colorado springs, colorado!

so this was the only city we went to that i had visited multiple times before.

overall i really liked this week. first of all, i had the best room mates ever! veronika from sweden, humberto from mexico, and josh from arizona. we had a cool host family and absolutely loveddddd out host mom deena. she was amazing. :) our house was really close to sonic, so we ended up walking there a few times that week haha. 

we got to go to the olympic training center, and also garden of the gods. we even got to go bowling that week! it was a lottttt of fun. i got to see my dad, too! which was really fun. :) 

all of our community service this week was in schools. we taught and played games with elementary school and middle school level kids. it was on base too, so it was really interesting. 80% of the kids at these schools have a parent who is deployed to iraq or afghanistan. so it was a lot different than the normal kids that we work with. 

humberto, me, veronika, and josh at sonic one night!

yordi (ethiopia), me, danielle (wisconsin), and veronika (sweden). bowling at fort carson!

caleb, veronika, seth, deena, me, humberto, scott, and josh!! our whole host family. :)

me and my dad at our show!

albuquerque, new mexico

albuquerque was really one of my best weeks. i got to stay with amador and his family. he traveled in cast A 08, and i met him in staging earlier in our tour. my room mate was julie from arizona. we hadn't talked much before this week, but we got along really well. we were actually living in his grandparents house, but our host family also consisted of amador, his two sisters, and his parents. they were all soooo great!

during the week, my community service work consisted of working mainly at the main food bank in albuquerque. i actually had a lot of fun working there. i mainly helped put together flyers that mailman deliver to every person in the albuquerque area, making them aware of the annual food drive. all they have to do is leave food outside by their mailbox on a certain day, and the mailman will come pick it up for them! it helps to feed the hungry, especially during the thanksgiving season. 

our show was at the rio grande zoo! it was so cool to perform at a zoo. :) especially cause i love zoos and animals so much. so we were originally told that we had to stay the night after the show and go do another community service in a land fill the next morning. lucky they lied!!! we did do community service, BUT it was at the annual albuquerque balloon fiesta!!! oh my gosh it was soooo amazing. :) we sold calendars and programs but we got to see the balloons go up right next to us. it's an amazing event, if you ever get the chance, you should go someday! so we watched the hundreds of balloons go up that morning. then we went home and went to a huge family bbq! so i ended up not sleeping for 40 hours!! my personal record. :) overall a realllyyy fun week though.

me and zach at the balloon fiesta!

our whole host family! marcy, reina, grandpa, eddee, julie, amador, samantha, me, and grandma (holding my hand :) )

me, amador, and jules! we had such a fun time together. 

i had SO much fun this week because of matt and karen bolton. thank you both so much!! :)

sahuarita, arizona

being back in the US was fabulousss. haha and sahuarita was a really nice area! not a huge city or anything, but the desert sunsets and the mountains and everything were just so amazing. :) 

for our regional learning day we went to an organic farm mostly run by man power. we went on a tractor ride, pet some goats, and learned about the farm. it was really interesting.

my room mates (yes!!! i finally had room mates!) were nathalie from sweden and mayke from the netherlands. on our host family day, we went with our host mom, sabrina, to go to the biosphere 2. it was sooooo cool! there was a desert, an ocean, and a rainforest inside. afterwards, we went to an up with people bbq with SO many host families and students, and even exchange students from other programs. it was a prettyyyy fun city. :)

kady (canada), me, zach (colorado), and danielle (wisconsin) at the organic farm!

petting goats in the farm's petting zoo. :)

nathalie (sweden), mayke (the netherlands), me, and sabrina in the rainforest of the biosphere 2!

everyone who went to the up with people bbq! it was pouring rain during this picture!

this week was all thanks to my aunt delma! thank you for helping me make this amazing trip possible. :)

hermosillo, mexico

okay i have internet againnn! so hermosillo was exciting! the second we got there, we started celebrating the mexican new year (which is on september 15th, not may 5th! haha). we went to the city hall and met the governor of the state of sonora and saw the whole celebration and watched the longest fireworks show i've ever seen. we got picked up that night at about 11:30. and i againnn had no room mate. it was frustrating to be alone so much, but also a good learning experience at the same time. in hermosillo, it was the hardest to communicate with my host family. they were so great, and we could mostly get across what we needed to stay, but only my host sister, analy, spoke english. and she spoke as much english as i spoke spanish. haha so that was very interesting. one day we went to a beach city called guaymas, which was gorgeousss. another day i ended up having to stay home sick. it was so sweet, my host mom made me chicken noodle soup. completely american (except for the lime :) ). we worked in hospitals, worked with youth groups and a lot of other really cool things. hermosillo lived up to it's amazinglyyyyy HOT reputation. it wasn't too humid though so that helped! we had a pretty good show, aside from the hundredddds of locusts flying on our clothes and stage. blegh! and one girl was gone, so i had to sing a short solo. hahaha it was kinda embarrassing. just look at the picture below and check out my costume! it was fun though, that's for sure. it was our last city in mexico! and it was an amaaaazing experience to live there for five weeks, but i was definitely ready to come back to my country. :)

the beach in guaymas.

