Safe and Sound

The rest of the team arrived today! Yay! Two guys had to take a taxi from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami to catch a different flight, but everyone eventually got here and our team is now complete. Thank you Jesus!

It has been rainy and cloudy since I got here, but apparently you can burn really really fast in clouds here. I know that you can get sun through clouds, but I didn't realize how fast when you're closer to the equator. I laid out for about 2 hours this afternoon. It was really cloudy and rained part of the time I was out. I burned to a crisp! I haven't had sun burn this bad in a really long time. Guess I'm just gonna have to cover up tomorrow!

I'm off to hopefully sleep. There is loud music playing outside and screaming kids in the room next to us and I have a roommate who says she snores really loud and talks in her sleep. We'll see how this goes. Luckly, I brought earplugs :)

Hope you have a great New Year's!

Update

Well the team ended up not flying in last night like we thought. Apparently this whole volcanic ash thing is easier to handle during the day. There is ash in the air a lot of the time, but during the day the planes can see it. When you fly at night, they can't see the ash so they haven't been sending the planes out. However, the team did get a flight for this morning, and as far as I know are on the plane right now. So they should be here shortly and our team will be reunited!

Training Trip Madness

I have so much to catch up on. Whats new. Christmas break has been awesome. Time with the family, including cousins and my nephew have been tons of fun. I've been in New Jersey (multiple times), New York City, Lake Champion, Richmond, Charlottesville, the Outer Banks and finally Puerto Rico! I'll catch up on everything later, but wanted to write about all thats been going on here in Puerto Rico.

My flights for the most part went alright. On my second flight we sat on the plane at the gate for two hours before we left, which seemed like forever, but we got here safely and everything worked out. I flew on my own, but the rest of the team flew in two groups. There were ten people that flew out of Chicago really early yesterday morning and the rest of the team practiced in Grand Rapids and flew out of Chicago later in the day. The people already in Puerto Rico were supposed to practice at the pool here and then go pick up the rest of the team last night.

I got in later than I was supposed to and Aaron and Casey picked me up from the airport a little after six. There was a whole huge catastrophe that I wasn't apart of the hour before they got me. We are supposed to have a bunch of rental vans here to take to and from the pool. I don't know what happened, but all we had was the car for the divers which seats seven. They piled eleven in and drove around for an hour to try and find the pool. The roads here are absolutely insane. The exits are all crazy where you have to drive past something and then take the exit towards where you want to go, but then turn away from it to turn around towards it...I don't know, it doesn't make any sense. So Casey and Aaron picked me up and we went to go find the pool we are diving at since it is different from the pool the swimmers are at. It took about 45 minutes doing lots of loops and turns, but we finally made it there.

On the ride to the pool Casey and Aaron informed me of all the craziness that had been going on. Casey told me the rest of the team wouldn't be coming that night. Something about a volcano erupting and there being too much ash in the air, making it dangerous to land a plane. I don't know, Kelly and I both flew in on our own and didn't have any problems, but the airline wouldn't send them out. Dan said that they were gonna try to get a flight out for this morning, but if the team couldn't get here by Friday, they wouldn't come at all. So crazy.

So there are twelve of us here in Puerto Rico and the other 50 of our team isn't here. They not only couldn't get to Puerto Rico, but were stuck in Atlanta, Georgia. The plan kept changing, but what eventually happened is the team split up in three groups and flew to Orlando late last night. This is our training trip, which is always really intense, so Dan wanted to get in all the training they could. They flew to Orlando, where we usually stay for one night when we have our training trip in Florida, practiced this morning, are practicing again later today and then are taking a really late flight into Puerto Rico tonight. They're supposed to get here around 2am. CRAZY.

I am so thankful everything with my flights worked out and I'm not stranded in an airport by myself. Casey and I are the only divers here, but we lucked out and have our coach, which is great. We dove for about 20 minutes yesterday since we were so late with everything and then went to pick up the swimmers. We were going to take two trips because we now had an added person (me) and my luggage. We decided to try and make it work, so fit twelve people plus a suitcase into a 7 passenger car and went to grab some dinner. Dinner took forever, but we got back to the hotel, crashed and did some dryland practice this morning. We're not sure what time we are able to get on the boards to dive this week cause what we were told is not the same as what the people at the pool said. We're hoping to work that out today.

Anyway, I am alive and doing well! It's been a crazy couple of days and seems like we're just going to have to keep rolling with the punches and being flexible. Please pray everything works out for our team and that they get here safely. Also pray that we don't have 12-2 as our pool practice time like they think we do cause that would mean we wouldn't be able to do things as a whole team during the day. God is in control and I just have to keep trusting in him.

Happy Birthday Nick!

I guess you could say that Nick was an unexpected friend, someone who just shows up in your life out of no where, and doesn't leave. I'm not really even sure how we became friends, but looking back after four and half years its been quite a journey. I've learned so much from him and through our friendship. Some times were great and awesome while others I could have gone without, but he is the one friend who has been there through all of it with me. He knows me better than probably anyone and could tell you exactly how I would react given a particular situation (most likely because he would react in the same way). We are so similar, yet polar opposites. There are often times where we will ask each other, "how the heck are we friends?" My only answer to that question, is the Lord. God has called us to be friends, and I'm fine with that. My relationship with the Lord has grown and been challenged through my friendship with Nick. From high school to me going off to college to my family moving to Nick going to college, God has had a strategic hand in all of it. I think it would be safe to say that neither of us thought we would be friends once I graduated high school, but man were we wrong. Nick is now the only person I talk to from Charlottesville. Crazy how our lives can change in the matter of moments.

Nick is that friend that I can always count on. He's been through the thick and thin of everything with me and I know he always has a shoulder to lean on. He has a contagious enthusiasm about him that is so fun to be around. Once you get him on the topic of rugby, football or hip hop, he'll talk about it so passionately that for a second you'll think you love it too. He's a great guy and awesome friend to have.

I hope you have a super fantastic birthday Nick!

I'm Back!

Well...contrary to popular belief...I AM still alive. The last six or seven weeks almost killed me, but by the grace of God, I made it through. I had a pretty busy semester to start with, but in the matter of one week, it turned to absolute chaos. I picked up a class that started half way through the semester, dryland changed from two mornings a week to three mornings a week, and track started. It was insane. Since first semester my sophomore year at Calvin each semester has gotten harder and at the end of it I always say, "well at least it can't get harder than that." Then the next semester roles around and I'm sorely mistaken. After past semester, I literally wouldn't ever be able to handle more, I wasn't even able to handle it this time around. There were many days that I struggled with which responsibility needed to give, and what I could get away with not doing. Quite a few days of not doing homework, which always stresses me out, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. There just wasn't enough time.

I was hoping to catch up on my blog over Thanksgiving, but I ended up doing homework all break to catch up and it just didn't happen. But...as of Monday at 5:00pm, I am officially done with my last semester of classes!!! WHOO HOO!

I still have two semesters of student teaching, but hopefully that will be homework that I enjoy and not quite as hectic. But, I guess we'll have to see.

There is much much more updating as many many things have changed in my life in the last month or so, but I will write again later...