Today was a fairytale, I wore a dress.

I actually did..sort of.
It was more of like a long shirt ish type thing. With leggings to make it appropriate. Of course.

ANYWAY.

I had so much fun today.
Okay so the first part of the day was crappy. That was the part where I didn't get to bed until like one and then I had to wake up to an alarm for the first time in a month and that was at 6:30! *sad face*
But after that I just was excited so I didn't mind it much.
I led worship at church.
Well, Behn 'led' but I pretty much led him so..that's how it went.
But honestly, we had so much fun during the practice. I just wanted that to go on forever.
The actual service time was pretty great too but I couldn't keep laughing like I wanted too, although at times I could barely contain myself.

Then I had wendy's for lunch.
Mmm.
*note* okay so weirdest thing, I am beginning to detest fast food. Like actually, and it makes me sick when I eat it now. It can only be from my diet I'm thinking but this is really good.*
I got a BLT Cobb salad(yumm), apple juice(yumm) and the new fries that they have been advertising. Oh my gosh, these things were amazing. Like better than McD's amazing.

After lunch I got to come home if only for a little while. But even that little while helped. I like my home. It makes me happy. I curled up in bed. It felt nice.

ROCK CLIMBING! It was fun, although I hadn't originally wanted to go. Made me feel so out of shape though. And my hands hate me. But that's nothing a little aloe body butter sample from the body shop won't fix.

And more worship!

It was a fun night.
Only made better by the fact that I get to sleep in tomorrow.

EDIT: And I looked back and I posted this at 11:11.
Things don't get better than this, guys.

Looks good.

Police: "You wish to report a murder."
J.D: "Attempted murder."
Police: "That's not so serious."

J.D.: "Not when you downgrade it from a murder.
But when you upgrade it from room service it's quite serious."

Does anybody want to go see 'The Tourist' with me?
It's comes out December 10th.
It has Johnny Depp AND Angelina Jolie.
What more can I say.

Sometimes you have to take a day to yourself.
And mourn the stupid mistakes that could have been avoided.
But after that day is done.
It's time to get up and move on as if nothing has happened.

To cleanse? Or not to cleanse...

I've gotten it into my mind that I should do a cleanse.
Yeah, maybe for the most part it is just because it's the preppy thing to do and I want to have said I've done one.
But I thought right now, since I've got nothing going on it might be the best time to try it.
I am very much a newbie to this sort of thing, which is why I'm listening to my voice of reason for once and not starting a brand new cleanse right off the bat tomorrow when I have barely even known about it for more than an hour.
Although it does sound very good to me.
The Master Cleanse(click to see official website)
Have you heard of it?

My mother has warned me against any such cleanses and detoxifications. But..then again she has some pretty strange ideas herself so I say to each her own.

I'm going to give myself some time to research and in the meantime try some simple healthier eating styles to see if that improves my general well being. Which probably means taking the stash of goodies in the closet and moving them to a locked cabinet far, far away where I cannot see them, cause for the most part I am out of sight, out of mind type of girl.

Now, as much as I hate the cliche 'ask a question at the end of your blog post in order to motivate more people to comment' I am going to do it.
Almost entirely because I truly want your opinion.
Only partially cause I do like lots of comments.

What do you readers think of cleanses and such?
Is it hot? Or not?

Sometimes I feel skilled.

It's 7:22. And I woke up ten minutes ago naturally.
Even though I went to bed the latest I have in..months probably.

Anyway.

The other day my mother gave me an ultimatum. Although it wasn't as serious as it sounds.
Rake the leaves or make dinner.

I really didn't want to do either. Especially since I hate working in the kitchen unless I feel inspired. But, the thought of raking leaves for two hours did spark some inspiration =).

I made soup. Like totally-from-scratch soup.
It was Potato Cheddar. And it was Amazing. Like actually.
Except for maybe a little bit too salty. I was getting very generous by the end of it.


