My final week in Colorado.

Good Morning!!! Sorry it has been a while with my blog...I am learning some great things with Up With People about a very important subject- TIME MANAGEMENT! Anyways, I hope to gt better as the weeks and months progress, but till then be patient and I will try my best to stay in touch.

One of the main reasons that I didn't get around to writing last week was because of the hours we were putting in with rehearsal for our first show (dress rehearsal in front on 1000 people). Every day was incredibly long starting at 5:45am and going till 8 or 9 each night then getting even longer come the show nights.

So let me take you to Wednesday, as most of the week was the same. Oh but before I do that I want to mention one really cool event... The announcements of the internships and assistantships. I applied for the Education Internship as well as the Admissions and External Realtions Internships. Unfortunately, I wasn't chosen for an internship this time around, but I was asked to do two assistantships! One for the Education Team as a Community Impact Crew Leader and the other for Photography. I was a little bummed about not getting an internship this tie around, but am really excited for the people that were chosen as well as for the fact that I still have the opportunity to try out two other areas that interest me. I was encouraged to apply again for Europe and I wouldn't pass that up for the world!
So now...for Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007. Wenesday we not only rehearsed but had our first dress dress rehearsal. It went well but with A LOT of notes. We didn't get home till pretty late that night...about 10.

We had a very special visitor Wednesday and Thursday. Ben Shalom from the United Nations. He is part of a program intituted by the UN called Culture of Peace, a project that includes much of the same mission statement of Up With People. He spoke briefly to us about the program and even attended our show!

Thursday was our show day- dress rehearsal for the entire tour. We say dress rehearsal, but we performed in front of a real audience with host families, alumni, prospective students, and sponsors. That night there was a blizzard and our sold out audience of 1000 turned out to be about 450, but it was still great and it was so nice to have those there that were there...even after driving 2 hours...Thank you Mom (Ellen), Dad (Mike), and Rosie!!! Before the show, the cast goes into the Green Room to get ready and get motivated for the show. Just before Green Room we got ready to perform and got into our costumes and make-up. I'm letting you know that part because Green Room was great but they made us cry! And after all that time putting makeup on, most of the girls had to go back into the dressing room to fix our makeup!!! (The crying part was good, and was a nice way to reflect on all our hard work.) I have pictures of Green Room, but I'm going to save those for when I get home to share with others. Green Room is an awesome experience that I would love to share, but there are things I would like to keep closer and for myself.

The show went great. Of course there were messups and lots of things we need to work on, but for a first show I think we did awesome and it's really nice to see all the support everyone gives.


I was part of the infamous "Strike Crew" on show night which meant that I got to help take down the stage and load everything up into the trucks. I learned a bit about technical stuff and some of it was interesting but I definitley think my calling will not be in staging! That night I didn't get home until 1am. Friday moring started again at 5:45am.

Friday was a "on the road" prep day. We learned how to do interviews on the road. We learned about what we will be doing when we go into the schools to do Stand for Peace. Our day was an hour shorter, but our night wasn't over...Margeaux and Charlotte had a birthday party hosted by Margeaux's host family. We had spaghetti, and salad, and cake, and all sorts of stuff. Then we did some Karaoke we played around with some of our UWP songs for our host families. It was a lot of fun. We got home Friday around 11:20pm.

Saturday was great! Because we striked the set on Thursday we got the day off. Sandra and I got to sleep in a bit, and then our familiy took us to Estes Park up in the mountains. It was so gorgeous!!! We ate, shopped a bit, went siteseeing (I saw ELK!!!!) After our afternoon in Estes Park we had dinner in Loveland, CO at a place called Blackeyed Peas. It was really good and we had a lot of fun. That pretty much ended our night and Sandra and I were beat!

Sunday fulfilled childhood dreams...our Dad (Mike) is a Firefighter and invited us for brunch at the Firehouse. So Sunday morng we piled in the car and went to Denver for brunch and a tour of the Firehouse. The firshouse has 9 people staying there at a time. And one of those 9 is a woman...I give that girl LOTS of credit to hang out with men for 24 hours at a time!!! Seriously though, they were all really great and in Sandra's words, such "hot firefighters!" There was soooooo much food...Eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast, green chili sauce for breakfast burritos!!! And soo good! Firefighters are excellent cooks! Afterwords, Sandra and I got a tour and got to try on the suits and gear. Then we got to spray a firehose and ride in the firetruck! It was sooo cool! Check out the pictures! So it came time to leave, but because our dad was in the middle of his shift we had to say goodbye because he would not be there Monday morning when we left for New Mexico. It was our first goodbye and I know now that 19 more are going to be really tough.

The rest of our day consisted of packing, laundry, uploading pictures- which took literally 12 hours! Monday morning we finished everything up, said a sad goodbye to Mom and Rosie, and headed out for Farmington, New Mexico.