Last trip to Houston as an American resident

My employment in America has officially come to an end. The school year was over about a month ago and my last week of camp was a week ago, and everyone made my last day a memorable one! I've been running this camp for the last 3 summers and its really evolved into an awesome summer experience for these kids. I walked into camp on my last day, and this is what I was greeted with!

I dressed up as Hannah Montana during the morning meeting one week, so this is what one kid drew on the poster.

This girl has been my Chemistry student, Physics student and camp counselor. She's awesome!

I went over to the  rec center and my bosses had a cake and a little party for me. They're so good to me!

This is the front entrance of camp. I'm sure the parents loved playing limbo all day.

I have planned a few trips to see some special people before I leave for 10 months. My first trip was to Houston and it was so much fun! I went on Monday and stayed with the Hendersons for a few days. They adopted Ruthie exactly 2 years ago on Tuesday so we went to Moody Gardens and celebrated. My mom also asked Ginny if she'd take a few pictures of my while I was down visiting, so our trip to Galveston turned into a photo shoot.

We went on an adventure the first day I was there to get Ginny a cover for her camera and we were testing it out underwater. It was pretty awesome! Ginny posted several more on her blog http://www.4uruthie.blogspot.com/. You should definitely check them out!

This is at the Rainforest in front of a cool door.

Sam had to tickle me to get a genuine smile. :)



I was able to spend some time with some old college friends. I had dinner with Dustin one night, dinner with Michelle (my roommate from my freshman year). We still joke about how I taught her how to use a hand-held can-opener, start a load of laundry and make a bed. She'd be lost without me!

Another major highlight of my Houston trip was skydiving! I absolutely loved it! We went to Skydive Spaceland just outside of Houston. I went with my old college neighbor Al and a few of his friends. The weather wasn't great and it delayed out dive by about 9 hours. It was a lot of waiting, but completely worth it! I made some great new friends in the process! As soon as I upload the video, I'll share it. Here are a few pictures that the cameraman captured. I definitely plan on going back every year!



This is the whole group! They were a fun bunch to jump with.



This is right before we jumped...14000 feet!

I definitely had the coolest instructor. He said next time we wont do the video and do some stunts in the air. Apparently thats not really allowed when you jump tandem.

I wasn't warned on how hard the pull was when the shoot opened. I pretty much went straight back up almost kicking myself in the face.

Great capture of the excited I had after the dive! Totally doing this again and again and again...

Sadly, I had to come back to Dallas after such an awesome time in Houston, but it was good to see my Dallas family again. I will definitely miss my Houstonians while I'm overseas! Next trip: Chicago.

One valuable door closes...

Today was my last day with my wonderful students in Wylie. They honestly are a great group of kids. Yes, they're teenagers and they are living every bit of their teen lives, but I wouldn't trade the last three years for anything. They've made me into who I am now. I have been way too busy this week to even stop and realize that when I walk into the school tomorrow, my students won't be there. I'm sure I'll see several of them around at the rec center and such this summer, but some of them I'll never see again. Tomorrow I turn in my keys and start the march to the next door with Kuwait written all over it.

I've narrowed my teacher paraphernalia down to one crate and two plastic bags. I'll probably only take half of that with me. There is still so much to do before I leave. I need to sell everything in my apartment. I've decided to have my parents hold onto my tv, bed frame, dog and car. Everything else is going. Its crazy to think that everything (which isn't much) I've built up since I moved out 7 years ago is about to be in someone else's posession. Everything that has given me a sense of belonging will be nothing but memories. Anyone who knows me knows that I've had the desire to travel since I was a little girl. Those who meet me for the first time know that I can't sit still for 5 minutes. When I told my parents I've decided to go to the other side of the world to teach for a few years, or possibly forever, they didn't even blink. They both started putting me in contact with people right away.

So much has to be done before I leave. I never keep a planner. I'm not a list person, and I typically do things right at the last minute. This adventure has made me do the exact opposite. I started a planner, I have sticky notes everywhere, and there's no such thing as last minute. Let me just list a few things that are on the agenda before departure:

1. Say my goodbyes at school tomorrow.
2. Graduation
3. Supervise a summer camp for half the summer. I normally do this all summer, but its not possible with everything I need to do.
4. Make a trip to Houston.
5. Make a trip to Waco.
6. Make a trip to Chicago.
7. Make a trip to Austin/San Marcos.
8. Go skydiving.
9. Be a tourist in Dallas. This sounds ridiculous, but I've lived here for 3 years and there are so many things I havent done. I need to be a tourist and appreciate Dallas before I leave.
10. Spend some quality time with the family.
11. Love my dog as much as possible so she doesn't forget who I am.

My friend left a few weeks ago to fish in the Kodiak Islands for a few months and then travel a bit. I asked him if there's anything I needed to know about packing up your life and moving to the unknown. He said the hardest part is figuring out what you're storing, what you're getting rid of, what you're taking and what you're going to do with the little things you need for the last few days of your residency in Texas that you won't need when you leave. I'm trying to balance all of that out, which means lists upon lists.

I know this blog is mainly about my travels overseas, but I want to be able to look back through these when I'm missing my home in America and see all my memories of my summer before I left. The rest of my blogs will be about American travels I'll be doing in the next few months. Knowing that I'm leaving soon has made me really live every single moment of life even more than I already do! This also makes me a list taker...

Lets try this again...

My blog was deleted somehow. I was told that blogger had a glitch last week, so I'm trying the same name again. I don't think they would delete it based on the fact that I have Kuwait in the title, but you never know. If it's deleted again, I'll have to come up with a different name, or use a different blogger.

Happy Monday!