I made buns. Like totally-from-scratch buns.
I have not made something like this in years. Actually mixing everything together rather then tossing all the ingredients into the bread maker.
I even made them part whole wheat to feel healthier.
They were very good.


And for dessert I made cookies.
Swedish tea cakes. They were yummy. I actually made those because I started craving them out of the blue. But I had to make them with store bought jam since my jam had an unfortunate accident.


Well, that's all for my home maker reports today.

T.I.L.T.

1.Warm countries that never experience snow, or even cold for that matter.
2.Peppermint Mochas. (I tried the peppermint hot chocolate today and it was nowhere near as good.)
3.Naps.
4. The lack of stress Ihave due to not having any responsibilities.
5.Waking up and thinking I can go into the day without painting my face.
6.Vehicles with a lot of weight, abs and good winter tires. Winter driving freaks me out.
7.Wedding pictures.
8. Pot stickers from the Wok Box. So. Good.
9.Getting christmas shopping done in November. I'm not done yet..but so close.
10.laughing.
11. That little group of close friends that you know will like you no matter what happens.
12.Snuggling in blankets right before bed being so stoked to sleep.(Am I a nerd? Haha, last night I was so excited to sleep I giggled for like ten minutes while warming up my covers and figuring out the most comfortable position.)

Confession #4.

Well folks. I have finally figured out where I got my 'smarts' from.

Another chapter in the 'Chronicles of Mother'.

Overheard her talking to someone on the phone today:
"I would assume if it's 34 dollars then it would be three tickets. One adult and two children.
Since the Adult is ten and the children are seven each so fourteen together."*Freeze*
10+7+7=24...

I will now double check any numerical equations that I ever let her handle.
And I thought math was MY weak point.

Haiti. The Finale.

Day 12:
Thursday was a busy day.
We went for a hike into the mountains in the morning.
It was about a 1 1/2 hour drive and then 45 minutes in. But in order to get there we had to cross a river in the truck, and some pretty rocky terrain. It was so much fun! A little worrisome at times though..like driving through a river that is at least two feet deep in a truck..scary.
But the hike was a lot of fun. The destination point was this cool mountain pool.
We spent a bit of time there swimming and exploring the creepy cave part, then hiked back and drove back to camp.
About five minutes away from home we realized there was a flat tire(not very surprising after everything the truck had done that day.) so most of the girl folk decided to walk back. That's when I discovered my shoulders.

I knew they would be burnt. I mean, I planned on that. I purposely didn't put on sunscreen cause it was the last day in Haiti and I needed as much sun as I could get.

But as I'm walking back to the guesthouse at the end of the excursion I look at my shoulders..and the entire surface of my skin was raised. I started freaking out, thinking that I was blistering already, or something along those lines.
So after panicking for a good amount of time I came to my senses and realized it was just the heat rash thing again. Just way worse. I took more benadryl and left it at that.

After lunch we went to the beach for a couple hours.
As far as beaches go it was quite splendid. But unlike last time it didn't seem as enjoyable. The only reason I can see for that is last trip we didn't have any water by us to go swimming in so the two days we went to the beach were really special. Whereas this time we had an ocean out our back door the entire time and a river to our right so making a special trip to the beach seemed a little pointless. Although the sand was spectacular.
And there was shells everywhere. I picked out quite a few to bring home with me.

By the time we arrived home my rash was back, and of course worse than ever.

So even though it was the last night I basically just took some medicine and read in bed before going to sleep early. Although not before indulging in a little left over halloween candy. I am very upset I missed the day after halloween candy sales.

