A Whirlwind Summer

This summer absolutely flew by.  Between school ending late and starting early, my time in the States was much shorter than usual.  Add to that the amount of travelling I had to do, and the longest I stayed in one place (in a row) was 3 weeks.  The runner up was a week and 2 days.  But it was full of good times and wonderful people (and all my favorite American foods!) so I guess I can't really complain. :)

 

I flew into Vegas first to spend some time with my parents

 



My Dad spoiled me with
homemade breakfasts

I beat both my parents at an
extremely close game of Cribbage



 

and met the new office cat, Annie

I paid a visit to my Dad's office

 

Next I headed to Pasadena, California to meet and help train all the new teachers for this year.  Training is always one of the highlights of my year, and this year was no exception. 

 

I got to see and catch up with old friends from last year...

 

AZ roommate reunion!

Introverted bonding time with my roommate
at training: Let's read magazines together!



...and meet all the amazing new teachers.  I may be a little biased, but I think we have a particularly awesome group going to the CIS this year! It's also the largest group we've sent in years, which is really exciting.

Normal group picture

and "With energy!"

Aren't they great?  I kind of adore all of them. :) In the three weeks I was there, we also spent concentrated time getting to know our new city teammates.

Lauren, Jillann, Rachael, and me

One of the many team-building activities we do at training is a photo scavenger hunt.  Teams are given a list of various pictures to try to get, each worth a certain amount of points.  Some of the possibilities were "A conga line including as many strangers as possible," "The whole team in a store display window," and "Changing the numbers at a gas station."  Though our team didn't win, we had a blast and got a ton of great pictures in the process.

"CD cover"

"Cooling off on a hot day"- Jillann really knows how to take one for the team!

Though training is really intense, especially for the new teachers (12+ hour days), we still managed to squeeze in some fun activities on the side, whether it was simply cards in the dining hall on Saturdays, Ultimate Frisbee on the lawn, or movie nights in our dorm rooms.  This year, though, one of the new teachers loved to dance even more than I do, so we ended up getting groups to go swing dancing several different nights. It started slowly, then gathered steam as everyone who had been told everyone else how much fun it was! I gave a lot of intro-to-swing lessons that last week, often on the spur of the moment in the courtyard or in the classroom between sessions.  My last night we had 11 people, and the Thursday after I left, another group went.  It was sooooo much fun.  You had better believe we'll be reviving last year's Thanksgiving swing dance parties come November!

 

After training I flew out to Georgia to see my sister and her family for a week.  During that time, we took my niece, Carson, to her first-ever Braves game!  We are a Braves baseball clan, and my nephew had been inducted last year.  Though we only made it to the 8th inning before the kids had to get home and to bed, it was an exciting game. (For those of you in Atlanta, it was the game against the Nats where they tied it up in the 9th and then went on into the 15th inning)

 

What a great family!

 

After that it was back to Vegas for a mere 3 days to pack and head back to AZ.  Though I'm happy to get back, I'm finding that it gets harder to leave at the end of every summer.  My attachments to all my various "homes" are deepening, making every goodbye harder than the last.  But I wouldn't trade the life I've been called to for the world- because it is, in fact, the world. I've left my heart in so many places I'm starting to lose track, but it's a good kind of pain- the kind that comes from loving people and being loved.



Final goodbyes at the airport

So here goes another year! I'll keep you posted. :)