Back in my city!

Yesterday morning, I arrived in Madison for the semester - to be honest, I was extremely excited to be back all summer, and then just the beginning of this week I started having second thoughts. My little brother's birthday was Monday night, and then Tuesday and Wednesday I took him to school in the morning. Because yesterday morning was the last time I'll see him, I gave him a hug and then I almost cried on the way back to my house. It was sad!

Now that I'm here, however, I'm happy to be back with my friends. About half of our "pod" has arrived - there are 10 girls in a pod, and 7 of us all knew each other and chose to live in a pod, and then my roommate and one of the other rooms were random girls. My roommate seems nice and easy to get along with, so I'm not too worried! Last night, after we were all moved in and made it through our house meeting, we all just hung out and caught up a bit. Tonight should be more of the same! 

Colleen and I in front of our "second home"
(also, note my reddish hair!!!!)

Today I haven't done much exciting - my friend Colleen and I ran a  few errands- picking up our football tickets, going to Walgreens, and stopping in front of the business school - the place we like to call our second home. All in all, I've walked about 4 miles today - definitely a sign I'm back on campus! Then, tonight I hit up the pool with Colleen to swim a quick workout, before meeting a few other people from our floor. The people I've met have all seemed friendly and nice, so I'm optimistic for this year!



Adios for now!
-Theresa

Sweet Summer Days

I've just begun my last week at home - and by week, I really mean only 2 more days before I leave for Madison! I have a lot of packing yet to do, although I'd have to say I'm currently more on track this year compared to last year. Last year, I was up all night before moving into the dorm, running to the store to get things and pack up the car. As one might imagine, this led to a long, exhausting day and wasn't the best first day to be away from home. SO, this year I'm trying not to repeat!

This past week, I finished my last day of work on Thursday - although it was a very anti-climatic end. The prior week, I confirmed with my boss that I would be done this Thursday, and then when I went to leave work on Thursday and awkwardly said, "So, this was my last day..", my boss was shocked. He had completely forgotten when I was going to be done. As a result of this lack of communication, I have to go back next week, but only for a free lunch, which I think I can handle. :)

On Friday and Saturday, I was in Whitewater at a Cru Leadership Advance retreat. It was a chance for all of the men and women who will be leading at either Whitewater or Madison to meet up, determine goals for the upcoming year, develop a plan, and ultimately pray for our campuses. It was wonderful to be back in such a supportive community after somewhat of a rough summer for me spiritually. I've been struggling a bit to keep my faith, lately finding that I've been questioning and doubting God a lot. So, strengthening my community with all of these spiritually encouraging people was awesome. I will be helping to lead a freshmen women's bible study with a close friend and my bible study leader from last year. This means that I will have to personally strengthen my ability to share my faith and approach people to initiate spiritual conversations. This is something that I think I will struggle with, so I will absolutely be praying for God's strength to help me and lead me to the freshmen ladies he wants me to speak with!

Today, I was in Madison at my aunt's hair salon with my mom - and I dyed my hair! I'm the chief of last-minute decisions (mostly because I'm also the chief of indecision), so once we got there, I decided to dye my hair a dark reddish brown! It's not too big of a change, but it's just enough that I can start the school year feeling a little bold!

I'm off to pack, and this is probably the last time you'll hear from me until I am once again living in Madison! That is both terrifying and exciting! I'm very excited to see the ways God will move me this year - I'm sure it will be an adventure!

-T

Refreshed, Rejuvenated, Ready to Go!

After a long, dragging week, I had a great weekend! It was a great kickoff to my last week of work! (yay yay yay!) Friday afternoon, I was able to leave work a half hour early, and headed over to the YMCA to get an hour swim in - I went 2500 yards, which was the longest workout of the week, and finished with 50 yard freestyle sprint, clocking in at 29 seconds! For many of you, this is probably fairly meaningless, but to swim a 29, from a push off the wall (as opposed to diving off a starting block/side of the pool), after only a week back in the water was exciting and motivating! I'm looking forward to heading back to the Y tomorrow afternoon after work, hopefully to swim another 2500 yard workout.