Day 13:
Last day :(
I had mostly packed everything up the night before so I didn't really have anything to do in the morning so I just hung around..and made about 50 trips back up to my room to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything :) and I didn't(that I've noticed yet).
We did a couple last team photos and since there was nothing keeping us we left a little bit ahead of schedule.
I read/slept the whole bus ride back to the airport.
We said our quick goodbyes to Rod before we entered the building and..the crucial part..I forgot to take one final dose of Benadryl before I put it into my checked luggage. BIG MISTAKE.
My body was already looking pretty bad. And we were stuck waiting in the airport for over 3 hours. In which time..the rash spread to my face. Haha, it wasn't actually as bad as it sounds. It wasn't so much of as rash on my face..it just looked like I had a huge sunburn on my forehead. I was just pretty self conscience. And I made sure that I never touched my face..I was so sure if I even nudged it I would instantly get hives all over it.
Cause that's usually how it worked. It starts small, like mosquito bites but the more it's irritated the worse it gets.

But they let me on the plane with my 'disease'..so I guess I didn't look as contaminated as I felt.
I was done with planes already so I tried to sleep as much as I could.

We got into Miami and it took awhile to get everybody and the luggage together.
When we finally sorted everything out we got lost trying to find the hotel shuttle bus area. And it took forever! for our bus to come. And then it seemed like forever until we got our hotel. But maybe that was just because I was tired. And very done with dealing with some of the people in the group.

We dropped off our stuff in our room and went back out to find some food. I was feeling pretty nauseous at this point but there was no chance of me staying in the room by myself. We found KFC! Haha, it's sort of an inside thing..
I've never really been a big fan of KFC..maybe cause chicken definitely isn't in my top ten favorite foods. So I got mashed potatoes, and nachos..but they put some nasty processed cheese on it so that barely got touched.
And of course for the main course..a bite of the new double down!
The sandwich(burger?) that we had all been waiting for.
Instead of a bun it's two pieces of chicken on either side with bacon, cheese and sauce inside. SO GROSS. But we had to try it in order to say we've tried it.


We stopped at a grocery store on the way back and got some..must needed items. For me that was more Benadryl and some Pepto Bismol. For others..it was other means of making them feel better :).

We spent some time hanging out with the other people then went to bed.
I had such a comfy bed. I mean so nice. Soft, smooth,cool.
But I had the worst sleep ever.
I couldn't understand it.

Day 14:
I had some pretty amazing chocolate croissants for breakfast. But the coffee was only so-so. It was my first time having coffee in 2 weeks..so that was a little disappointing. The first flight all I did was sleep since I was to tired.

The Dallas/ Fort Worth airport was incredible. I wish we had more then 45 minutes there..but I did get to try McCafe. It's not available in Canada yet..it was quite delish.


The last plane was spent wishing the trip would just be over.
Of course we got into Vancouver and had to drive another 5 hours. Great.
But that's pretty much it, people.

I had a fabulous time.
It was so nice to go back.
To experience familiar things and then some new.

Being with a mixed age group was definitely different. But I have always felt comfortable with all age groups so it wasn't that big of deal for me.

It was a lot of fun having half of my family there. Maybe next time it will be the whole family :D.

Thanks for all the prayers and support!

Haiti. The Third.

Day 7:
Memories of Saturday are escaping me.
But we did do a big distribution to the ladies of Renault, one of the biggest slums they have in the area.
Renault is where the Wrays have a big Sunday School feeding program every Sunday so they have built a courtyard with a big concrete wall around it topped off with razor wire.
The ladies came in little groups, some shy others not shy at all. They all sat down on benches and then we passed a bag out to each of them. They all remained seated until everybody got one and then everybody filed out.

Day 8:
We had to wake up and leave really early in order to pick up the food and the Haitian youth team before heading out to Renault again, this time to do the feeding program.
Before they started letting the children into the courtyard everyone gathered in a circle and sang as the deer and then we prayed together.

Then we stood out by the gate and shook all the kids hands as they came streaming in.
Our team mostly just watched for the first part, as they sang songs and had a puppet show but then we sang a song for them. And passed out plates of bean, rice and a candy.

I was holding a baby during this and I am really a bad judge of knowing how old children are and what they should be doing at certain ages but it seemed to me like she was too young to be having rice and beans but my was she hungry.

