The Giant, Gaping Hole in the Ground

On July 7, my extended family and I went to the Grand Canyon! This is better known as 'the giant, gaping hole in the ground' by my cousin.

My aunt said that there are normally two opinions of the Grand Canyon:
                 1) This place is absolutely breathtaking......let's go take five million pictures in every location                              possible!
                 2) Oh, this is the Grand Canyon.  Pretty, now let's go.

I do admit, the Grand Canyon is one of the most prettiest places I have ever seen.  But after seeing one area, you have seen it all. The Canyon has tons of viewing sites, which provides different angles of the Canyon. We went to three.  Oh, did you know that the Colorado River is located in the bottom of the Canyon?  The River looks very calm from far away, but I wonder if it has a heavy flow.  Also, the Little Colorado River, which is a tributary of the main River, was near Naomi House. :) Sadly, the Little Colorado River was dried up, until Monsoon season hit.

The Fourth of July

Despite how awful the 4th of July was in 2013, it was quite spectacular this year!

It started out with a swim at the local pool.  Normally, the pool is quite crowded and it opens at 1 PM. Since it was a holiday, the pool opened at 10 AM, and our large crew was the majority of the pool occupants! It was a bit chilly since the sun hadn't fully made its appearance, but it was still very fun.

After we came home, my uncle had made lunch for us.  It was your typical hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, chips, juice, and this awesome cake that was red white and blue.  The cake took 5 cake boxes and 21 eggs. We overestimated how many people would be eating with us on that day because we had tons of food and cake leftover.  But since we have a large household, we didn't care! Leftovers just meant less food we had to prepare later on.

Later on in the day, we went to a local high school to watch the fireworks.  We arrived very early, but the kids had a blast running up and down the school bleachers.  The firework show was very pretty.

Elizabeth and I ended the night about an hour before the rest of our crew did.  Elizabeth and I took a couple kids to Walmart, and came home right before everyone else did.  It was difficult to find the right key to get in the door!

I am so glad I have gotten the opportunity to make amazing 4th of July memories and learn to love it once again! :)

Disney Movie, 'Cars'

Hello! I went to Arizona with the mindset of, 'I will update this blog all the time!'.... Yeah, didn't happen.  :p We did not have unlimited wi-fi, so I had to use my phone for all the blog posts.  It became very hard, especially since I want to include pictures.  So now that I am home, I will update with posts and pictures and all that awesome stuff! :)

The Disney movie, 'Cars', is one of my many favorite children's movies.  In this movie, there are tons of references to things that can be seen on Route 66. I mean, c'mon, they even have a song about Route 66!

The best part is, Naomi House was literally on (one of) the ends of Route 66!!!  Route 66 is broken up throughout the West now because of the interstate.

Remember how Lightning McQueen got lost on the interstate trying to find Mack, and ended up on Route 66, which landed him in Radiator Springs?  He got lost because there were no street lamps.  Well, in real life, this is very true.  There literally are no street lamps near Naomi House on the interstate.  It was so hard trying to find the exit! I would be at least a mile back from the exit, slowing down so I could find the curved line so I would know when to                                                                                       turn.

In the middle left of the above picture, you will see a tractor with the words 'HERE IT IS' next to it.  The sign that this derived from was RIGHT DOWN THE STREET FROM THE HOUSE!!!!! I absolutely love this fact.  :D

You may also remember the Cozy Cone Hotel.  This is also derived from something in Arizona.  The Wigwam Motel, which is located in Holbrook, looks like Native American Wigwams.  In the movie, the hotel rooms were just like traffic cones.  The Wigwam Motel has beds, a TV, and an interestingly-shaped bathroom.

So there is how cool Arizona really is. They have a famous movie fashioning animated versions of their landmarks! :)

Dippin' Dots

Almost everyone I have made aquitance with has heard of Dippin' Dots. Everyone at Naomi House has never heard of them!! 

The only way I know to describe the dots of amazing-ness is little balls of ice cream. 

 Elizabeth and I attempted to make our own Dippin' Dots creation from a recipe we found on Pinterest. 

(Please excuse the words in the picture. I couldn't get a single picture) 

These dots are made out of yogurt, cream cheese, and powdered sugar. We made them a little bigger than dots so they wouldn't melt as fast. Needless to say, it was a slight fail. All the teenage girls thought we had frozen our chewed gum so we could chew it again! 

Despite the slight ugliness of them, they taste pretty yummy! 

Until next time,

Ashley :)

Just Keep Swimming!

Today, we went swimming! 

Pool water in Kentucky is normally pretty chilly, no matter how warm it is outside.  I was bracing myself for chilly water at the pool in Arizona, but the water felt amazing!! Of course, it was cold when I stepped out of the pool. That is to be expected. Many of the teens and I were giving piggy back rides around the pool, and splashing each other. 

I was a bit apprehensive when some teenage girls moved into the NAOMI House...but I've grown to love it. After just a few short days, we have become like sisters. 

I have also grown very close to the other intern for the House. We have so much in common! We like the same movies, music, food, similar beliefs, similar taste in dudes... The list can go on, except she is a very picky eater haha. 

Funny story of the day: I was playing around with a kid today, and she randomly exclaimed, 'I am not a Cheeto!'

Funny story of the day 2: I was shopping at a souvenir shop with my grandma and cousins. The cashier dude was continually saying that 'this item was made by a Navajo' or 'these bracelets were strung by a Navajo' in a voice that is normally used for babies. I wanted to say, 'I currently live with Navajo children. They made these bracelets!' while holding up my wrist, showing off rubber band bracelets these children have made for me. 

