Friday, June 26, 2009

Friday Fun Day!



















































































A fun day for all! Schlitterbahn & tasty seafood in Galveston! Heading for home tomorrow!!!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Last Day...






































































































































The pffft “touché”ers
Written by: Tracie Shippy and Emily Green

So today was our last workday at our beach not so much disaster house and we finished dry walling the bathroom and garageness! Yay! Everything is up, screwed, and basically puttied. We even had fun carving messages into small extra pieces of dry wall and passing them to each other. One problem we did encounter though was the swarms of random biting flies and mean bees. John Meacham, fearless and with no emotion, took the life of a waiting allergic reaction and swatted it with a piece of dry wall! And down the bee tumbled, while Mitchell just attempted to swat Emily. Another was we were not allowed to use our sites toilet. When asked to use it, we received this brain twister… “No. My son’s parents are up there.” Yes, interesting. So the girls went to the Valero gas station and brought back yummy drinks! Yay! Bonita decided to be the Timmy Clark of our trip and eat all of Tracie’s popcorn… but she bought her a whole new bag. After running low on supplies we all used minimum for a maximum effect. The day was quite great until we got back to the bus after a fabulous Wally World trip, of course stopping to look at albums of some artists such as Michael Jackson, Jonas Brothers, and Mandy Moore, when we found out the terrible news. Michael Jackson, the thriller of our lives, has decresendoed from this musical world. ☹
Our world of missioning is complete. Now it’s Schlitterbahn time!!! ☺ (Yes parentals, we will wear foil and oil and come back with skin cancer…okay fine. Lots of sunscreen. Love you <3)


Thursday June 25, 2009
WOOKIE POWER.

Today was the best day ever. The End.

Just kidddinggggg!

“I bet the other group will enjoy another day of air conditioning and naps”. WELL, IN YOUR FACE. The wookies walked into their crooked house early in the morn and discovered a cardboard box, and soon found their new best friend, Wilbur, the air conditioning unit thingy. We literally screamed when we first laid eyes upon the beautiful creature and looked forward to our last day of working. During lunch at the church, Mr. Cariker thought of the lovely idea of CHICKEN in addition to our chips and sandwiches. Yum. Yet while we are eating a peaceful chickeny lunch, a friendly man walks outside towards us and says, “You guys have been working hard, you deserve some brownies”. Moments later, we also received large boxes of muffins and danishes. Another yum. This day was awesomely amazingly great. We also got to see kids get attacked by sea gulls. Meacham was pleased to see the children come close to death. When we got back to work, Jack, Emily, and Diana were puttying in the front room when the creeper Evan came up and screamed to scare us. Jack suddenly jumped ten feet in the air and landed on the floor while all of us (including him) epically laughed at him. By the way, we actually found out that we had electricity the entire week, but only one outlet which were wires sticking out of the wall. We plugged in Patty’s phone to dance and sing while working and were going to make an amazing music video, which never actually happened. To entertain us during the day, we decided what Friends character and celebrity each person would be. Now Evan would like to add something, most likely being something quite ethnic and or about babies or vampires. Goodbye.
By Diana Blom and Emily Cariker


Redubbed in ye old English:

Today, we arose to find that thine Holy Eastier Wookie hath presented us with a holy relic which hath the power to cool thine blazing sun dubbed Sir Wilbur of Trane.. Soon after sunrise, we hadth begun to begin constructing the walls to the fortress in which we had thine pleasure to work in for thy week. By lunch, we hadth completed our holy tasks presented to us by Mel Gibson himself and proceeded to partake of thine Holy fried Chicken looted from the Crusade of Popeyes of 141 A.D. in which the merciless batter hadth tenderized thine crisp white meat till its surrender 2 weeks later. Production hadth increased after this holy feast, until Jack hath fainted and wet thine pants after being terrorized by the Ghost of the Duke of Heath, Evan Scallan XIVVIIXIVIXXXIVVIIII. Thine day ended with thine spirits up; saying fare ye well to our beloved friend of the cold, Sir Wilbur. The day ended with worship and competition blazed like thine intensity of a thousand suns in our daring conquest of thine colony of Puerto Rico. May God bless our trip and may our Tobacco and Indigo crops be aplenty.
Fare ye well,

Sir Evan Scallan, XIVVIIXIVIXXXIVVIIII Great Duke of Heath.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Wonderful Wednesday!!!
























































































































































Reports from the field:

Wednesday June 24, 2009

THE WOOKIES.