After everything was cleaned up we headed back to the Wrays house in Cayes where we had some lunch and a few people 'swam' in the pool.

And then Debbie gave us a tour of the hospital they have set up. I never got to see it the last time I was in Haiti so it was nice to see everything they have done there.

Day 9+10:
Not much to report here. Just more of the work projects.
Which included the previously mentioned chain link fence and painting but there was also electricians work in the Wrays new house and some ceiling work, making huge long ceiling beams out of rebar and then carrying them across the property to the orphanage(that part was possibly the worst.) changing oil in machines and other such mechanical work, cement pouring.

Day 11:
This is where things started getting interesting.
We only did a couple of hours of work that morning. Just finishing up the projects we had started. I had a lot of fun that day cause I swore I would not do any painting. I did tough manly projects instead. Like jack hammer a cement wall. It was pretty intense. I wore away some of the skin on my hand. It hurt.

Since we finished early we had time to go visit the aids orphanage in Welsh that we did a VBS at and helped pour the cement roof on two years ago.
Those of us who went on the trip last time were shocked when we saw the property. Nothing looked the same. Last time there had only been a small unpainted guesthouse with three rooms, and unfinished church and the start of the orphanage. We drive up and there are buildings everywhere! And everything was painted a bright cheery yellow. We felt embarrassed to say that we had helped at all since the part we had done in comparison seemed small and unimportant.

It was good seeing Max again. He is the one who had the inspiration to build the orphanage since he himself has aids. And he has put up most of the funding for everything himself.
We listened to him talk about the plans he has for the future and all the blessings he has had in his life, it was very encouraging to hear.

We had lunch back at the camp and then went into Cayes for a tour of the market and some of the slums and then we went shopping! I say this with an exclamation when it reality I did not enjoy it at all. For some reason shopping lately is more painful for me then fun. I got the things I 'needed' to get as quick as possible. And then with the headache of it over I had fun joking with the sellers. Although I did start to have fun with the bartering. Initially it terrified me and I tried to get other people to do it for me.

That day was actually Ryan K's birthday so that night we had fireworks to celebrate and invited a lot of the children from the village to come watch with us. It was so entertaining to watch them be terrified of the loud noises only to start smiling and laughing when they saw all the light and color. Then there was a big bonfire and a bunch of people stayed out there for a long time. But, this is when my problems started.

I had noticed before dinner that I was starting to get some red dots on my stomach and I had no idea what they were from. But as I was outside they started to itch and then my head started to itch so I was doing a lot of scratching. And because of this I started to panic. I went back inside and I pulled up my shirt to investigate.

It looked a little something like this.

I took some bendryl and most of it went away.
I went to sleep.

Haiti. The Second.

Day 4:
The original plan of what we would be doing while down there was helping build the orphanage for amputees from the earthquake but the next part of the building process wasn't ready to go when we arrived so Rod and Debbie wrote out a list of other things they would like to get done.

And since we had a team full of people with different skills, as the list was read off everyone went to help in the area they had the most experience or the capability of doing.

Suffice to say I don't have much experience in anything. And my capability of setting up a chain link fence is pretty non existent. So I was stuck on paint duty.
Let's just get this out there. I HATE PAINTING.
The only thing I have ever really had to paint myself was my bedroom. And I handed that off to my brothers a quarter of the way through since I really didn't want to do it.

I had to keep myself going with the thought that I wasn't doing this as a fun time for me but I had gone down to Haiti to serve and this was the best way to do it.

After work that day some of went down to the river for a swim.
It was nice.
Especially since I hate the ocean and it's salt water-ness.

*Relaxing by the river*

The evenings were never a big thing. Just hanging out in the main room talking. Playing guitar and singing. Reading, listening to music, going to bed early.

