Well, here we are at Sierra Vista on the 6th day of Young Ambassador tour. I have to say that out of the 8 YA tours I’ve been on this has definitely been my favorite. I have loved every second I’ve been able to spend with the tech crew which has made it infinitely enjoyable. I think I can honestly say that I have some of my best friends on the crew with me this year which just makes it so much better. Really, I just don’t want to have to go home and face the real world. I’m not even close to ready for that. I don’t have my homework caught up and… I don’t know, I like tour a lot and I’m definitely ok with staying here. The weather has been amazing and it’ll be hard to go back to the snow. But it will be good. I am looking forward to being back home with everyone, I’m just not ready for it yet.
So, my host family last night was a trip. Wonderful people but a trip. We were in Tucson, AZ at the University of Arizona. It was a great venue but I’m straying from what I wanted to talk about. At the end of the night we were told that the tech crew girls (me, Lexie Auman and Debbie Allen) would be rooming together again. In years past when I would hear that I’d kinda be disappointed. However, I was totally stoked. I LOVE rooming with these girls. We have definitely become friends. So we got all of our luggage and headed out to meet our host mom. She was a younger woman with one little girl named Spring with her and was apparently pregnant. I felt bad because I thought we were probably keeping her little girl up past her bedtime since she was so young. When we got out of the theater she told us that she was parked a ways away and would go get the car then come and pick us up. While we were sitting there Lexie realized that she had accidentally picked up Keith’s bag instead of her own so she and Debbie ran back in to exchange bags. (It’s a good thing we realized this then or it could have produced a very awkward situation this morning) After they had been gone for a couple of minutes my mom called me to let me know that one of my really good friends is unofficially engaged! I’ve always thought that was a really funny thing to say, but basically they’ve set the date but she doesn’t have the ring… so it’s not official… whatever. Anyways, the girls came back and we loaded everything into the van. I was excited because we don’t generally get to stay with families with younger children because it can be kinda difficult for them to take on a bunch of college students for the night. Lexie was also really excited because she’s been wanting to stay somewhere with younger kids for a while and has been jealous of anyone who has gotten to do so. So we were driving home and we were playing with the little girl. We found out that she was 2 years old and her name was Spring. She was the cutest thing on the planet. I think babies are so much funner when they can talk and play a little bit than when they’re just newborn and just kinda sit there and be little. Just a personal opinion. Anyways, we also found out that Vicki had another child- a little boy named Tiger who was 4 years old. Super exciting! So, we drove home. It took a LONG time to get there but we did finally get there. Sure enough, when we walked in the door this little bundle of energy named Tiger started running around. I was surprised to see that both of their kids were awake since it was probably past 11pm at that point and most children are asleep at that time. So we took our stuff upstairs and they showed us our three options for places to sleep- the baby’s room, the guest room and on a blow up matress in their upstairs living room. Debbie decided to take the bed in the baby’s room and since Lexie and I couldn’t decide just yet we decided to pow-wow in Debbie’s room. Of course, when we went in so did the two little kids. They were running around and jumping on the beds. So we definitely got to play with them. However, it was getting kinda late and we were pretty tired. Debbie went out of the room and called her husband to tell him goodnight. After awhile she came in and basically passed out on the bed- still in her blacks. Luckily the kids took a hint and Lexie and I took them out into the hall to play some more. And they were definitely still up for playing some more. We ran around with them for probably another 30 minutes before they went downstairs to have dinner. As soon as they left Lexie and I went into our room and collapsed on our beds. Running tech for the Young Ambassadors is pretty intense so we come home tired anyways, but after a long day and then playing with kids we were wiped out. Lexie fell asleep on top of the covers still in her blacks. Although I had been planning on showering that night it just wasn’t going to happen so I changed into my PJs and hopped into bed as well. The kids on the other hand went downstairs and were fed dinner! Dinner! At past midnight! I’ll admit that sometimes I live on that kind of a schedule… but I’m in college… and I’m not 4 years old. The next morning the parents were telling us how the kids had been up late… gee I wonder why! In the morning we were running a bit behind schedule so we were hoping to just go and meet the tech van ASAP. But, that was not going to be the case. We came downstairs to breakfast and tried to get going. When we got in the van Sister Westerfield said that we were going to have to stop by the grocery store to pick up drinks for our lunches. Swell. We were already about half an hour late… and she’s insisting that we stop by the grocery store. We did finally get to the tech van about 45 minutes late, and it was actually ok because we went sight-seeing and had far more time than we needed in Tombstone. I’m sure part of us being late was our fault. But honestly! I just don’t understand some people.