Official third day of working in the most crooked house in the universe, with no air conditioning, and the only bathroom was a moldy disconnected toilet, unlike the spoiled jelly drilling something mabobbers with their plethora of luxuries. Our team worked hard and almost finished intense dry wall. Little Meacham/Chuck Norris Jr. improved her nailing skills. On the contrary, Jack’s skills decreased as he cut dry wall backwards. That’s right, FAIL. But this problem was easily fixed because apparently the group before had a mental disorder and nailed on two sheets of dry wall. After hearing of the other group’s adventure the day before, we took advantage of the chance to take a break and go to Sonic (and lucky us, it was happy hour!). The crime then began when Fatterson and Evan stole the big straws for their miniscule chocolate shakes. Jack was left with a half inch of straw to drink from his large coke, because they were out of Dr. Pepper. And I quote Jack: “I worked and entire day in the heat and humidity without a bathroom or air conditioning and I deserve a freaking Dr. Pepper”. Then we met up with the jelly mabobbers and drove to Mallory’s grandpa’s boat club thing. First we voyaged to the dock, but daring Mitchell, aka “chubbs”, adventured out into the unknown ocean of deathly jellyfish (which were thought to be nonexistent at the time). He wrestled with thousands of intense, infectious jellyfish and eventually was defeated after being brutally stung. So he turned around quickly and was soon to be meat tenderized. He lived. We got over it. After everyone became creepishly fearsome of the ocean, we chose to swim in the pool. That lasted about five mintues before we saw a brown floaty in the water and quickly filed out of the contaminated area. It was apparently a “chicken wing”. Mhmm sureeeee. The rest of the night was amazing. That’s it. Please pray we don’t get creeped on by the strange fellows from the other churches. They creepishly complement our fake tattoos, shirts, argyle socks and consistently beg meahcam to show off for them. Goodnight.
Oh yeah, and Evan thinks he’s like 9765976 nationalities.
Including asian. -.-
WOOKIE POWERRRRRRR!
Sincerely, Diana Blizzzzoooomm. Aka Durrty Diana, DD, Dirty D, icy, or heyoo.


Wednesday June 24, 2009

The Jelly Drilling Crabby Coolas

Today was an early morning waking up to the screaming girls and rowdy boys from other churches up at 4 am to be on the news (showcasing all the beautiful lawns our guys mowed). We had a lovely breakfast of leftover cold pizza, made our amazing sandwiches for lunch, emptied the freezing water from the coolers and headed to our new worksite. After a 45 minutes sleep filled drive all the way across Galveston we arrived at our new worksite by Jamaica beach. We then toured our new worksite, a nicely furnished beach house, again with electricity and bathrooms, and with a messed up rusty garage. After emptying all the junk out of it, including Patrick the crab, and removing a kazillion bizallion nails and screws out of the walls, we began mounting dry wall. We had our amazing screw driverers, Mitchell and Tracie, and the terrific geometrical Emily Green cutting perfect pieces of dry wall, leaving the rest of us shamed by our not so perfect cutting skills. We successfully covered half the area in dry wall by clean up time. Mallory and John returned Patrick the crab to his wonderful home on the beach while the rest of the group loaded the van and put the junk back into the garage, discovering a few black widows the process. After a long day of work, Mallory’s grandpa graciously took us to his boat club where we swam and grilled hot dogs. On the way to boat club, Tracie “graceful” Shippy couldn’t wait to swim and took a nice cool swim in one of our coolers. At the boat club, some of us ventured to the ocean filled with many baby jellyfish that didn’t sting, but lucky Mitchell found mama jelly and after hours of intense fighting with her, he suffered a few stings from the intense underwater “domination”. These stings were later treated with some vinegar and meat tenderizer, making Mitchell a much happier little warrior. Soon after Mitchell’s recovery, the group ate hot dogs and accidently went on a private no trespassing dock to worship. (whoops) but luckily no one was home. Then we all showered loaded the buses and returned to our lovely cramped home. The boys then began the second round of Carcasonne, woohoo…

-Mallory & John






One more day of work...