The food! Was amazing. Like scrumdidlyumptious every time. But a lot of it was very..canadian. We went expecting things like bean and rice at every meal and instead we had Lasagna, Hamburgers, Pancakes and French Toast. I'm not complaining, though. I do like lasagna. Just a little upset we didn't have an spam-ghetti for breakfast like last time.
We had this one thing a couple times, it was a drink made out of plantains and a couple other things but it tasted like cinnamony porridge. Quite delish.

Day 5:
It was more of the same. Painting.
But apparently it took a lot out of me.
I went for a short nap after lunch and ended up sleeping for three hours.
More of the same. Eating, hanging out.

Day 6:
Well, as some of you might know there was a Hurricane heading for Haiti when we left Canada and the entire time we were monitoring which way it was going, how strong it was and all that, in the end it wasn't that big of a deal. Early Friday morning(around 1 am-ish) I am rudely awakened by a bunch of people talking outside the window of my room.
I went outside. And it was rainy and windy, but I didn't really see the thrill in that so I promptly went back to bed.
When everyone woke up later there was water EVERYWHERE. Great big pools of dirty rain water and some of them were actually pretty deep. A group of us went outside the compound to the main road to see the effects and for the first 5 minutes we were wading almost knee deep through the water. Quite the sight to see.

*Morning after the storm. A giant lake of water.*

Since we couldn't really do any work projects at the moment we stayed inside that morning and made up bags to distribute around the village. These bags typically contained some clothes, a pair of shoes, soap, a toothbrush if they were lucky, barley soup mix, rice, and either beans or a can of turkey meat.

There were different stations set up with each of the different items and there were people at each station putting the items into bags as the baggers went by.
At the end of the line there were people who tied the bags and then set them out of the porch where they got thrown from Rhonda to Danny to Curtis in the back of the bus.


*The confusing mess of making up distribution bags.*

There was an unfortunate accident.

Rhonda chucked a bag at Danny when he wasn't ready for it. He managed to look back at the bag just as it came and nailed him in the face. There happened to be a can of turkey in that bag. It made a gash in Danny's lip. He had to go to the hospital to get stitches.
Sick.

After lunch was probably my favorite part of the entire trip.

Each member of the team(minus Danny getting stitches and Josh who stayed at home cause he wasn't feeling well.) got partnered with a Haitian child from the school that is on the camp property. And then we took the bus full of bags and went out into the village and gave away bags to every home. Our Haitian partners showed us where to go and communicated with the families that we were giving the bags too.

My girl's name was Evenah. Or at least that's what I called her, haha, I was never totally sure that I was saying her name right.
We got along really well despite the language barrier.
I tried to make it fun by having races and playing hide and go seek.

*Evenah and I*

At the end of the day to thank our little helpers we gave a pair of new running shoes to each child.

Haiti. The First.

You might think I am crazy.
Blogging about my trip on the day of my return after traveling since 5:30 in the morning, crossing three(?) time zones and having no energy in my system.
And all the facts prove that I am crazy.
But I know myself. And I know that if I don't get this out of the way now I will procrastinate until I forget everything that happened.
So here you go.
The quick and to the point story of my missions trip to Haiti.

Day 1:
So the day of departure was hectic..and busy..and confusing and for the most part I just wanted to get it over with.
Not only was I leaving the country for two weeks but it was also baptism Sunday, barefoot soccer, Halloween..Oh, and my Birthday.

But the drive down to Van. was pretty uneventful.
We stayed the night at Ryan K.'s grandparents house.
And there was even a 'surprise' birthday cake for me. So special(only a little bit of sarcasm there,folks.).

Day 2:
Everyone woke up early and we loaded all the bags into the three trucks and headed off to the airport where we met up with all the other people who had come separately from the group. And everything started off normal.
We filled out Custom forms..and checked our bags, went through security.
This is where one of the first incidents happened.
Curtis A. for some reason has a special mark on his boarding pass which meant he had to do some heavy duty search thing so he got a full body x-ray done.
But since he was wearing the same blue Haiti shirt as 4 other people in line behind him it meant that Cade, Trevor, Matt and I think one other person had to get the intense search done too. Hah. Sucked to be them.