the girls who bought these mexican dresses!

my host sister only sent me this picture so far! so i don't have the rest of the host family. but this is analy! she's 18. :) and extremely sweet. she snuck a letter and a necklace into my bag before i left. it was a great surprise to find later. :) 

so this is my very attractive costume in hermosillo! "duele, duele, dueleeeee"

this week was made possible by andrea temel! thank you again soooo very much for supporting my tour in up with people. i appreciate it so much. :) 

cuilacan, mexico

i haven't had internet for awhile, but i can finally blog again! i have a lot of catching up to do so i'll do my best.

well, first of all we were told that culiacan was a really dangerous city. but luckily while i was there i definitely felt really safe wherever i was. and again i didn't have a room mate. my family only spoke spanish, except for my host dad. i was able to communicate with my host mom though, which was really cool. i know more spanish than i realize! haha. i was sick one day, so i only did community service one day. but it was really neat; we painted some murals on a wall in a local food bank. it was sooooo hot there! but i had a really good time. we had two shows and they were indoors! except the gym we were in had a leaky ceiling and it rained a lot... haha so that floor got really wet and we had buckets set up everywhere. but i can't complain because we finally had air conditioning in mexico during our show! yayyyy. :)

at the food bank with matt, caitlin, zach, and mariana. 

my host sister sibely and my host dad ricardo at lunch one day.

my slightly psychotic host brother diego...

me and the host family above the city of culiacan!

this week was made possible all thanks to lisa giraudi! thank you so much, i had an amazing week in mexico!

tepic, mexico.

so we were told for some reason that tepic is a desert. but it isn't at all! tepic is in a valley, and it's so green there! it almost looked like a rainforest, it was gorgeous and it rained every single day. our week there was pretty laid back and i had a lot of time to spend with my host family. there were two girls, diana (16) and paola (11) who both spoke fluent english. my parents however, elvia and horacio, spoke no english. haha, so their daughters translated the whole time. but i tried to use some of my spanish skills, too. to get to tepic, we had to take a six hour ferry ride from baja california to the mainland. then we took an 8 hour bus ride south to tepic. it was a long travel day, but a lot of fun too. during the week, we went to a place where they help baby sea turtles have a better chance of survival so that they don't become extinct. we all got to hold baby sea turtles, which was really neat. one night we went out to a place called the mandala for dancing and it was awesome because my host sister went, but so did everyone else from up with people! it was sooooo fun. then on our free host family day they took me to this amazingggg lake and we went swimming in a pool nearby all day. overall, i really reallyyyy loved tepic and i hope one day i'll be able to go back there. :) 

sunset on the ferry ride!

the baby sea turtles!

my host sisters and their friends before our night out at the mandala.

me and my host parents after our show in tepic!

diana, me, and paola at la laguna!

this week is all thanks to the generosity of marvin and ruth farber. thank you both sooooo very much!! :) :)

los cabos

i've been having some internet issues, but now i can finally update on my stay in cabo san lucas! it was probably one of the busiest weeks i've ever had. my room mate was marion from switzerland, but our host mom's sister was also hosting. so lexi from maine and eriko from japan were also kind of like my room mates. :) it was a lot of fun. the house was very... cozy! haha, it was an interesting experience to share one bathroom with three others. 

luckily we got a day at the beach, which was really fun. but we had one not so great day. we all went to the mall, and we were walking back to the car. our little host sister sophie was running and didn't see the table that was above her eyes. she ran right into the edge, and stood up with blood everyyyywhere. we ran to a car outside that drove us to a hospital, which was luckily only a few blocks away. i felt so bad for her, you could see right through to her skull. :( we stayed at the hospital for two hours while they put three layers of stitches in her head. it was pretty scary, actually. anyways, here's the pictures!

my friend zach and i in cabo at the waterfall at the mango farm!

on a boat in cabo!

all our little host siblings.

this weeks is thanks to pat and laurie holland! thank you guys so much, i love you. :)

la paz pictures!

so the internet here in cabo san lucas is letting me post pictures! yay. 

oh and by the way, that last week in la paz was thanks to the donations made by my grandpa and grandma wiggins! i love you guys, thanks so much for everything. :)

our view from the balcony during the day.

