Felt a little down, so we decided to throw down...

Well the weather is getting cold and depressing, and my work has me so crazy busy that I really don't have a personal life, so the other day my old college roomie drove down from chicago as we enjoyed a weekend resurgance of summer. Don't get me wrong, I love the work I'm doing for my new job, it is just consuming my life at a rapid pace. I also wish our culture could be more simplistic at times. We always have to schedule, schedule, and schedule some more. I guess what I'm saying is that I wish it were warm, i had a dirt bike, and that i could just do something without having to plan it at least a week in advance. Also, I just started a new part time job with the planning center where my older bro works doing finance stuff. So if my blogging continues to go down hill, you know it is because my life is officially owned by the man. On a brighter note, we've got our fall camps coming up soon, so I will keep you posted on their awesomeness!!!

Love,
A. Sizzle

It's a deer, it's a couch, NO! It's a RECLINER!!!

So last night, I felt like I was back in the Dominican Republic as one of the most random things happened in the world. I was on my way back from a staff training event in Wisconsin with my boss and two student staff girls. Dan was driving and we were crossing the Mississippi from Wisconsin to Iowa when I looked up to see Dan skreeching his brakes to try and avoid some object in the middle of the highway. I caught just a glimse of the object and only saw brown and fussy coming up over the hood of the car so I yelled DEER! With a car on the left and a wall on the right, Dan had no other choice but to slam the object at 65 mph. When we finally came to a halt, the smell of burning rubber was pewtrid. Brittany in the back thought the tire had exploded. Dan pulls to the small shoulder of the bridge despite the mystery object still being lodged under the front bumper. Mindy was the first one out and yelled "you hit a couch." As we all emerge on the object, we realized that Dan had not hit a couch, but a recliner and it was lodged underneath his car. With no major damage done, except for a bent up license plate and a crick in my neck, we left the mangled carcass of laz-y-boy on the side of the road and headed home. Now lets be honest, who hasn't forgotten to take their recliner off the highway at least once or twice in their lives?

Crooked Creek Ranch

So i have been home exactly 24 hours to the minute now from my young life trip to Colorado. The mountains were stinkin' awesome...it definitely made me miss living out there! Camp was pretty much a little taste of heaven...obstacle courses, volleyball tourneys, rodeos, horseback riding, ridgerunners, stories about Jesus, moon blobs, polar slides, ropes courses, pool parties, reading harry potter, carnivals, square dances, ultimate frisbee, ET, moosen, chilling in the hot tub, mountain climbing, frolfing, operas, late night wrestling/rap offs, a creek that was crooked, Jesse LeBron James, Tex Collector, the Great Bambi, Shady McGrady, Megatron, and much much more...my only negative comment is the stupid stomach flu that i got that pretty much knocked me down for 36 hours, but i got up again...give me another 48 hours and i should be rested and ready to move it move it move it...

What do I do now?

So you are probably wondering what I do now? Well I work with Quad Cities Young Life, can't you tell how busily I'm working, and how boring my office space is? Only in YL can your office have this much pizazz. However, things are definitely a little on the boring side for now just cause its all business side of things, and I was born to be around other people. But that side of the job will just keep snowballing into a giant snowman, especially since I'm the trip leader for 34 people on our camp trip to Crooked Creek Ranch in Colorado which is in two weeks.

Yours truly,
Andrew

The boys are back in town...

Last week was an awesome week because I was reunited with my brethren for the first time since Christmas! Of course, I have officially conceded as being the shrimp in the family. As my younger brother's military spine definitely towers over mine. Unfortunately, we've already been split up again til Thanksgiving, as my brother has to go save the world down in Florida. Nonetheless, its always good to be home.

Andrew

Mowgli lives!!

I just want everyone to know that I met Mowgli in real life. His name is Leynny and he goes to my school in the Dominican Republic. If I was every stranded on a deserted island, I would take him because he can climb for coconuts, catch crabs, and start a fire with wet wood.

