Making the Most of 15 Vacation Days

As this year comes to a close I've started thinking about all the trips I've taken in 2011. For a girl who works full time and only gets 15 vacation days a year, I’ve managed to pack a lot in. Not as much as I’d like, but a lot nonetheless. I watch the Southwest sales every week and I’m always on the lookout for a cheap place to book a flight to. And since this blog is as much a scrapbook of my life as it is a place for me to update people on my life, I made a list of all the places I made it to in 2011.

2011

January - Tucson for Wicked (one day on a weekend)

February - (I call this month “Summit Preparation Month”)

March - Chicago for Summit (used 2 vacation days)

April - Tucson for softball games/U of A goodness (weekend)

May - Williams, AZ for the ONE retreat (weekend)

June - Flagstaff for a wedding (weekend), Camping trip @ Woods Canyon Lake (weekend)

July - Pinetop, AZ for Golden West Camp (used 5 vacation days)

August - (I call this month “Camp Recovery Month”)

September - Seattle (weekend)

October - Lake Havasu for Soma’s H20 Fall Retreat (weekend)

November - Camping trip @ Picacho, AZ (one night), Costa Rica mission trip (used 3 vacation days)
December - Flagstaff for a snow day with Journey Sedona Hike with Journey (work forces me to take 4 vacation days around Christmas)

New Places Visited in 2011: St Charles (IL), Lost Canyon in Williams, Seattle, and Costa Rica.

As you can see by all the purple text, I like to squeeze as many things into weekends as I can.

I’ve decided to start making Google maps for each year to help me remember the trips I’ve taken. This year I’ve been all over AZ, and I've flown to three different places including somewhere out of the country. Not too shabby.

View 2011 Trips in a larger map

If my work ever offered me either a raise or more vacation days, I'd take the vacation days in a heartbeat. I have a couple of friends who get 20 PTO days a year and I'm definitely jealous of them.

In 2012 I hope to have more Tucson trips and at least two camping trips. The biggest notable absence from the past year has been a trip to California. Or any road trip, for that matter. I’ll have to fix that in 2012. I have California in my blood, and I can only go so long without a visit to the Golden State. The only other question is...where else should I go in 2012? =D

I still have my sights set on Europe (2013 maybe??), and New Zealand is still on my bucket list. As for travel within the US, I can see see Denver, Chicago, San Francisco and New Jersey working out in 2012 with all of the Southwest points that I have. Chicago would be the only trip requiring vacation days, which would leave me with enough days for camp and to start saving up days for either another mission trip or my first international vacation. Or maybe I can do the unthinkable and take unpaid time from work?


Oh so many options and decisions yet to be made. But for now, I have my flight to Chicago booked and we'll see what else works out!

Costa Rica - Manfred

OK guys, I have a few more stories from Costa Rica to share for those of you who are still keeping up with all of this.
 
It was the first day and I had just walked up this huge hill to this neighborhood where we were going to have our first cell group (bible study). As we approached I saw Kathy, one of my team members, sitting on the ground with a group of 4-5 boys surrounding her and her translator. It turns out that they had seen the boys playing soccer in the street and called them over. Kathy went through the entire eCube with them and ended up praying with them. I’m not sure if any of them did it because of peer pressure or what, but all of them said that they had prayed. Right after that everyone went inside to have the cell group, and I stayed outside to do the children’s ministry. All of those boys stayed for the children’s ministry.

As a side note to this story, I have to say that children are the same everywhere. I may have been standing in a filthy street in the middle of a poor Costa Rican neighborhood, but the children were still the same as any kid in North America. Actually, I think I’d prefer the Costa Rican kids. When I gave them a piece of candy their eyes lit up and they ALWAYS said thank you. How many kids here in America take a piece of candy for granted? 

Anywho, I did the wordless book with them (gold, black, red, white, green) and we played a game to help everyone memorize John 3:16. I think we did a craft and played an active game as well. Typical children’s ministry stuff, just in the middle of a street instead of inside a church building. That same group of boys that were there the first night came back every night that week for our children’s ministry. And I’m not going to lie, sometimes certain ones would drive me nuts. Anyone who has worked in children’s ministry will know what I’m talking about. There was this one boy, Manfred, who had an awful lot of energy and sometimes I found it hard not getting annoyed with him as he was always causing distractions. However, he was always grinning this huge grin and he seemed to be having the time of his life being there.

Manfred is on the left in purple

 
I found out a few days later from one of my other team members that his parents had said that when he came home that first night that they could tell that something was different about him, that he had changed. They could visibly see it in him. It was because of the change they saw in in him that his parents were also saved that week and volunteered to let us use their house for the children’s ministry (we ended up needing the house to host the cell group, but the street worked out just fine so it didn’t matter). Manfred’s father, Carlos Roberto, is someone who I see carrying on the cell group in that neighborhood, and I was so excited to see how that family changed in the one week that we were there.

Even though I personally wasn't there when any of their family members received Christ that week, they are one of my favorite stories of the whole week because they’re such a tangible example of how having God inside of you actually changes you. And it’s looking at a picture of Manfred that makes me remember that every cent that was spent on this trip, every lost minute of sleep, every tired moment I had, was worth it. It was totally worth it.

Quick Updates

Some quick updates on my life:

First, I ended up taking Rue (the dog) back to the humane society. She was a great dog, but I couldn't be a good enough owner to deserve a dog like her. Her listing on the website was gone on Saturday when I checked, so I assume that she's already been adopted. Hopefully she ended up at a good home. That's my sad update.

Secondly, I've been fighting off a cold for the last week or so, but life is just starting to settle back down a bit. I'm greatly looking forward to my week off next week and looking forward to sleeping in. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some time with all of the friends that I've been neglecting the last couple of months, as well as catch up on my lengthy to-do list, which includes updating this blog.

Third, I posted pictures from my trip to Costa Rica on Facebook. If you don't have a Facebook account you can still view them with these links:
Costa Rica Pics - Part 1
Costa Rica Pics - Part 2

I have some more stories from Costa Rica that I might post here. I've been talking to a lot of people about the trip so it's hard for me to remember who I've told what. This blog is turning out to be a scrapbook of sorts for me, so I'd like to put some more stories up on here so that down the road I have them to look back on.

Lastly, if you've never listened to this song, you should do so now. It's my favorite Christmas song.

A Funeral

This afternoon I'm going to a funeral. It's been a long time since I've been to one and I've never been to one for someone this young. Even though Josh Morrison and I weren't incredibly close, he and I have had connections for most of our lives. We both grew up in Awana, and we grew up going to camp together. In fact, his last year at camp was also his first win as a team captain, and it was also the first year that he and I were on the same team. We always joked that once I became a Varsity counselor we'd make sure we were always on the same team.

GWC 2009 Green Team Counselors

The last two years Josh wasn't able to make it to camp, so we never got to do that. But he would pop up at Awana events like the state competition and cheer on the Palmcroft teams. Last year, after he saw me wearing a color tie at state to match my team's color, he let me borrow some of his ties to take to Summit so that I could have a color tie to match each team that we might be on.

It's one of those things where it's hard to realize that I'm never going to see him again on this side of heaven. I think I'll always be expecting him to pop up at an Awana event or some other random Palmcroft hangout. The one good thing is that I know without a shadow of a doubt that I'll be seeing him again someday.

Josh, myself and James Morrison