the house was so cool!

it was a huuuge balcony.

living room.

view from the balcony at night time.

our neighbors came over for a bbq/pool party and they were hosting celiana too, a staff member from venezuela. these two girls, paula and mariana, were some of the sweeetessttt girls i've ever met. :) 

(ahhh that's all that's working so far. i'll update later!)

last week in denver, breckenridge, and la paz.

okayyy, it's been awhile since i blogged! but we've been so busy lately.

i don't have any pictures from our first dress rehearsal yet because i didn't take any with my camera.  the dress rehearsal was soooo nerve wracking, and it didn't go very well. haha but that's what a dress rehearsal is for!

we left for breckenridge, colorado the following monday. we stopped at idaho springs on the way up, went into some mines, and panned for gold. our host family was becky and chris elcan. unfortunately we only spent about 4 days in breckenridge, so we didn't spend too much time with them or take any pictures. but we had a really good time! my room mates were cathrine (again haha) and isabel from germany. the community service i did was painting a middle school. our show that week was SO much better than the week before! haha it was suchhh an improvement. 

pictures!!

okay i lied, no pictures yet because this blog website is being weird and won't let me upload them. but i'll post another blog as soon as i can with pictures.

la paz, mexico!

okay well here's the story as to how we got here. on friday in breckenridge, we were dropped off in the morning at beaver run resort and said bye to our host families. so we stayed there all day. and then at night we got to walk downtown. it was pouring rain, and it was about 45 degrees. freeezing cold. and then we came back to the hotel and played in the arcade. i ended up talking to my friend zach for about 2 hours, i called people and said bye, went on the computer, and read. then at 3:30 am we starting packing up the buses so we could get to the denver airport by 6 am. on the way to the airport, it was snowing. YES in the middle of august it was snowing. from the airport we took a flight to los cabos, mexico. we got on yet another bus to drive to la paz. on the way there we stopped at an AWESOME little food place. i love authentic mexican food, haha. then finally we got to la paz. where it was (and will always be) SO hot. we went from snowing to over a hundred degrees in 10 hours. weird feeling. this is about the time i found out i'd be staying with a family in la paz, mexico alllll by myself. haha i was worried for awhile. but after i spent some time with my host family i knew i'd be fine because they are SO nice. pepe and silvia are the parents and they have two kids. alexis (who is 16) and michelle (who is 8). alexis speaks spanish because he learned it in school, but michelle is 8 so she doesn't speak english yet. funny enough, i talk to her just as much as anyone else in the family. :) we play this board games that's pretty simple. you roll the dice and you have to answer a question to move forward. it's a kid's game, so the questions are easy but they're, of course, in spanish. so to improve my spanish, i've been playing this game with her a lot and translating some words on my computer. and then sometimes i teach her the words in english too. :)

the other night i went with alexis and we went to a party with some of his friends from high school. most of the kids spoke some english, so it was fun. and i tried out some of my terrible spanish haha. two of my uwp friends happened to be there too! so it was fun. :)

then today, i woke up around 12pm because i hadn't slept the night before. but then silvia, michelle, and i went out to buy food and other things. (like lotion cause the airport security threw mine away lol). that night some neighbors came over and we went swimming. luckily they spoke some english to me! i didn't understand most of what everyone said, but i'm still trying to learn. 

anyways, tomorrow we have community service! we're painting over graffiti at the baseball stadium we're performing at. the pictures i have of la paz are GORGEOUS i can't wait until i can post them. :)

3rd week in denver

soooo, i left my camera charger at home. which my mom will be bringing to me! but luckily some other people have been taking pictures of me that i can post. :)

i've discovered that i'm not too fabulous at using blogspot. and posting pictures and writing next to it is very difficult and takes me a long time. haha, so i'll just post the captions first by number and the photos will be in that order at the end. 

1) finally, here's a picture of the home we've been staying in! it's a bright blue split level home. we've been here so long i can't imagine being some where else. definitely going to have to get used to that soon though since we'll be in a different home each week.

2) cathrine had never tasted sushi before! so our host family took us out to a reallyyy good sushi place. i was surprised how good it was even though we weren't close to the ocean, like i was used to. hah. 