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Day Two...










































































































THE PUTTY MOWING DUMPSTER DIVERS
Group members: Paul, Mrs. Meacham, Mrs. Cariker, Mitchell, John, Jacob, Emily, Tracie, Abigail, and Mallory.
Blog written by: Abigail and Tracie
Our work day started at around 8am today and ended at around 4pm. We did a variety of jobs including painting, base boarding, puttying, sanding, dumpster diving naming Abigail, and lawn mowing. Most of the time the girls and the guys were split up, except for when Abigail and Tracie decided to be men and help with base boarding. In the afternoon the guys left our worksite and mowed lawns for the block that would be on The Today Show tomorrow. Waking up early in the morning yesterday has still affected our work habits, meaning we were lazy today. We still did work, but the girls took a short afternoon nap on the moldy school floor till Tracie woke me (Abigail) up. Hopefully tonight we will go to bed early enough to wake up tomorrow ready to work. We also get to switch work sites tomorrow, which is pretty exciting. No more dumpster diving! After a long day of work, we spent 10 minutes waiting for Paul to find the entrance to Sonic so we could get slushies. They were pretty amazing, and Bonita(Mrs. Meacham) bought them for us.
Names made for Abigail: Liquinail, Zebratail, Killer whale, Pass-or-fail, Parasail, Walking trail, Rattatail, Chippendale, Rain-or-hail, Supersnail, Swaggagail, Saggin gail, Laddergail, You-got-mail, Broken Nail, You’re-in-jail, I-eat-quail, Bucketpale, Scabigail, Tan-or pale, Staircase rail, Napigail, Happy Trail, Trapigail, Flabbigail,


Today is Tuesday. The Wookies continue their beastly wrath of house repair and remodeling. It has been a hot but rewarding day. As we played a game with clothes pins, we dry walled and filled in cracks with putty. We felt the heavy beads of sweat dripping down our faces because there is no air conditioning. I think we all at least drank four Gatorades and at least three waters. The house we have been in, circa 1900, is oddly shaped because the house originally only had an upstairs. This made cutting dry wall even more difficult. We are determined to get as much as we can done. After a hard day of work we’ll be ready for tomorrow.
Sarah Meacham, Emily Cariker, and Diana Blom

Monday, June 22, 2009

Off the Van & Ready to Work...















Our adventures as best told by our adventures....(one from each workgroup)


Ze Liqui-Nailing Paint Patról

We woke up and met at the church at the “dark and early” hour of 5am, and soon enough we embarked southward to Galveston. About six hours later we arrived at the island to the humid and hot goodness that the gulf is known for. After a brief picnic lunch at the base church, we divided into two groups. Our group was assigned to what was formerly Galveston College before the hurricane, but is now slated to become an elementary school within a few years. The floors and walls of virtually all of the rooms were in pretty bad condition, but between the groups before us and the current work that we were doing, the building will hopefully turn out to be a great facility for the young kids of the city. Within our group we divided into guys and girls. Guys did a bunch of baseboard work in one wing of the building while the girls proceeded to paint a couple of the larger rooms. The ladies ended up having waaaaaay too much fun with the paint (as always) and the guys soon learned that liquid nails and hot, unventilated conditions do not go well together. A few circulation fans later and after some fresh air breaks, we engineered a great system and cannot wait to resume our work tomorrow (and hopefully have another great board game showdown in the evening!).
-Mitchell on behalf of Ze Patról

The Engineering Wookies

Now that Mitchell covered all of the boring stuff… We can get to what you really care about-our group. After our delightful picnic lunch, we went to a house that was under about five feet of water during the hurricane. We had our work cut out for us- dry-walling, framing, cleaning, and tape and bedding. Alas we had NO supplies. I repeat NO NO NO NO NO supplies. We prepped as much as we could, saw the cats (they were creepy) and toured the house (it was creepier-there were scary old pictures). We also saw a man dancing in the streets and preaching the gospel for all the world to hear along Avenue M. So… we are excited to hit the ground running and get all that we can done. Till tomorrow PEACE OUT and RRRRRRRRRRRRR( that’s wookie for goodbye)
-Jack Eidson on behalf of the wookies

Galveston Here We Come...

Why does God wake up so early?...


Tuesday, June 16, 2009

So much fun... no time to blog...

We spent all day yesterday on the beach! The water was so clear and the sand was so white! It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! We are excited about staying at LSU tonight, and we will see Rockwall again tomorrow!





Sunday, June 14, 2009

We Finally Arrived!

We're in Florida!! After two great performances in Shalamar UMC, we had lunch at this restaurant called Fuddpuckers and then headed to our hotel and the beach. We spend what little bit of the day that was left enjoying the sand and the surf and looking forward to a full day of fun tomorrow!!!











Saturday, June 13, 2009

Saturday...A Day On the Bus...

