See You In August, Colorado!

Good Afternoon, family and friends! I'm reporting to you live from the cozy SIP coffeebar in northeastern Minneapolis! Kerrie & I made it safe and sound to Minnesota--although I'd definitely be lying to you if I said it was an uneventful road trip. For those of you who did not see my frantic texts, snapchats, and facebook updates, we were caught in a tornado and severe thunderstorm!

Long story short, we were driving along the endless fields of Nebraska, eying the strange looking clouds and dark, gloomy weather for about half an hour--specifically questioning one cloud that seemed to be forming the shape of a cyclone from a far off distance. That's when both of our phones start vibrating and loudly buzzing, alerting us that we are in the middle of a tornado watch. Kerrie and I--two east coast girls, who never experienced a tornado before--were obviously very afraid; we screamed for a solid 15 seconds and may or may not have soiled our pants... I digress; we continued to drive away from it, but it took us awhile. We were happy when we started to enter a sunnier, cloudless area of Eastern Nebraska, but soon after we encountered this aggressive thunderstorm--lightning was everywhere, rain was pounding the car, and even though we had the windshield wipers on the highest speed possible, we still could barely see. Cars were pulling over, but we decided we could make it through (Kerrie is a great driver--especially considering she's from Jersey...). With all this being said, it is a blessing we made it to Iowa! As my fellows at Group would say, it was a God Sighting.

We spent that night at the lovely EconoLodge Hotel in Walnut, Iowa. It was so much nicer than the Super8 we stayed at for a couple nights last week in CO! However, the BudgetHost Hotel we are residing at now for a few nights this week in Fridley, MN isn't quite as nice. It's right alongside Highway 65, and there seems to be an ant invasion in our room. At least we have our own beds, though!

Anyway, we enjoyed staying in Littleton last week helping our friends set up their camp at Columbine Hills Church. We moved them into their office, went on several Walmart runs, and began assisting them in planning out details of their camp (who sleeps where, how to organize all of the food in the kitchen, printing countless documents, etc.). We also had time to begin getting ready for our own camp in Minneapolis--which was very nice! I'm super lucky to have a partner who is just as organized and on top of things (if not more) than I am--this is an uncommon gift for me, my friends.

We stayed in most nights last week and hung out together, but one evening we went to Columbine High School. The Memorial was quite beautiful and touching, and we were all very glad we decided to go, despite it having us shed a tear or two.

Well, time to start visiting the sites we will be partnering with this summer in Minneapolis! Hope you all are doing well! :)