Enjoy the pictures, there's a lot of them!

So once again, it only rains here on the weekend. But it's getting colder! Last night it was ~35!! But by the time the sun is up in the afternoon it's 70s. Fickle California.

So last night we went laser tagging!!!

We take this game seriously, so we were seriously prepared with face paint and our AmeriAlls to show what's up.

Real thugs don't look at the camera...

The Teams:

Blue: STL Lindsay, TL Abby, STL Murph, Maya, and Brett

Red: Me, Carly, Domo, Taylor, Allison, and Danny

Turns out the (S)TL plus Brett and Maya team beat us both times but it was so much fun!

This past work week just flew by. It was a short week again for the kiddos- school on Monday-Wednesday and off Thursday/Friday for parent-teacher conferences. We weren't off though, we had cleaning to do. We helped Robert the janitor clean the classrooms,

paint the tetherball poles,

 paint the playground benches,

clean the picknic tables, pick up trash,

 rake the playground mulch, clean restrooms, clean the cafeteria, remove graffitti, rake the courtyards,

 clean the area around where the dumpsters are kept, weed flower beds, clean up the parking lot,

polish the brass fixtures,

 and clean windows and mirrors. That last task got me into some trouble. I was cleaning windows and thought I'd go into the little girls' bathroom to clean the mirror. So I went in through the door on the right...

Got all the way into the bathroom and then discovered there was no mirror. So I went back to the door I had come in, but there was no handle on it and the actual exit door was locked. Luckily I had my phone and called Carly to come find me. That conversation was hilarious! "Carly... I'm trapped in the bathroom... could you come help me?" And because I didn't remember exactly which bathroom I had walked into she had to go around for a bit looking for me. Thanks, Teammate!

They told us in training that people would underestimate the amount of work an NCCC team could get done. We finished all our tasks in a day and a half. And that's only because it took us a while to rake up all the dang leaves. So Friday we had some free time to go see HARRY POTTER! So awesome! And I'm so glad it wasn't in 3-d... I think that would have been too intense.

As a joke one night, we borrowed Taylor's room key and got a poster at Target. We had originally been looking for a Hannah Montana poster to hang on Murph's door but found this instead. 

We signed each G2 girl's name to a girl but had one girl left over... so we signed Murph. Haha. When we showed it to him he just looked at the poster and said "yeah... so?" We told him to look further and when he noticed his name, in true Murph fashion, he just shrugged  and said "oh." Oh, AmeriMurph!

Friday night we loaded up the 15-p to get sushi! Yum! The STLs told us about Arigato's. Uh-maze-ing!

Got a caterpillar and spider roll and a glass of wine for $18 because we went during Sushi Happy Hour- all rolls 50%! After dinner the of-age girls decided we needed "grown-up drinks" because all we've had is beer from the local dive bar, Harvey's. So we were dropped off at the Streets of London Pub in Sac.

 It kind of reminded me of the Loophole. They had games behind the bar but no deck of cards. So we played waterfall with dominoes. It's difficult to remember the rules we agreed on and add the dots quickly. And it has a fireplace! Next time, we're going to shoot for a day when it's not raining so we can sit outside at the beer garden. After our drinks we called our favorite cab driver, Michael! He's so much fun- asks us trivia questions or tells us little knowledge nuggets during the ride, plus he gives us a flat rate and lets us know the cool spots to go to. Last time some of my team members went out, Michael dropped them at a club, told them to tell the door person he said hey and they were able to by-pass the line and the cover charge!

Yesterday and today have been lazy movie days, thanks to the rain. I have no idea what we'll be doing tomorrow for work. The kids are off all week and that means the school will be shut down so the NCCC admins are pairing our team with another local team so we don't fall behind on direct service hours. For Thanksgiving we're having a big potluck on base. Anyone staying behind who wants to eat has to volunteer to prep dishes, cook dishes, or clean up after the meal. And next weekend we might be planning a trip into San Fran. I just need to get paid. California is expensive and my stipend doesn't last very long. Especially with all our independent cultural enrichment activities lately.

The girls of G2!