The one where with the snow chains

Hello everyone!! I keep apologizing that I keep skipping weeks and stuff but honestly, I don't even feel sorry. I am literally always tired but alas, I am well. We are in Twisp Washington and it is super great so far but we just got here so more on that next week. Here's how our last little bit o' time in Sacramento went. 

WE FINISHED TAXES!!! While it was actually the call center I wasn't a fan and I liked taxes, it was still nice to finally not be in an office all day and be not be separated from half of my team. Our last day of work our wonderful project sponsors for VITA (who we did tax assistance with) as well as the call center took us out for a lovely lunch at a restaurant on a dock by the river and to the train museum! Shout out to Diana and Bob for being wonderful people! Blue 5 loved working with them!!

 Our last day at work in Sacramento!!( Photo creds to Kendra)

A group of us spent our last weekend of the project in Lake Tahoe California/ Nevada ( shout out to Page, Lucas, Ben, and Kendra!) The trip was an absolute hot mess. We had troubles with on car rental, the snow was crazy, we had purchase snow chains even though we didn't really want to..... even though the weekend should have been absolute crap, we had a GREAT time!! Tahoe was absolutely beautiful and it was fun to explore and we're definitely planning on coming back when it gets warmer!! I'm just going to post pictures from Tahoe because it's Easter and I'm going to go eat a poop ton of food with my team! Thanks for reading and don't forget to serve others!

Snow chains!!

 

My first time in Nevada!!

The one where I lose 10 pounds of my hair

EYOOO!! Here I am still in Sacramento and still doing taxes and still working in the call center. It seems like our days in the call center are endless but alas, we see the light at the end of the tunnel for the end of our project is near! We also found out our next project but you all know the drill NO ANSWERS UNTIL THE END!!

Blue 5 was actually surprised that we actually like taxes more than the call center. Everyone at the call center is really nice (there is actually a receptionist that every member of our team is in love with and want to take with us everywhere) and we really like our site supervisor Bob, but scheduling tax appointments has gotten very monotonous and there is no challenge to it anymore.

James, Kendra, and I getting our tax calls on POINT

I honestly do enjoy doing taxes for people with low income for free. It's nice getting to interact directly with the people that I am helping. Not very many AmeriCorps teams get to do that. It feels very rewarding and it's a great challenge that I never thought I would be able to do. We also do little odds and ends jobs like walking around a delivering flyers which is a nice substitute to working in the call center.

James, Kendra, Corban, and Jesse

I thought I wasn't going to have fun staying in Sacramento but we have found some great ways to entertain ourselves. A group of us discovered Folsom lake which is a really pretty spot to hit up if you're ever in Sacramento. It was too cold to swim but it was really nice to walk around and sit by the water and actually see mountains again. ( For those of you who don't know, Sactown is actually pretty flat)

Folsom Lake

A couple of us from Blue 5 (shout out to James and Ben) went to San Francisco to meet up with some friends from the teams (shout out to our friends from blue 6 and blue 7!) We went for 2 days and had a great time. The weather was beautiful the whole time and I really didn't spend much money which is an added bonus. It was super fun to get to hang out with people from other teams and since we spent the whole weekend there, I feel like we got to explore a lot of San Francisco.

We found an absolutely beautiful cathedral. It was 93762% more beautiful inside, but I won't bother posting pictures but the wouldn't do the building justice.

 

Any city that you go to (especially SanFran!) you will learn that if you just walk around and look hard enough, you can find plenty of free things to entertain you. We found this nice little free art gallery!

The weather in SanFran was absolutely wonderful so we were perfectly content with sitting by the beach and enjoying being outside

If you are cheap as I am, I would recommend San Francisco international hostel. The prices were really reasonable and they had free breakfast and wifi which is all I ever need in life. 

 Our second day in San Francisco was spent in China town and Pier 39!

OKAY!! I suppose I will make the big announcement now. I'm guessing everyone is sitting at the edge of their seats. I am confident in the fact that everyone has not slept because you have been waiting to find out where blue 5 is going next. For our round 3 project blue 5 is going to... DRUMROLL..................................................................................................................................