New Beginnings

For those who haven't heard, I just finished my first week of my new job. I was hired by my local young life to be the associate director for the Illinois side. I will be in charge of the youth groups for Moline High School and Wilson Middle School. I still feel like a Deer caught in the headlights, but I am especially excited about our trip to camp in July. I'm still of course trying to catch up on sleep because as you can see from the picture, last Monday was quite an experiencial travel day. I woke up at 5:00 am eastern standard time to make an 8:20 flight in Santiago, which turned out to be delayed an hour and a half. I was actually fortunate because my bags were overweight, but the lady let me pass free because of the trouble. Once I finally got through customs in Miami, I missed my 1:30 flight and was rescheduled on the 4:15 to Chicago. After a rousing afternoon in Miami airport, we loaded the plane just shy of 5:00pm. However due to weather storms in Chicago we sat on the tarmac of Miami for 2 hours. The only good news was that because of my flight change, I got bumped to business class, which really was no different than first class, so I slept like a baby. At 7:00 they made us deboard the plane because they didn't have enough food to feed everyone on the plane. At 8:00 we reboarded and finally took off. Unfortunately we arrived in Chicago just after 11:00 pm and the night flight for Moline had already departed. I quickly got in line to get my flight changed to 8:05 morning flight. The lady at the counter also informed me that there were no longer hotels available because of all of the missed flights, so emergency cots were set up in the terminal for us to get some shut eye. I was of course freezing and barely slept a wink especially because of the horrendous smell. I finally got extra blankets at about 3 am and fell asleep to be rudely awaken by the security guards at 4 am to kick us out of the cots. I then found a cozy spot on the ground to sleep a couple of more hours to wake up and have my gate changed three times and the flight delayed four times and finally took off at 10:35 am. Upon arrival to the Quad Cities, there was quite the luggage confusion, which meant that I finally got home just shy of 2:00 pm Central time. This made an over all travel time of 34 hours for a trip that can be done easily in under 10. I'm alive which is what is important.

Andrew

End of the Year

Well, I was supposed to be in the Dominican Republic for a couple of weeks, but I ended up staying for over three months. Its hard to believe that it is over, and I am still in shock to be back in the United States. Here is a picture from our last week of school. The third day of Spirit week was Twin Day and of course the winners of the whole school were me and Arberlyn of first grade!!! So here is a shout out to Arberlyn aka Mr. T for looking so hardcore with are tattoos that we won first prize!!!

Andrew

Camping at the Beach

A couple weeks ago, I had the chance to take the 6th graders to the beautiful, secluded beach of Samana. We spent five days on the beach with the primary focus of studying the coral reef. We were partnered with a marine biologist who came and taught the kids all about the coral reef, its importance, and how to protect it. It was an unbelievable trip and we saw incredible things below and above the water. It rained everyday, but we just embraced it and ran around in the rain in our swimming suits. Each kid also got the chance to rock climb and much more. Of course the rock climb wasn't hard for our class monkey, Leynny who climbed the coconut trees every morning to get us each a coconut to drink its milk. Thanks sixth grade for such a memorable trip.

Andrew

Doulos Wins!

I have to give a quick shoutout to the Doulos Team for winning the tournament and bringing home the hardware! The exciting game ended in a 2-2 tie and pushed into penalty kicks where Josue was the only person to score and give Doulos the victory. Things here have been great! Feeling healthy again, and I've been playing soccer and lifting with the junior high. It has been a great time of fellowship. In two weeks I will be taking the 6th graders on an expedition to study the coral reef. So we are all excited. For those who do not know, I will be returning to Moline on June 18th. See some of you then!
Andrew

zoom zoom zoom

Well living in the republica dominicana isn't all fun and games. As you see above, myself and six compañeros are about to embark on a very difficult mission. A friend lent me their dirt bike so that we could go on an excursion exploring the countryside. This was obviously a prephoto because we are all clean and so are the bikes. The terrain was rough and the bikes slipped and slided through the mud. We spent half the day and a full take of gas getting to our destination, but eventually we all arrived back home safely. The mountain views were beautiful and definitely make life exciting. Yes, this was a nice break from all of the fun and games that go on in this country.

Sincerely,
Andrew