What have we done so far on choir tour…

We have performed twice for two different audiences in Louisiana, and after the second performance we celebrated by eating at Taco Bell. I have not personally eaten that much Taco Bell ever in my life; my plate was filled with three taco supremes, two crispy tacos, half a crunch wrap supreme, some cinnamon twists, some weird nachos that just looked like the left over salsa and cheese thrown on some chips, and some taco salad shell that Emily Green didn’t want. It’s been harder to walk since. I also chased Blair (who will probably die of a heart attack)
- Timmy

Well we have made an amazing trip down here. The bus ride has been long and somewhat boring. We have done two performances and they turned out great. The church hosts were very welcoming; they gladly accepted us into their homes. TODAY IS ABIGAL’S (and Evan’s) BIRTHDAY!!!!! She is 15!now we are on the bus again, wondering where the bus is going to take us next. This morning we were waiting for the bus to arrive. We have been waking up at the crack of dawn, to claim our territory(aka the tables) After conquering our enemy and we finally gained the table for a day. Dun dun du DUN!! Never mess with the best!! WHAT!?
-THE PINKY EL ROY CLUB!(BAILIE AND SARAH)

HEY peoples were on are way to Florida and this trip is so much fun. We’ve gone to the aquarium and I saw the biggest shark ever. It was so cool and scary at the same time. And I got to touch one too but the shark was really small and cute. Theirs this guy name Cole and he is really nice but he says that I’m annoying but I don’t care. Bye peoples that are on this blog!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
**** Madi deaton****

This trip has been __________ (insert adjective here). For one we officially hate sitting on a bus and for two we hate Lake Ponchatrain…. How bizarre to spend to spend half an hour driving on water!!! New Orleans was pretty but it was warm as biscuits! The aquarium was neato and the IMAX was i-mazing! The otters were playful, the sharks were ruff, and the stingrays were squishy and slimy. All and all it was pretty wicked sweet. But by far the best part of the trip so far was stoppin’ at Mickey D’s for breakfast this morning. Don’t ya just love the smell of heart attack in the morning? NOTTT!! We made some hackin janky bracelets and we all matched yesterday, wearing the ugliest tie-dye shirts ever made by man. But now were sitting on a bus all delirious and somewhat cranky. But forget that cuz… Were beach-bound! BE JEALOUS!!
Raquel y Alicia
(aka Rachel and Alison)

Okay, so far we have endured many amazing, crazy, awesome, insane, great, and outrageous adventures. We have stayed with very nice people (some who have trees growing through their houses), experienced Antarctica when we woke up, performed very well and very badly, toured new Orleans and have had very long, boring, loud bus rides. Today we are driving to Florida. Wooh!!! And it is Abigail and Evan’s birthdays. Yay!! We have eaten at lots of fast food restaurants but we did get to eat at hard rock café (yummy!). We have crossed lots of bridges, one being the longest inland bridge in the world. We got to see the superdome where all the hurricane people stayed. Our bus driver is so awesome!!! She drove people out of New Orleans for 30 days after Katrina. We got to shop in the French quarter and the French market. We also got to eat at café du monde and we ate beignets (been-yays!) We are all getting along pretty well, but a few of us are cranky. It’s been really fun so far and we are not even to Florida yet. I’ll have to agree with Rachel and Alison; the matching tie-dye shirts were embarrassing when random people started taking pictures and video of us. We saw robot man! Yesterday, Aislynn decided to do cartwheels down the middle aisle of the bus and on the third one she went sideways and kicked BK in the face. She fell into the aisle (breaking part of the chair) and tripped Kaitlin who was walking back to her seat. She now has a broken toe, Kaitlin is emotional scarred for life and BK now has a broken face. Haha just kidding!!!!!! She was walking and tripped on the cement and broke it. (My story was much more exciting) Guess what?! We are now in Mississippi, only one state left!, Okay well Paul’s laptop is going to die. See you later!
-Melissa 

We have done a lot of cool stuff on tour but the coolest has been hackey sac. John created a monster within the guys by introducing this addictive game to us. The heat and humidity of New Orleans and the hours upon hours on the bus is all worth it when we get to the church and start up a mean game of hackey sac.
-Jack Eidson

My favorite thing about this trip so far is reading the crazy story that Melissa wrote about how I broke my big toe. Thankfully, she actually told the real story of how I broke my toe because doing cartwheels in the aisle of the bus just isn’t possible because there is a slant and it would just be stupid. Yeah so I broke my toe, which will be great for dancing and stuff on stage among other things like walking, because if you’ve ever broken anything you have to walk on, you know the difficulties. Going to the beach should be fun with the hot sand and all. HAHA. It’s a good thing I can laugh about my clumsiness. Tracy’s like, it wasn’t me that broke something this time! Anyway, I have to go because my arms are cramping from trying to type.

