved to the country and unfortunately, on June 1, 2014 we had to move back to the suburbs.  I loved it there though and we are hoping that when the time comes for us to buy a house, we can move back to where we were.  Sometimes the drive to civilization could be a pain and I really had to watch my gas tank but other than that I loved living there. 

All of these pictures are taken from our back yard.  We were completely surrounded by a farm and I love the view.

Bucket List: Work at Barnes and Noble

 

I have always been a huge book nerd.  Ever since I was little, I loved loved loved books.  My Mom is the same and so is my Grandfather.  So, when it came time to look for jobs, the first that came to my mind was Barnes and Noble.  Unfortunately, they wont hire anyone under 18, so I waited.  I applied at the end of my senior year of high school and ended up being hired as a supervisor since I had experience from previous jobs!!!  I was there for a little over a year and it was definitely my favorite job ever and I was sad that I had to leave it when I left for JMU.

I have a few pictures from working the Breaking Dawn midnight sale.  We were technically open but most people were there just to buy the book, so we had about 3 hours of down time and needed to keep ourselves entertained before getting attacked by preteens.

The Sun never sets on a Badass

That was definitely the best job I have ever had and I loved my coworkers and Managers :)

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