Across the state

NEXT stop that I remember significantly was Colorado! We flew there for 2 weeks to attend a couple different things with our mission.  Our Mission is called World Venture, or WV :)  So, WV had a Spiritual Renewal type week for our parents and the kids went to "Camp World Venture."  I was able to become one of the honorary (not payed) Interns for those 2 weeks because I was older.  It was very stressful but a lot of fun!  The first week (camp) was where the parents stayed in a hotel and had their meetings there and the kids/teens stayed in the WV office and slept, ate, and had their programs all there.  It was a very cool time for them/us to bond because we were always together, but it was super stressful for the interns because we had to be in charge of them 24/7.  There were like 23 kids from age 10ish to 18, talk about variety. There were a quite a few kids who had their siblings there, so we had to try to divide them in activities :D  Another cool thing was, that even though everybody was different and came from different places around the world and different cultures, we were all the same in a way!  We were all TCKS (third culture kids) and best of all, all of us were MK's (Missionary kids)!!! Some people don't understand how we work, but we all understand each other and that was so awesome to have.  We had a big talent show at the end of the week where I MC'd and that was crazy and fun.  There was one special person there that I was so happy to see.  Kerri Klingsmith! Wow, we go way back!  While I was in highschool we met when our schools joined together for a joint choir session.  She was staying at my house with a couple other girls, and after talking we found out that we were on the same mission! THAT was just so cool!  We sang more joint choirs together, played against each other in volleyball and sang together in the ACSI Honor's Choir! So yea, we are good friends and it was SO NICE having her there! i love your kerri and thank you for keeping me sane! :D
Well, moving onto the next week, we didn't have the kids every day and every hour.  We only had them from 8:30-5ish.  It was again a great week but significantly less stressful! 
After those two weeks flew by, my family and I drove to a small town called Ulysses, Kansas and that is where you will have to read the next post... but of course I will include some pictures of those 2 crazy wonderful weeks in Colorado.  Again, forgive me for some of them being sideways :)
Love, Rachael

adri and the boys

Kerri and I

liza and the scary gator slide

trying out the new bridges

Liza and I <3

Bowling

 

the nastiest candy i've ever seen

we went and helped out some church with their outreach to the kids and they painted turtles :)

we had a big BBQ at a lake

kaylene and I <3

My Chinese Airbrush that apparently says "Laughter"

My brother's airbrush

lunch time at the Amusement Park

Dragon Ride

The fabulous group I was in charge of that day

 that made me go on some pretty crazy rides :D

the craziest and funnest ride i went on that day!

swimming!

walking from the pool

World Venture Headquarters

The flight TO colorado. love these moving parts of the floor!

later on...

So, my next remembered stop was Marion, Virginia.  We stayed at my other grandparent's house and of course we had a good time.  These grandparents are on my mom's side of the family.  My grandpa is a carpenter, likes to hunt, has Peter Pan PB and coffee in his veins, is the peppermint/candy man at church and likes to garden. My grandma collects birds, has a cat name Zoe that hid every single minute of the days we were there (I never saw her, I only heard her little bell ringing in the night... creepy!), likes to put salt on her fruit/veggies and has a house like a fridge :D  Anyways, we stayed there a couple times and we also went there for July 4th (America's Independence Day for you magyars) to spend time with them and my mom's brother Mike and his family that live nearby.  That was alot of fun, sadly we didn't go to any fireworks because everybody was too tired.  I really wanted to go but no one would go with me! sad sad sad... but we watched some of the fireworks on TV that Washington D.C. put on, they were nice.  My grandpa took my dad, brother and I to the back yard and shot some. I've always enjoyed doing that, it's alot of fun!  I have pretty good aim I must say ... check out the pictures of 3 of my shots. the second one.. baby! :D um, so yes that is still a little .no. ALOT strange for me that people can have guns and even get licenses to carry in some states.  In europe, you don't have a gun unless your a bad guy or a police, haha.  Anyways, I have decided that if i live alone in america I will get my license to carry.  However, I have to go through classes and different things to get it, will be hard but worth it. :)  I have already taken a Hunting Safety Class when I was like 5 or 6 and I still have my card for that. hehe. Oh yes, and  I talked to my dearest friend Nikki too! She is my friend, and we are llama lovers! :) It was so nice to talk to someone from home and hear her voice and be crazy like usual! hehe.  I don't have very many pictures so i'm sorry, but here you go! :)

catching fireflies :)

Gpa and I <3 

July 4th food

Happy July 4th!

the fam

My grandpa's collection :)

reminding how to use the pistol

Don't mess with this ;)

shot 1 (rifle)

shot 2 (rifle)

shot 3 (rifle)

more summer

Next stop that I remember would be South Carolina.  My dad's brother Walter and his family live there.
They have 6 kid and they are all so sweet and fun!  We spent a couple days hanging out with them and stayed in a hotel nearby which was cool.  They have 8 of them and 5 of us and we were all in their house which is very small.  A little chaotic? YES! Lots of fun? YES! :)   Here are some fun pictures of them and us! Sorry some of them are sideways, I'm using a windows and it's being evil to me... my mac doesn't have internet right now.. so please deal with it ;)

me and 2 crazy little boys :)

3 of the boys

Pearl (the youngest)

Nehemiah... the crazy one <3

Esther (2nd oldest) and some more siblings

enjoying the chaos :D

Sorry

hello friends :)

I'm so sorry I haven't written in such a long time. I have been so busy this summer going everywhere and seeing everyone that I really didn't have time until almost a month ago, and since THEN I've been too lazy. I hope you all forgive me :)

So, I have no idea where to start because I have so much to say! I have decided that I will try to start from where I left off and write different posts telling different things. If I put it all in one post it would be like a zillion pages!

 I will start from visiting my new home and painting. I really don't remember where we went in order so please forgive me! :D

As I remember, we went to FLORIDA to visit my grandpa (my gma was in a different state at the time helping her father with some problems). We didn't fly there, we drove there.. it was so long it took a couple days! I know we stopped somewhere to sleep but I can't exactly remember if the hotel was on the way there or on the way back.  But one of the ways we slept in a hotel and continued the next day and the other way we stayed at some friends' house in Georgia to sleep and hang out with them.  So, we get to florida... and well it was so hot it was ridiculous. On average, it was around 104 F/ 40 C every day with probably a million percent of humidity.  Thank God my grandparents had AC (legkondi) in their home or I would have literally died, haha. We got to go to the beach 2x and both times were not for very long due to the high temperatures and scalding sun. Both time we went I got such bad freckles that my face hurt! I'm not even kidding! It was so painful, I thought that my face was so burned but it wasn't....just a million freckles were there. We wanted to go somewhere fun, like swim with the manatees but for some reason we didn't end up doing that. We visited a church while we were there that supports us, they were all old people but a couple young kids and families. We also went to church with my gpa, and again... more old people! :D They were all very sweet and hospitable to us. Here's a couple pictures :)

Thank you for reading about Florida.. tune in to hear about where I went next! :)

Love, Rachael