After my swim, our family went to Subway for dinner, and then my mom and I headed to the mall to do a little bit of shopping. I'm not typically much of a shopper - I get bored with it really quickly, but this excursion was fairly successful! After we got back, we met up with my dad and treated ourselves with frozen yogurt. It was a wonderful low-key evening.

Yesterday was a bit more hectic, but fun nonetheless. I spent the day reffing a 3v3 soccer tournament, which featured some really good teams. Because the fields and teams were so small, the play was faster than the typical soccer game I ref, and other modifications to the rules added to the challenge, but it was a relatively good experience! As an added bonus, I ended up getting paid a dollar per game more than I was expecting!

The "brownies" (note hair color)

The gang out for dinner!

Last night, I headed out to dinner with 5 of my close friends from high school. We ate at a semi-fancy restaurant (to give you context, it was the same place that we went for one of our homecoming dinners - fancy enough, but not overly pricey.), then had a night of facials, Pitch Perfect, and a baking adventure that ended in strawberry-blueberry cobbler! Tasty! This week, our group begins to disperse to our respective colleges, as the rest of us slowly follow in their footsteps. It was a great time reminiscing and catching up, but it also reminded me of the weird dynamic of having two entirely different lives now - one at school with all of those friends, and one back home with all of these friends. Luckily, I've been blessed with good friends in both places.

Finally, today was mostly about family. Beginning this morning, at church, I saw two people who are very dear to me - Mike and June. The past three years, they have hosted foreign exchange students. The first one, I was very good friends with, and therefore came to know Mike and June, who are much like second parents to me now. Additionally, I will admit that I have an attraction to anything foreign - people, places, things - so that definitely is a big draw, too. They just welcomed a new foreign exchange boy from Hungary into their home, so I'm excited to get to know him better!

This afternoon my older brother was home, my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and aunt and uncle came over to swim and grill out. It was laid back and not completely overwhelming like some of our family get togethers can be. The food was delicious, our pool was warm, and the sun was out - what a perfect day! We even introduced my aunt to geocaching - and the cache we found had awesome camouflaging - a log had been cut into two pieces, and then a hole had been drilled into one of the pieces, where a pill bottle was placed. The other end was reattached so that the log was in one piece again - so, in order to find the cache, you had to notice that the wood had oddly been cut all the way around. My brother-in-law made this observation, and we came back to supper satisfied (and hungry)!

Although I'm certainly not looking forward to the next week of work, I'm down to only four days left. This weekend has been a good kick-off to my final week, so I'm hoping the next four days continue the trend!

I hope the last few days of your summer find you relaxing in the sun!
-Theresa

Bah-Hum-Bug

For lack of a better adjective, this past week has been long. Monday it was back to work, and by today I am absolutely, 100% ready to be done for the summer. Almost everyday I get so frustrated that I'm nearly in tears, so that certainly doesn't help the situation in any way. I'm still not sure when my last day will be - all of my friends are finishing this week...and I desperately wish I could join them. Tomorrow maybe I'll be brave enough to tell my bosses that I want to be done by middle of next week. We'll see. 

Other than work, I've gotten together with a couple of friends this week - one of whom will be living in Italy in a week and a half! It was good to catch up with both of them, but also made me even more anxious to get back to having my own adventures. 

On the other hand, I have been back in the pool this week! Today I took the day off from swimming and went for a mile and a half run instead, but I'm really excited to be back into swimming mode. AND I found out that UW-Madison has a club swim team...that actually goes to meets! I am absolutely beyond thrilled to race again. 

I'm afraid this will be a short post, as frankly, my life this week hasn't been very exciting. My sister just called, however, and we are meeting up for an impromptu dinner date! My week has basically been comprised of little moments like that - friends calling up to hang out for an hour or two, seeing friends at the YMCA on my way to swim - little saving moments to keep me from going entirely crazy in a very dull week. 

13 days til I'm back in Madison! Woohoo!

-T

Home at last!

