The BK Lounge

This year I was asked to serve as a university staff representative on an Alternative Spring Break trip. I had never participated in this type of adventure before, so I went for it, not knowing what was in store. As the staff partner, I was assigned to a student site leader who would be planning the majority of the trip. For 9 months my site leader, Emily, and I worked together to plan a week long service trip in Las Vegas. The issue that we focused on for the trip with Youth, Addiction, and Homelessness. After 9 months of budgeting, booking hotels, arranging service, and training our team of 10 U of U students, we embarked on the 7 day ASB adventure:

DAY 1--SATURDAY, March 10th


Las Vegas 2012 trip departing the Bennion Center. Back row: Christy, Steve, Jake, Emily, Tae. Front Row: Kathy, Erin, Jeremy, Erin S., Diana, Amanda, Rachel

Arrival

Wal Mart extravagana. I have a taste of how the Duggars operate. DIVIDE AND CONQUER.

Longest receipt ever.

Classic Emily.

Classic me. That's a lot of meat...

DAY 2--SUNDAY, March 11th

We landed a wonderful hotel--the Grandview Resort at Las Vegas. This place was affordable, clean, nice, and spacious. It also had a kitchenette (four of them, actually) that we used for all of our cooking. The students took turns cooking meals they had prepared. Check out the four frying pans on the stove to cook 5 lbs of meet. Yeah...over shot that one a bit.

DAY 3--MONDAY, March 12th

This was the first day of service/ education. We started at the Solutions Foundation, a recovery clinic/ rehab. We learned about opiates and went through a PA meeting (pills anonymous). Powerful stuff.

After the Solutions Foundation we hopped in our pimp vans and rolled out to the center of Las Vegas to visit an Elementary School we were volunteering with for the After School All Star program. First, though, a pit stop at a very windy park for sack lunches.

Haystacks by Emily, Diana and Christy for dinner. Delicious.

And of course, I loved chatting with this guy via Qik. I missed her pretty bad...this was the longest we've been apart since we decided to make a go of it. Sigh....so cheesy. I had to laugh though because every time we talked I'd see her fix her hair...she kept staring at herself and not talking to me. So vain.

DAY 4--TUESDAY, March 13th

We headed toward Lake Mead, but excited right before the blue water to head to St. Jude's Ranch. This is not St. Jude's hospital (so no, we didn't see Justin Timberlake). St. Jude's Ranch is a home for kids and teens who come from rough beginnings. Many of the kids were abused by parents, relatives, siblings and struggled in foster care and thus have been taken to St. Jude's for counseling, shelter, and safety. There are no photos of the St. Jude's kids to protect their privacy and safety. In the morning we volunteered at the St. Jude's card room to sort greeting cards that are donated to the ranch, which they in turn refurbish and sell at their store. Lots. of. cards. We took an hour break and headed to a nearby town to eat lunch. In the afternoon we hosted a BBQ for the kids: hot dogs, caffeine free sodas, chips, and plenty of games!

For lunch we headed to a local B and B for some excellent grub. A rare moment eating out.

As we got ready for the BBQ, the crew played football before the kids arrived.


Jake, the grill master

DAY 5--WEDNESDAY, March 14th

Wednesday morning one of my crew, Erin S., awoke with a mad case of pink eye. Yikes! Playing mama bear, I took Erin to see a doctor in Henderson while the rest of the team went to the Las Vegas Rescue Mission. It was interesting to spend the morning in a Las Vegas doctor's office. After a 3 hour wait, the doctor finally saw us...but didn't really even LOOK at Erin. She stared at her clipboard the entire time, just ready to write a prescription. This was interesting in light of our conversation on Monday at the solutions Foundation, in which they said that opiates are so easy to get in part because of the pressure on doctors' time to get through patients rapidly. I could definitely see how that was the case. Nonetheless, we got the necessary prescription, filled it at Smith's, and joined our group at LVRM, already in progress.

After an admittedly rough day at LVRM (we didn't go back...long story), we headed back to the elementary school we had visited on Monday for our second day of After School All Stars. This day was a blast and I enjoyed myself immensely, as did the rest of our group.

Erin and Erin rock out while making dinner with Amanda.

DAY 6--THURSDAY, March 15th

Originally the plan was to return to LVRM on Thursday, but after a bump in the road, that was no longer an option for us. Emily and I conferenced with the group during 'reflection' the previous night and asked them what they wanted to do. We had fulfilled our service "quota" for the trip, so we could have easily spent the day swimming and shopping, but the group voted to find something to do. And we did. Steve suggested Habitat for Humanity, and this ended up being one of the highlights of our week.

After painting, landscaping, and generally working hard in the sun (so fun!) we headed back to the Grandview to get ready for our last night in Las Vegas.

Thanks to brilliant budgeting (don't mind if I do...) we had some extra money to treat the team to dessert. Thanks to Yelp, I found Max Brenner's at Ceasar's Palace. AMAZING. Behold, my banana split french toast with a side car (beaker!) of chocolate sauce.

Chocolate pizza

DAY 7--FRIDAY, MARCH 16th

Headed home after a great week. I learned so much on this trip about myself and about leadership. I don't necessarily buy into the whole "service saves lives" bit because I feel like too often we use service as an excuse to ignore our powers and priviledges that we hold every other day of the week. However, this trip taught me many things that I couldn't have learned otherwise. I'm glad I did it, and glad that my boss supported me in doing it. It very much could be hailed like the Real World: this is the story of 12 strangers who lived in Las Vegas for one week. I truly love these students and was happy to get to know their individual stories. Above all, my take away from Vegas ASB was said from a recovering addict at the Solutions foundation. "All I'm trying to do is do the next right thing". Also, Tae got his first taste of a beef stick. Successful trip. :)

For Christmas I gave Becca tickets to Lady Antebellum on Valentine’s Day. One gift, two holidays. Brilliance. :) Truthfully, we have a tradition of hitting up converts on Valentine's Day. It is a great way to spend a cheesy holiday, and I much prefer live music to candlelight any day. Valentine's Day fell on a Tuesday and we decided to play the evening cool as cucumbers. We ordered our favorite BBQ chicken pizza and cheese pull-a-parts from The Pie. During dinner we cleared out our DVR by watching our favorite reality TV shows.

After dinner, we moseyed on down to the Energy Solutions Arena via Trax to watch the show. Darius Rucker opened for Lady Antebellum. While not big Darius fans, I was completely gaga over his performances of Hootie and the Blowfish classics "Hold My Hand", "Let Her Cry", and "Only Wanna Be With You". 90's swoon. His new song "History in the Making" was one that struck me as very sweet, and very much describes how I felt when I was hanging out with the lovely Becca Swain for the first time:

Tonight, maybe tonight
Is a start of a beautiful ride
that will never end
And baby I’ve got a feeling

This could be one of those memories
We want to hold on to, we want to cling to,
One that we can’t forget
This could be our last first kiss
The door to forever
What if this was that moment
That chance worth taking
History in the making