Lovin it.

Okay so, we went on our work place tours on Wednesday the fourth (Riverside school, Huntsville Public school, Muskoka Heritage place, Arrowhead Provincial Park, Parks and Cemeteries, The Table Food Bank, The Chamber of Commerce, and Family Focus). Then when we got home we choose our top three. My three were 1. Arrowhead 2. Huntsville Public School and 3. Muskoka Heritage Place. After we had finished picking our three and eaten dinner we headed over to the bowling alley. We told them that we were Katimavik volunteers and they graciously gave us 50% off. It was only $5.00 each for shoes and two games, which is awesome. We played one game and then played a game of pool and then played a second game. In my lane there was Fannie, Me, Marjolaine, and Loan, we all did alright. Then after bowling we headed home and passed the foam football around the living room for quite some time. Then on Thursday we had free time in the morning so Melissa and I made some Pizza dough for Calzones. We then had an Interview Skills Workshop at the YMCA, then walked home. We had a blitz clean after dinner and also had calender planning. Before we started calender planning we played a little ice breaker game where you tell everyone something that they didn't know about you before. One of our groups members Scott told us that he had a machete in the closet upstairs and many more knives at his home. Leah then proceeded to tell him 'thanks for sharing that and I'll need to have that after this meeting' Katimavik does not allow people to have knives in the house. If they brought any they need to surrender them to the PL so they are in good hands at all times. She will then give them back to the person if they ask to use if for a specific task and then they have to give it back to her after they are done using it. We were all in shock when he told us that, that is pretty scary.... But don't worry he brought it for camping. Anyways after the calender planning and what not Scott went up to his room and got the machete. I wanted to take a picture of it so Ben was holding it near Marc's neck as a joke while I took a picture and Leah freaked out and said some pretty funny stuff. On Friday Melissa and I were house managers. We had interviews in the morning at the Algonquin Theater. Then we made our calzone/mini pizza things. Jenna also came over and we watched a documentary on cleaning products, then we learned how to make our own. I also got my job placement which is Huntsville Public School. So I was happy about that. Jenna also went over CCK structure with us. Then we made dinner, and had a dependency dinner which was SO FUN. I was blind, and Marc was blind. Then Melissa was mute, Fannie was fully able, and everyone else was either pareplegeic (either only able to use arms or legs), or quadriplegic (cant use and limbs). So what ended up  happening was Melissa, Fannie, Me, and Marc served people dinner. Then Fannie helped everyone eat drink and what not. I fed Marjolaine (a quadriplegic) while I was blind. It was too too funny. Mike couldn't use his arms so he picked up a spoon in his mouth and then would scoop up the rice and hole it out for Kelsey to eat. Also too too funny. Overall it was extremely fun and we all want to do it again. We were thinking that we should do one dependency dinner per month. On Saturday we had free time in the morning so we woke up at 10 and headed over to Lions Lookout to try out our $7.50 snowboard from the Restore. It was really fun, but on my last go down the hill I fell on my tail bone and it really hurt. For the next few days it hurt to move even the slightest bit. But whatever it was worth it. That day Leah our PL was gone so we had a really slack day. We made some french posters and labelled like everything in the house French and in English. I was in charge of Sienna (the dog) for the day, so I walked and fed her. Shes supper cute, and listens pretty good. We also went swimming at the Summit Center and planned for CCK. On Sunday (Jan. 15) Linda, the Project Coordinator, was here to give us some forms to fill out, and to tell us about her job. She stayed for dinner and then left, after she was gone we had a blitz clean and made action plans for ourselves. Then we had our very first CCK, I thought that it would take forever and be horrendous but it was actually not that bad. We managed to plan two weeks worth of stuff so we didn't have to have a CCK the following Sunday. Monday (Jan. 16) was my first day at work, it only takes three minutes to walk there! When i got there the principle, Ross, gave me a mini tour and then dropped me off at Jolene M-P's classroom. She is one of the teachers I will be working with, she is the arts teacher. So the arts include visual art, dance, drama, and music. I work with her on day 1, 2, and 3. In the evening we went to our first French class at Riverside Public School. It was a bit frustrating at first because it was an intermediate class and the teacher only talked in french and we didn't understand anything that she was saying. However near the end of the class the teacher came at sat with all of us Katimavik noobs and had us fill out a worksheet and taught us some really useful stuff. So all in all the class was pretty good. On Tuesday (Jan. 17) I went to work for the day, Leah left for her well deserved time off, and then we went sledding at Lions Lookout after dinner. It was really fun, we went for like three hours. On Wednesday (Jan. 18) I went to work and was supposed to work with the second teacher (Cheryl Schmid) but she wasn't there, so I ended up in the kindergarten room. We did a bunch of little crafts, read some books, and best of all went outside and played on the ice slide. It was really fun, all the little kids are so cute. We had free time at night so Ben, Melissa, and I went to the library to get some movies, then to Tim Hortons, then to Zellers. It was really nice to get out of the house and go sit at Tim Hortons just the three of us, it felt good to have something other then our living room to look at. It was overall a good day. On Thursday (Jan. 19) I worked with Cheryl untill 12:00. It was really fun I was working with the kids at the word wall making up different games for us to play with the words. The word wall is a wall with different words on it, the point of it is to create a fun way to learn the words. The kids really liked all of my games, so that was good. I only worked a half day because we had our Fitness evaluations at Motivations Fitness. We had a push up, sit up, flexibility, and running test. They also took our measurements and recorded our BMI and BMR. I was actually pretty please with my results. I got 42.5/50 on the running so I was happy with that. It was also Cody's 19th birthday. It was the first day I missed home. On Friday (Jan. 20) I worked with Jolene M-P, I leveled books, burned disc's, and helped out in her classes. The usual. At night Ben and I made Cinnamon Rolls. They took forever to make, and it took forever to clean up the dishes but they were pretty good. Everybody devoured them and we were pretty proud because we had no clue what we were doing when we made them. We just winged it. On Saturday (Jan. 21) we were volunteering at a dog sled derby in Haliburton. It was an hour and a half drive away, but it was a really fun day. Most of my group didn't have any fun, but i really enjoyed myself. I was helping run dog sled teams to and from the Start/finish line all day so I got to meet all of the dogs and mushers. It was really neat to see the dogs doing what they love to do. On Sunday (Jan. 22) I got up pretty early and we went to the Muskoka Loppet at Arrowhead Provincial Park. Fannie, Marc, Mike, and I were traffic control. It was actually pretty fun. Me and Marc were dancing in the parking lot and I was making huge hand gestures to indicate to people where to park. It was pretty cold out though, my eyelashes were frozen. We finished pretty early so we had some of the free lunch and then called Leah to come pick us up. All of our other group members started later, ended later, and were marshals not traffic control. When we got home we cleaned up our bedrooms and then headed over to Trinity United church to help them take down a stage from a concert. We waited for about half an hour for the concert to finish (which was actually really good) and then helped for about ten minutes. I didn't really see how it was necessary for us to go and help but whatever we represented Katimavik so that was good. It was also Fannies birthday so Leah bought a cake mix and I secretly made it while the house managers were making dinner. Then we presented it at dinner and it actually tasted really good. It was Carrot cake with cream cheese icing, umm umm good. On Monday (Jan. 23) I went to work like usual, then when Catherine got home we quickly blew up balloons and put them on Fannies bed and put up two Happy Birthday banners above her bed. Then she walked into the room and we all yelled Happy Birthday! After that Ben, Catherine, and I ran over to the gym and worked out for a while and then came home and ate some dinner. Then we played some french games did some calender planning and went to bed. And Dinners ready now soooo... That's that for now.