Devil's Tower - Wyoming

Whew – six action-packed days later, and I'm still alive to tell about them! Monday afternoon, we went to Devil’s Tower, which was once again, awe-inspiring. A rich Native American site, it was full of natural beauty and cultural history. We even spotted a pair of people while they were climbing it – both a terrifying and inspiring feat. After Devil’s Tower, we started our journey into Montana.

Ziplining across the Gallatin River!

After driving across much of Montana, we arrived late at night to Belgrade, Montana. Then, it was up bright and early for our adventure zip lining and whitewater rafting. I would be lying if I claimed I had no trepidation about the event, and as you can see in the first picture, climbing the bridge to the first zip line platform took a lot of determination to just not look down. My father, who is afraid of heights, had opted out of the zip lining adventure and gone fly fishing instead. I thought about joining him, but I'm so glad that I did not; within a second of stepping off the platform and soaring through the air, I fell in love. Our guides were both phenomenal and the other group we were with – a group from Chicago – was also a blast to be around. Too soon, we had soared over the Gallatin River and it was over. We went and picked my dad up from the fly fishing site and headed back to the company’s headquarters, where we would eat lunch before embarking on our whitewater rafting trip. The rafting trip, too, was a blast, exhilarating, and led by a guide who knew exactly what he was doing. For anyone going out west, my family and I all highly recommend Montana Whitewater Rafting Company ( Yellowstonezip.com ). In addition to zip lining, fly fishing and whitewater rafting, they also offer horseback riding – so there’s surely something everyone would enjoy.

We had a fairly low-key Tuesday night, although I did go for a 2 mile run. Sadly, I’m now about 95% sure that I have shin splints in my left leg, so I'm going to have to put the running on hold. This was the most disappointing part of the trip so far, but I'm trying to just not let myself think about it. I’ll have to find some other form of exercise to finish out the summer!

A hot spring in Yellowstone National Park

Wednesday was our day trip through Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons. After making a little detour into Idaho so I could check off another state, we entered Yellowstone through the West Yellowstone Entrance. I found the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Lower Falls to be absolutely spectacular – and of course, Old Faithful was neat, too. Yellowstone is full of geysers and hot springs, all against a backdrop of mountains, rivers, and prairies. One geyser, Steamboat Geyser, is the tallest active geyser in the world. It’s highly unpredictable, however, as intervals between eruptions have varied from 4 days to 50 years. So, seeing this erupt is an incredibly rare event. No, we didn't see it erupt, but 7 days before we were there, it did erupt for the first time in 8 years! A different couple that we talked to had come to Yellowstone 8 years ago, and missed the eruption by 4 days. I don't think they had heard that they had missed it by less than a week this time – and we surely weren't going to be the family to break the news to them!

Old Faithful Geyser erupting in Yellowstone
National Park.

Unfortunately, we saw hardly any wildlife – the lone sighting of anything was on our way out of the park when we spotted a mule deer alongside the road. After stopping for a family picture by the Yellowstone National Park entrance sign, we drove through the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway to get to Grand Tetons National Park. We managed to be driving along these magnificent mountains right during sunset, providing a beautiful, scenic end to our day.

Thursday, we have begun the journey back home, driving through Nebraska (woohoo, another state!) to Custer State park in South Dakota. There, we finally saw bison! That afternoon, we stopped at Wall Drug, as it is obviously a staple for any trip out west. Finally, we began our final leg of our journey, driving to Rochester, the Niagara Cave, and then finally home. In Rochester, my family met up with two of my close friends from college for lunch. It was a special treat to see them - only 3 weeks until we are in Madison! Niagara Cave was also neat - and a wrong turn took us about a block into Iowa, bringing my state count to 25 of 50! 

Today has been fairly low-key, as the majority of the day was spent at a soccer referee recertification class. The adventures will soon begin again, however, as tomorrow I'm headed to West Allis for the Wisconsin State Fair!

-Theresa

Into the Wild, Wild West

We’re only two days into our adventure and I’ve already been amazed countless times! I’ll back up a little bit, however, because even the days leading up to our road trip were eventful.