3) the next night we decided to experiment with the sushi idea and had home made sushi for dinner! it was so fun making all the rolls. they didn't taste all that bad either. :)

4) we finally had our first community impact day. (CI day) we went to an area up in the mountains that was burned by the hayman fires, and still had not recovered from the damage. we all had a lot of different jobs that day. my jobs were to remove fallen trees and to put them in ravines to reduce erosion when the rain came. also, i dug holes and planted small trees to help regrow the area. it was a lottttt of hard work. walking up a 45 degree angle at all times gets a little difficult. but it was definitely worth it! by the end of the day, we could really SEE the impact we'd made on those few acres.

second week in denver.

wowww we've been so busy! the last week was really fun, but stressful too. there's SO much still left to get ready for our first show and it seems like it'll never get done. but i know it will eventually. haha.

so on friday we walked around downtown denver and learned about the history of the city. this is inside the state capital.

the top of the capital is covered in gold, and we got to go up inside there! the view was amazing. but you'd think the state capital might have some kind of air conditioning. haha. this is one of my good friends humberto from mexico! :)

so we actually got a whole weekend off! not just sunday, but saturday too! yayyyyy so on saturday we drove up to this tiny place in the mountains called buena vista for a white water rafting trip! it was veryyyy cold so we looked pretty nerdy in wet suits. haha but it was well worth wearing them! the trip was soooo great with everyone. overall a great day off. then we went home and made home made sushi for dinner. it was sooo much fun. cathrine has the pictures from that so maybe i'll be able to post those later.

then todayyyy was pretty exciting too even though i was so tired! haha. we went to this dragon boat racing/asian culture fair on a lake in denver. it was so hot outside blahhhh we ate ice cream, frozen cheesecake, snowcones, and anything else cold we could find. oh and this week our host grandma came into town. :) so she's the other person in our host family picture. overall suchhh a great weekend. but i'm ready now to get serious and help to get our show ready for august 9th!

first week in denver!

so here i am in denver finally! i can't believe i've been looking forward to this time in my life for months and months, and now i've already been here for a week.

so here's the building we sing, dance, and laugh in almost every day. right in downtown denver.

it's been stressful. i've had to learn many dances really quickly, and i'm not in the best shape either. so my muscles have been killing me.

but at the same time, it's reallyyyyy fun and exciting. i've definitely made a ton of friends so far. and it's only been a week. i can't wait to see what things are like a few months down the road.

today was our free day, and our host family drove 

us up into the mountains to a city called 
georgetown. along the way we stopped for pictures. this is my room mate cathrine! she's from denmark and we've definitelyyyy been having a great time so far. :)

                                             

so here's our host family! they live in aurora,      colorado. terri and nate decker. they drove us uppp until we got to the top of this mountain. it was gorgeous! anyways, our host family makes the bestttt dinners. so delicious. they're taking us to a baseball game on tuesday, too. so that'll be fun. especially since cathrine's never seen baseball! anyways, i'll try to write in here as much as i can! i miss everyone back at home and can't wait to see you all again. :)

3 days left!

only three days til i leave for denver. :) here's the most updated version of our tour schedule.

United States:
Orientation: Denver, Colorado: July 11- August 11
Breckenridge,Colorado: August 11 - August 17

Mexico:
LaPaz, Mexico: August 18 - August 25
Cabo, Mexico: August 25 - September 1
Tepic, Mexico: September 1 - September 8
Culiacan, Mexico: September 8 - September 15
Hermosillo, Mexico: September 15 - September 21

United States:
Arizona: September 22 - September 29
Albuquerque, New Mexico: September 29 - October 6
Colorado Springs, Colorado: October 6 - October 13
Salt Lake City, Utah: October 13 - October 20
Wyoming: October 20 - October 27
Wyoming / South Dakota: October 27 - November 3
Sioux Falls, South Dakota: November 3 - November 10
North Platte, Nebraska: November 10 - November 16

The Philippines:
Manila, Philippines: November 17 - December 4
Cebu/Subic, Philippines: Decemeber 5 - December 16
End of Tour - Decemeber 16

weekly schedule

so, you know about where i'll be traveling, but what will be doing over that time?
here's the up with people weekly schedule that explains what we'll be doing in each city that we visit!

monday: travel day.
tuesday: curriculum day/large group seminars & regional learning/guest speaker.
wednesday: community activity day/professional development & regional learning/community impact briefing.
thursday: community impact & internal time.
friday: community impact & community impact debriefing.
saturday: equipment set up/performing arts workshop & up with people show/preparation.
sunday: host family/personal day.

updated tour schedule.

well, this schedule isn't definite. it might change a little. but here's approximately where i'll be going over my six month trip!

Cast B 2008
Denver, CO: July 11-August 11
Colorado: August 11-14
New Mexico: August 14-18
Arizona: August 20-25
Mexico: August 25-September 21
Arizona: September 21-29
New Mexico/Colorado: September 29 - October 6
Utah/Wyoming: October 7-20
South Dakota/Minnesota/Wisconsin: October 20 - November 9
Illinois: November 9-16
Philippines: November 16-end of tour