After a brief hiatus...

Oh, shoot. It's been 9 days since I last blogged. Unacceptable. Haha, I apologize to those of you who check this on the regular and have not found any updates. I've been busy, sorta.

So LAST weekend, Clarissa's mom and cousin came down to bring the remainder of our stuff from Ohio. We spent the whole weekend with them, Friday in Fort Myers and Saturday-Sunday in Miami with Alejandro and Tania. Friday night we went to a club in Fort Myers called Montage (I think? Maybe?). They had Latin American music playing and people were dancing to it (not me, of course, haha) but it was fun to watch. We had a good time. Then we stayed in a hotel in Fort Myers. We went back to Immokalee briefly on Saturday to drop off our things (Clarissa and I met her family in Fort Myers the day before, so we hadn't been able to unload our bags yet). We also made a brief stop in Bonita Springs. We headed out to Miami, arriving there Saturday night...we stayed in a hotel that night, and brought Alejandro and Tania there to spend the night with us. We were going to go out, but this was during THE HURRICANE (dun dun dun). Our hotel was right on the ocean, and the TV kept scaring Clarissa and I out of our minds talking about the hurricane, winds, flooding, and TORNADOS (oh, joy, my FAVORITE!) We naturally were not used to this, being from Ohio. We don't get hurricanes there. We were in the RED ZONE, which meant TAKE ACTION...and naturally, we just kind of spent the night freaking out.

Needless to say, we survived. :)

Sunday we went to lunch at Bubba Gump. I had a burger. It was delicous. It was raining cats and dogs. Clarissa's mom and her cousin bought panchos. It was cute. We drove through some pretty heavy rain (aka HURRICANE WEATHER)...and dropped off Alejandro and Tania. Then we went back to Immokalee. Clarissa's family stayed and then left on Monday. They had been worried their flight might be cancelled due to the weather, but they made it.

This past week we continued on doing registrations for the after school program. We also put in a few long days volunteering at Guadalupe Center (where I most likely will be volunteering a few of my mornings for the whole year). I will hopefully be working with the kids there, but for now they needed a lot of office work help. I made copies, folded papers, put binders together, assembled boxes, and tons of other tasks. It's very rewarding, even though at times tedious, helping others out, taking some stress off them. A few days, we also did registration multiple times, morning and afternoon, so it's been a tiring week (only going to get better, of course, when our full-time placements begin.

This week we will probably be meeting with the various organizations around town we want to work with. A lot of you are probably thinking : "You've been here awhile now, Amanda. Why the heck hasn't your volunteering started yet?" Well, we are very fortunate to get to sort of, ease our way into things. We came down a few weeks earlier than needed, and have therefore been given time to get settled in, used to the environment, meet people, and get a feel for where we want to give our time. It's also given us weekends that aren't packed yet, to do some travelling (Fort Myers, Miami, etc.)  It won't be so easy to do  these things once we start our volunteering...So I'm thankful for how things are working out right now.

This weekend we went to Miami (again)! Clarissa and Alejandro were going to the J-Lo/Enrique Iglesias concert, so I came down to hang out with Tania. Saturday was also Tania's birthday, so we all got to celebrate with her. The weekend consisted of swimming and laying out, Cuban restaurant, and going out for Tania's birthday. Oh, and chocolate cake...duh! It was a pretty fun weekend, and we just got back...exhausted! We had to stop in Naples before coming home...Clarissa had to get new tires. So our first experience in Naples was in the Walmart Super Center. We had to wait for about 1 hr 45 min. So, we got some McDonalds. Big Mac's and chocolate milkshakes.....what? we were hungry....  we eat pretty healthy here in Immokalee, so when we go out to Miami, it's our time to splurge. Haha. And I bought a puzzle...because.... I like puzzles. And taking time for Amanda. Me. That's important. I've also been doing a lot of reading for fun lately. Thanks to our lovely Immokalee library-although I don't have  a card for that yet..Clarissa does. I like reading. I haven't been able to do any of that in so, so long.

Ah, tomorrow is Labor Day so we don't have anything to do really. Though there was talk of having a cookout on the beach. That would be lovely. Considering we haven't been to the beach yet since arriving here...shame.

And, on an annoying note, my fingerprints got rejected so I have to go re-do them. Quickly. It's super stressful and annoying, and if you are a person who prays, say one for me. Please. Right now. Thank you.

Sigh. That might be it for now...if I forgot anything, I'll be sure to add more tomorrow or sometime this week.

Oh, I got an awesome tan in Miami this weekend. In September. :) Love bein' in Florida..

:)