This whole time Behn, Dad and I were waiting for Cade since we had filled out our customs form as a family so we had to go through as a family.
So we go through the next checkpoint fine and we have one more to go and we are almost through and BAM! There is a note on our form saying we have to go to this special little room off to the side. Where we waited and waited and waited. This whole time we did not know why we were even in there. But time was going by and it was getting closer and closer to our departure time. And the American Airline employees were trying to figure out everything for us but in the end all that was figured out was that they had a problem with my father so we the children could go on but poor dad had to stay behind and wait some more.
So we trotted off to our gate with sad faces to tell the team of the loss.
Okay, I might have been laughing the whole time..but let's look past that.

The rest of traveling that day was most uneventful so it's hardly worth going through every detail except maybe one funny thing.
We went to pizza hut for lunch and Behn was getting all excited that you could buy beer at the pizza huts in the states..until we gently reminded him that you could in Canada too.

A couple of us slept in the airport that night. Terrible idea. Worst idea ever. Never doing that again. Especially since it was a crappy airport and all the stores closed early and then didn't open until after we left in the morning.

*Setting up camp for the night. There was a man sleeping by us who was snoring SO LOUD which did not help my insomnia.*

P.s. FIRST Time ever going to the bathroom in an airplane. But it's actually not as bad as they make it out to be.

Day 3:
After getting the worst sleep EVER!
We boarded our last flight non stop service to Port-au-Prince.
We landed.
It wasn't at all like I remember it from last time. That could just be my faulty memory or maybe alot has changed especially since the earthquake.
We had to take this little shuttle bus to the immigration part and WOW! was is ever Jam-packed! And confusing. And hot. And confusing. So many people everywhere and no order to everything(But now that I think about it that was pretty much the same as all the rest of our dealings with Haiti so no biggie.)
When we finally got all checked through we went on to baggage claim which was just as confusing. But add in some men who pretend to be officials. They are nice and find your bags for you..but then they hide them until you give them a tip.
It was a lot of work collecting all of the bags together but when it was finally finished we walked out and..were bombarded with more people trying to 'help' us with our bags and get us to come back to their taxi's. We just had to single file it and attempt to follow Rod Wray and his helper back to the bus.

Driving through the city was and interesting event. It was actually not that busy. Rod was pretty surprised at how quick we managed to get out of Port. But I managed to snap a few pictures before we left.

*Some lovely piles of garbage*

*There were hundreds of tents set of all over the place with survivors of the earthquake. Still living in the tents 8 months later.*

Overall I wasn't really shocked at the state of things. To be honest I thought it would be worse but I couldn't really tell the effects of the quake. I'm sure if we had gone to other parts of the city it would be more visible though.

Then the rest of the drive was a blur of snapping pictures and trying to get some sleep. Easier said than done..it was a very bumpy ride.

When we got to the camp we were amazed at how nice the guest house was. It was 5 times nicer than the one we stayed at last time. And that one was not terrible by any means. We somewhate settled our stuff and then the men went out to start work already..


and the ladies went to a nearby little market thing they had going..not sure what it was for but this is where I experienced another first.

FIRST ever energy drink.


Toro. Made in Port-Au-Prince.
It was very, very good.

Then the rest of the day was just getting used to the place and preparing for the next day by sorting clothes to give away and other such nonsense.


Okay I am drooping here. So I guess I will have to finish tomorrow.
P.s. I am only putting about 1/20th of my pictures on my blog. If you want to see the full extent look on facebook in a bit..
If you don't have me as a friend..well, maybe this will give you the nudge.

Hey guys.
I'm dead tired, I feel like a truck run over me,I haven't seen my father since yesterday morning but everything going to be fine cause in another three hours I will be in haiti!
So. See when I get back guys!
Please keep praying, we still won't find out when my dad is arriving in Haiti until like six...so any prayers for peace of mind and all that would be greatly appreciated.
Brb (in ten days)