Shark plane at EAA Airventure - Oshkosh, WI

Friday, after a somewhat awful day of work (long story short, it was frustrating, involved some quickly blinked-away tears, and left me feeling awful about my bosses paying me for the summer when I feel like I’ve not lived up to my bosses’ expectations), I headed to EAA with a friend who had free tickets. For anyone who doesn’t know, EAA Airventure is a weeklong airplane convention held in Oshkosh, WI. Oshkosh – typically a city of about 65,000 – is teeming with 800,000 to 1,000,000 aviation enthusiasts. For that week, this regional airport has the busiest airport control tower in the world. It’s pretty crazy! Anyway, we watched a bit of the airshow, and wandered around the grounds for a while. We even saw a plane painted as a shark!

Saturday, we took a day trip to Point Beach State Forest on the shore of Lake Michigan. Every year, we have an mini family reunion at the campsite with my mom’s side of the family. Usually we camp for a few nights with everyone, but because of our impending week-long trip this year we only went for the day. My brother and I even braved 68ºF water to frolic in the waves of Lake Michigan.

Soon, we were back home and gearing up for our early-morning departure. As is typical for me, I slept hardly at all – wasting time on the computer and watching TV. I didn't even have to finish packing, because believe it or not, I was already finished! (NOT typical of me.) When 5:00 rolled around, therefore, I was crabby. I did manage to fall asleep for a few hours on the road, waking up just in time for the Amish Bakery outside of Rochester, MN.

Badlands National Park - SD

Our first real attraction was a scenic drive through the Badlands in South Dakota. It was truly an incredible sight – something that is difficult to accurately describe through words. We got to venture out a bit onto some of the rock formations, which let me confront my fear of heights a bit. Every bend in the road would reveal yet another jaw-dropping view. It’s a great reminder of the beauty God is capable of creating in all nooks and crannies of this Earth.

At this point, since it hasn't come up yet, I should also mention that our family vacation happens to coincide with a huge motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. On our entire trip through Minnesota and South Dakota, we were traveling with tons of packs of motorcycles – everywhere we stopped, from the Amish Bakery to roadside scenic vantage points, we've been surrounded by bikers. Once we arrived to Keystone, South Dakota, home of Mount Rushmore, the congregation of motorcycles was larger than I've ever witnessed in my life. In reality, however, it’s been fun to talk to some of these people we meet while sightseeing, as they come from all over the country and some have some pretty cool stories. One couple was on their honeymoon, while another cyclist at our hotel was spotted with a kitten. Apparently, 100 miles into their trip, they discovered that one of their kittens had snuck into their trailer and was along for the ride. In Sturgis this week, there will be approximately 600,000 bikers and at least one kitten. J

Mt. Rushmore - Keystone, SD

That brings me to today. This morning we went to the Crazy Horse Memorial, an in-progress counterpart to Mount Rushmore (which, by the way, was awesome last night – perhaps the best part was the segment honoring veterans at the lighting ceremony when at least 60 people announced their name and branch of service. I’m not ashamed to admit I teared up!). Anyway, to be honest, Crazy Horse was a cool sight to see, but it was overpriced and we didn't even get to see any pieces of mountain blown away! After that slightly disappointing stop, we headed onward to Jewel Cave National Monument. Although the cave tour we wanted to take was sold out, we traversed a two mile hike to the original cave entrance, found by horseback riders years ago. It was an interesting little hike, although much of the scenery was a bit – disappointing. The forest that originally would have surrounded the trail was the victim of a wildfire, leaving miles of charred trunks and twigs. Regardless, it was good exercise!

Now, we’re on our way to Devil’s Tower – I’m sure the rest of the week will be equally as adventurous. Tomorrow is our zip lining and whitewater rafting adventure – so hopefully I’ll survive the day to tell you all about it. (I’m doing my best not to think about it because I’m DETERMINED not to chicken out.)

I know I’m certainly being inspired by the ever-changing landscapes around me – just when I think that nothing can top the sight I’ve just seen, we go over a hill and my jaw drops again. I’ll check back in later in the week – until then, I hope you’re enjoying God’s beauty around you, whether that involves visiting national parks and monuments or just smiling at a stranger passing on the sidewalk.

-T