<3 Clumsy Aislynn

I’ve really enjoyed staying at people’s houses after we perform at their church. Last choir trip, I actually became friends with one of the kids at the house that my group was staying at. I’ve been in touch with her ever since. I was hoping to meet some
new people and maybe even become friends with the people who were letting us stay at their houses, but I got more than I asked for. I was staying at this extremely nice lady’s house. It had very VERY nice furniture and was in a beautiful part of town. The problem? There was a tree growing through the wall in our bedroom. Our group even kept a large, dead bug that we found in he bathroom (but who doesn’t have dead bugs in their bathroom?) and named him Fredrick!
- Elisha


The trip is definitely one of the best vacations I’ve ever been on. I mean what can beat the French quarter, st.louis cathedral, and the New Orleans Aquarium. Also I’ve been given the chance to hang with all my church that I don’t get to see very often. Singing for people on stage has been very awesome as well. I hope we have a even greater time when reach Florida now that is going to be cool. And maybe I can start being top dog at hackey sac when reach the beach.

- Miles Kirkpatrick

COOKING MAMA! Only those who have lived the tour will understand what joy this game truly is because even when you mess up (FAIL) its ok cooking mama fix it. we as a group find this quite appealing and pleasing to the soul. We find ourselves yelling “COOKING MAMA” in stores and trying to peel crawfish in unorthodox ways. In other news, we have spent half the time restraining Blair from buying masks. We may need to take rehabilitating action if this horrible, horrible addiction prolongs. Or sweatshop mama will fix her. Blair also one day dreams that she will marry Taco Bell ground nachos, as they meet all of her nutritional needs. Evan drinks a bitter wine.(Blair: this is in fact not true if I eat any more fast food I may go into cardiac arrest.) Bacon. (Blair: that is what Evan wants for his birthday. Which is today in fact. He is 18. Let me tell you somethin else this blog….well it’s the bees knees. So all im askin is for a little respect when ya read this . hey baby when you read this. RESPECT. Change pose. Sockittome sockittome sockittome. Unfreeze.)

-Blair and Evan


Me, my big sis Tracy, Riley, and her big sis Abigail are being our weird selves and taking crazy pictures on the computer. Riley looks like an old Indian lady in one of them. We are having fun but we still have a little way to go until we get to Destin. Yesterday we went shopping at the River Walk Mall in New Orleans. We also went to the Hard Rock Café and our waitress was terrible. Abigail asked for some water and she brought her the wrong drink, so Abigail said that she wanted water and she didn’t want the other drink, then our waitress was telling her to calm down. Then she didn’t bring her water so we had to ask someone else. Everyone is so excited for Florida and it’s gonna be so much fun just like everything else we’ve done so far.

- Abby (not scallen)


The kids have been AWESOME in their performances of the musical so far. I can’t wait till everyone at home gets to see it next weekend! They are so and so cute. Ya’ll will love it! I loved the aquarium. Except for the sharks. We have been having a great time, and I can’t wait for the beach! ☺

- Patty


The best spot on the bus is the floor for sleeping ☺

- Emily Green

AGREED☺

Were going to have sexy beach bodies by the end of this trip! Not!

The trip so far has been really fun! Half of the trip so far has been on the bus, but it’s all good because we party on the bus! There are two tables and there is an endless battle over the current conqueror of them. There are also two places to sleep on the floor- Melissa sleeps in one and Emily sleeps in the other, occasionally someone else gets a turn but no one sleeps as much as they do so much! Everyone constantly has food and we are going to be obese by the time we get to the beach. That will look interesting, New Orleans was fun and everyone bought crazy sunglasses and masquerade masks. We saw a robot, clown and cowboy hobo. We are now on our way to Florida, but most of us have spent all our money already ☺ Oh ya and we drove over the mighty lake of endlessness, it took thirty minutes to cross it!

~KAITLIN ~

Friday, June 12, 2009

A Day In New Orleans...





























































































We got up this morning and had breakfast at Cafe du Monde. They have the BEST beingets, and also very good iced coffee! We then just walked around for awhile looking at all the neat shops, and also going into St. Louis Cathedral, which was BEAUTIFUL!

We wandered around Jackson Square and some of the surrounding curbside markets. We had a late lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe right off of the river. We did a quick view of the river and the River Center shopping area before heading to Aurora UMC for our 7 PM performance.

After a spectacular performance, we dinned at the always extravagent Burger King and Taco Bell.

We are now settling down for our evening's rest before making our drive to Destin, Florida tomorrow...