WE MADE IT & we are finally blogging!
After a long 14 hour drive from Mizzou, we finally made it to the dark curvy road of our service site and housing. Tex-Mex was the way to go on Saturday night after the long drive. We happened upon a sign that said "Tacos and Karaoke" we obviously had to go in there. It was too dark to explore the 120 acre land at 11 p.m. most of us waited until the morning.
We started our Sunday at noon greeted by four Peaceable Kingdom staff members, excited to teach us the 500 miles dance, which we will be doing with the children when they arrive to the camp. This day was filled with learning about Peaceable Kingdom's history and the amazing camps they offer during the summer as well doing team building actitivies. Which we proudly completed (especially the Z!) When we went on the tour of the retreat we were blown away (and still are) by the amount of activites the kids are able to do here. There is literally no place like Peaceable Kingdom *Dorothy's voice*. On site they have a theater, where they show movies with popcorn and soda, and hold talent shows during summer camps. There are countless activites for children to play for hours and never get bored. We can also say that us 19-22 year olds have enjoyed every second of the air hockey table, guitar hero and mini basketball hoops too. They also have a mini golf course! Sunday was a great day at Peaceable Kingdom.
Monday was interesting for most. We were introduced to our project that we will be working on during the week to leave our legacy here at the retreat (as many alternative break trips do). Our project is to sort costumes, make a list of new ones, build and paint new shelves for the costumes. Colton was especially excited to sort costumes being a Textiles major! Of course we had to try on the costumes and multiple of the more than tangled wigs that were in the boxes. Haley walked away with a fabulous pair of 2 inch clogs that should have never been popular.
After lunch we met Bill, Nora, Mountain and Brawn. A goat, donkey and two alpacas. Many of us have never been on a farm. Scooping poo, cleaning a barn and making a "goat mountain" was new for almost everyone. These tasks help in so many ways for Peaceable Kingdom and we definitely walked away with an experience from that farm.
On Monday the staff made dinner for us and brought community leaders to speak about their involvement with Peaceable Kingdom.
Tuesday was our "free day" where we were able to explore the great city of Austin, Texas. Our first stop was the capital (the biggest capital in the United States), Colton said that the dome was much bigger than the one in Missouri. The girls LOVED shopping on South Congress and taking pictures at all of the awesome touristy spots. (The guys did too…of course) We ate a fabulous lunch at HopDoddy burgers. After the shopping we stopped at The Hope Gallery, which is a HUGE graffiti wall and spent a while there sifting through some cans to see if we could find a not so empty one so that we could spray paint something.
Austin is also known for the bats that come out of the cave at dusk, so that was the next activity on our list. After we waited for an hour, we decided the bats weren't going to come out. Dinner was at a great BBQ place. YUM. (Everyone was tired of Mexican food.)
Tomorrow, Wednesday, is our first day working with elementary children and we couldn't be more excited to FINALLY do the 500 mile dance with them!
This is how we feel about each other only after 3 days, I can't imagine what else is in store for us this week!
-MAB KILLEEN
No comments:
Post a Comment