I can already tell that I will be an endless pit of emotions when I leave in less than four weeks! :( but I will not let this get me down! I am having a blast here, and I will continue to do so! :) 

Also, we had Navajo tacos at church yesterday. The shell is fried bread, but the inside of the taco is the same. It was very yummy, but I was perplexed as to how to eat the taco. I couldn't fold it and eat it because it was so full. I couldn't cut it all together because it was thick. So I created a taco salad by dumping the taco filling, and ripping up the shell! All of the teenage boys were staring at me like I was weird.  

Elizabeth (the other intern) and I also sang Veggie Tale songs during this time... The teens absolutely hated it. I have decided to use Veggie Tale songs as an 'incentive' to do as I ask. 

Until next time, 

Ashley :)

Clothes, clothes, and more clothes.

Over the course of 3 days, Elizabeth (the other intern) and I organized all of the clothing Naomi House kept in a barn. We spent 24 hours total doing this! Needless to say, I am so glad I do not work retail. 

After putting clothes that were holey, stained, faded, or dated in a give away pile, we finally got to put the clothes in bins that were labeled by size and gender.  Pictured below is the pile of clothes that will be given to the reservation and/or Goodwill. We also have a small pile to be given to the Women's home. 

The teenage boys were excited to find shirts and socks in their size. One of the boys layed on the couch with socks in his arms and had a huge smile. Come to find out, these socks were baby socks! He was so sad when he discovered this. 

Pictures below is some of our bins arranged by size and gender. This was before many clothes were put in the bins. Right is girls clothes, left is boys clothes. 

Thankfully, running my own 'shop' is done, and it's back to watching kids! 

Children from Naomi Ranch (long term kids) have come to the House to stay with us for a while. 

Let the adventure begin! 

Spaghetti, Tumbleweed, and Dragons

Man, the past couple days have been packed with some fun stuff! 

Yesterday, I made my first large meal. It may have been just spaghetti and meat sauce, but it was still yummy and fed so many kids. 

Have you ever heard of the song 'Taking it Easy' by the Eagles? In the song, it mentions 'standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona'. Because of this, Winslow has a statue of the lead singer and it's own souvenir shop!

You know those tumbleweeds that are always shown in movies? The plants that those tumbleweeds are made of (the plant turns into tumbleweed when it dries out... I think) are everywhere on the propery of Naomi House... And everywhere in Arizona. I happened to brush against some of it today and my leg broke out in hives!! After taking Benadryl, all is well and no more hives. 

A church group that has been here the past week took us to watch How to Train a Dragon 2 today. It was an awesome movie! I was laughing the whole time. If you watch it, be prepared for anything though. I was pretty devastated near the end of the movie. But thankfully, the movie redeemed itself. 

The scenery in Arizona is beautiful. You can see for miles, and there is almost always mountains in the distance. Even the bridges across roads have designs on them! 

In other news, I made the President's list for the past spring semester! I have always made the Dean's list, so I am pretty excited to make the President's list. You make that particular list by having a 4.0 gpa while having at least 12 credit hours. 

Until next time,

Ashley :)

Here in Arizona!

I made it to Arizona! 

My first plane ride was fun... At first. I became sick most of the flight, which
made for a quite interesting/painful afternoon with my aunt and uncle and cousins (they live and work at Naomi House). 

I saw my first cactus (did you know cactuses have bark in them?!)! We stopped by the side of the road and took pictures with it. 

There are grass farms in Arizona, and they sell the grass! It's crazy going from a place where grass is so common and 'free' to a place where you literally have to buy grass. 

I also saw several funny signs such as 'Table Mesa Road'. For those of you who don't know Spanish, Mesa is table in Spanish. So it's really 'Table Table Road'. :)

There is a Musical Instrument Museum. I was pretty excited to see it, but sadly will not have a chance to see it while I'm here. 

Tomorrow will be my first official day working here. We arrived late at night (12:30 Eastern time, 9:30 Arizona time). A church group that is spending the week here will be doing Vacation Bible School. I can't wait to see how it turns out :)

Talk to you soon, 

Ashley. 

River Front

I spent my week-start (Sunday and Monday, it can't be a weekend!) with one of my best friends, Stephanie. Because she lives farther away and is now married, I don't get to see her often.  This trip was completely unexpected but very welcome.

We went to the river front that is near her house.  We took tons of pictures, saw a train that was around five minutes long, found my first four leaf clover, and
read the historic signs; it is truly amazing to know about the history of a town and memorabilia that has survived from those times.  One of these memorabilia is an old train track with a caboose on it.

Stephanie, Mike (her husband), and I played a lot of Mario Kart 8 (did you know you had to hold down the button to drift?!?).  Mike won almost every game, and I normally came in last.  There was one race that I was actually beating him on.  My controller died, so I pushed what I thought was the power button to the remote...turns out the power was to the console! Sadly, we never got to see who the winner was for that race.

My trip was so short, but I still had a ton of fun.  When I arrived home, my mom told me to go pack because we were going to St. Louis.  So much traveling! But it is all worth it to be with friends and family. :)

  

Almost There!

In FIVE days, I will be embarking on the adventure of a lifetime! 

As many of you know, I am doing a 5 week internship at NAOMI House.  This is an orphanage that is near the Navajo reservation in Arizona, as well as doing a week long camp for many of the Native American tribes in America. 

I am so excited, and I can't wait to share this amazing experience with you! 

Until then, 
Stormy :)