 

 

 

TWISP WASHINGTON!! I am super excited because I have never been to Washington before! I also have never been to Oregon before(which we obviously have to drive through to get to WA) We are going to be doing some really awesome stuff too! I believe we are going to be doing a week of trail work (back to our roots!) After that, we are going to be doing some infrastructure improvement projects on a CCC bunker with stuff like painting and light construction work. We are going to be doing some landscaping projects for a CCC(civilian community corps, not to be confused with AmeriCorps NCCC) and my favorite part, we are going to be educating and working alongside youth in some gardening of organic foods! Gardening and working with kids were both things I wanted to do so I am super pumped that I get to do both at once! We are staying in a nice 4 bedroom bunkhouse with a kitchen and bathrooms so we all  feeling lucky. Just a week and a half and we'll be done with this project, a week of training back on campus, and then we'll be on our way to Northern Washington! CAN'T WAIT! Thanks for reading and don't forget to serve others!!

http://www.activelynorthwest.com/fitness/active-adventure-winthrop-and-the-methow-valley/

 

 

The one where a 90 year old woman is in love with Mark Rubio

Greetings from Sactown!!! So it seems to have been about 10 years since I wrote a post. I actually am married with children now (kidding!) At first I just thought nobody would really want to read about taxes but then I just realized that I am lazy (also maybe people don't want to read about taxes) It actually hasn't been too bad here. Here's how it went.

Honestly, the worst part of this project isn't even the taxes.... it was the training to do taxes. 2 weeks of sitting inside talking about taxes is very tiring.... or should i say taxing?.... I'll let myself out.

The Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services where we did training.

Volunteered at a Sacramento clean up day, one mans trash is Blue five's treasure!

So our schedule has been pretty hectic, but not as bad as I thought it would be. We've been at this for 3 or 4 weeks now and I still haven't gone crazy yet so I'm taking that as a good sign. On Tuesday-Friday all 12 of us start the day working at the 211 call center scheduling the tax

appointments. I get to talk to a lot of adorable old people on the phone so I like it. The second half of the day 6 people from the team will stay at the call center and end their day at 5:00. The other half take a 3 and a half hour break at 12:00 and then go and do taxes until about 8:00. On Saturday we all spend the whole day doing taxes. Each schedule has it's positives and negatives but we haven't died yet. It is very fulfilling to see how much money we can get people and how happy they are that we are helping them.

Our first day doing other people's taxes!

I'm probably boring with all of this tax talk! We've surprisingly have found ways to serve in the community and find things to do. So I'll just leave you with pictures! Thanks for reading and don't forget to serve others!

Volunteered for 21 hours at a crab feed for charity

If you're ever in Sacramento on MLK day, join the 5 mile march that starts at Grant High School! it was an awesome experience!

 American River Parkway, Sacramento California

The weather on campus is starting to get nice again!!! Thank GOODNESS!!

The one where Blue 5 goes insane

Hello from Sacramento!! Sorry that it's been a minute ( that's what the cool kids say, right?) since I wrote my last post. We just got off of our two week Christmas break and I was completely not productive when I didn't need to be so I decided to skip the whole writing a blog post thing. It has been an absolutely CRAZY two weeks where our team went through a roller coaster of emotions. Here's how life has been.

SAN FRANCISCO!! A group of us from our team plus a friend from another team decided that we wanted to do San Fran on Christmas Eve and it was SAN FRANTASTIC (that was an awful pun but I am going to do it anyways) Since we are what the cool kids call "Ameribroke", we decided we didn't want to pay for public transportation. we literally walked around San Francisco. My feet have never been so tired but I feel like we got to see more of the city this way. I learned to love SanFran and I plan on going back.

We were caught in the rain, but it was worth it

Ben, me, Amadi, Sheila, and our honorary B5 member Elizabeth

I was literally making Full House references all day

Some random outdoor art museum that we would have never found if we didn't walk the city

Mississippi? Like I said, Blue 5 had a roller coaster of emotions during Christmas break. The members of B5 that were on campus were called to the main office for an emergency meeting. Of course all of the worse scenarios were going on in my head "Oh my gosh, blue 5 is being disbanded!" but we got there and we were told that we were being sent to Mississippi on disaster relief and that we were leaving in 2 days.  We were absolutely excited and we got to packing and everything right away. We got our flight itineraries and we packed for our teammates who were home for Christmas break. We then got a call that told us that our housing fell through so we weren't leaving on Saturday anymore but we still needed to be ready to leave whenever. So my stuff was already packed so I didn't want to unpack and I wore the same outfit for 3 days in a row. Then, we found out that our project sponsor for Mississippi got sent to Texas for disaster relief..... so now we are not going at all. It was a crazy week, but at least now, when I am in a job interview and somebody asks me to describe when I was flexible, I've got that on lock.

Christmas break was mainly a lot of sitting in my room and reading or watching Netflix which was actually incredible and needed but we did some fun stuff too!

We got to do a service project at the zoo AND I GOT TO FEED A GIRAFFE!!

We are starting our tax project this week! I probably will have a difficult time with the numbers but I am really excited to start helping people. I don't want to do taxes but neither does anybody else in the world so I will do them for them. Thanks for reading and don't forget to serve others!!

Got to volunteer at a rose garden with people from other teams!

I really like getting to do service projects outside of work. It's nice to get to know my community and get to know people from other teams!

Happy New Year!!