Happy Turkey Day! I now give you permission to listen to Christmas music!

You can definitely tell the holidays are upon us. It's like suddenly California got the memo that, to most people, cold weather goes hand-in-hand with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since Sunday it's been overcast and cold. And I mean COLD. Wind that cuts right through you no matter how many layers you're wearing and just in case that wasn't enough, a rainstorm to soak through your clothes. When packing to come here I didn't bring a lot of long sleeved things because I figured I'd have no need for them. Well I have since learned there is a BIG difference between northern California and the rest of California.

School was out of session all this week for the kids' Thanksgiving holiday so we had to find other places to fulfill our workday hours. We went with Silver 2 (which is our step team because our TL Abby is dating their TL Josh) to the American River to remove red sesbania.

This is an invasive plant species that grows its seeds in pods. There are 7 seeds per pod (little nod to pod 7!) and at least 20 pods per plant. So we pulled the plants and bagged the pods to be completely removed from the waterfront to make sure they wouldn't take root.

We learned what a real day's work in AmeriCorps really felt like- not to say that keeping thirty 2nd-graders in line isn't work... but the repetition of bending down to pull a plant up by the root and all the muscle action that goes along with it- let's just say we all slept very well that night and actually got to be outside for a work day!

For the ones that had really deep roots we used that bright orange tool in Baby Brett's hand

Green 2 and Silver 2 on lunch break

Tuesday was probably the best day. My team has been very lucky and it makes me very nervous to think what will happen when this luck runs out. We didn't have to work in the rain at Mendo and instead got to help set up a haunted house. We got Abby as a TL. Our team gets along very well... which most other teams don't. We got an amazing first project. And Tuesday our work day back at the riverbed was cancelled due to rain- they were calling for flash flooding. So we started the day in the 947 (my dorm building) lounge watching Finding Nemo with Silver 2 while the TLs tried to find something for us to do. All the other projects we could potentially do would have only taken like 30 mins for 24 people so that was out. Instead we went to 923 (the Big room) to make hand Turkeys:

Crafting!

And watch Crash for a diversity building day.
If you're wondering what that symbol in the middle of my hand turkey is, it's the official Green 2 logo:

After the movie and some discussion we went over to the supply depot building to help Handy Andy and AmeriMurph get everything counted and organized. Maya and I cleaned off rain boots and then were assigned to sleeping bags. We had to unroll all of them, check the zippers, check for rips and then roll them back up and categorize them as good, minor problems, or donate. 90 sleeping bags later and I never want to roll up another sleeping bag again!

Wednesday was another lucky day. We went to a California Park reserve to clear more invasive species- weeds and thistles- along a hike and bike trail. It was a cold day but we finally got to work together as just a team. We're usually separated in different classrooms so we were so excited to be on a job site just the 12 of us. We played games to make the time pass and when it came time for a bathroom break we had to pile in the van to drive to the other end of the park, where there was a playscape! So we got to play on the slides and swing sets.

So much fun! And as an added bonus, StepTL Josh brought us cookies and coffee on our lunch break!

During one of our breaks we played Ha-Ha

Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving. I felt so accomplished for it being a day off. I woke up, showered, watched some morning TV and had breakfast all by 8 a.m. on my own! Marybeth and I headed over to the kitchens in 943 to help prep for the big meal. I was in charge of the turkeys- we named them Tom (~25 lbs), Theresa (~23 lbs), and baby Tony(~17 lbs). 3 turkeys for what turned out to be 70 people. I also helped make the mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and oversaw the making of the gravy and stuffing. We had quite a spread (but sadly no rutabagas)- cooking Thanksgiving dinner in 11 different kitchens certainly makes things a lot easier!

Sadly, that's sparkling cider... not chamagne 

Friday I finalized my Christmas plans. Originally I was going to stay here on base and maybe go explore wine country or possibly Canada with a couple of the girls on my team but they were bought surprise plane tickets home... which happen to be in the Chicago area (Naperville, Lincolnshire, and Elgin)- a place I haven't visited since last Christmas. So after a quick chat with the wonderful parental units, it was decided I would go to CHICAGO!!! I'm so excited to get to see the Illinoisey family again and see all my AmeriFriends who've been away on spikes, living in yurts and tents and whatnot. There's talk that we might knock out some ISP hours at a soup kitchen or a coat drive or something.

Today we took the 15-p into downtown Sacramento just to get off the base and return some library books. We wandered around the historic downtown area and then went to the Wesfield mall. It's a HUUGE open-air mall so we'd be walking through and all of a sudden it'd be raining and then dry and then raining again. But we did see something else that isn't too common in a mall:

I don't know if you can see all that well... but it's a fraking Hyundai dealership- in the mall! Across from the Verizon store and a Starbucks. Need a new car to go along with the caffee? California is a very interesting place.

Back to school on Monday. And hopefully I'll take lots of pictures now that we got the principle's approval to photograph the kids.

Oh and just as a little side note- look what I saw around the corner from Temple Cafe, Josh:

What did you do to end up on the Naughty list?!