Busy few months

So this whole, 'it's light until 11 PM' thing is pretty sweet. But it leaves me little time for anything because I am taking advantage of it. Lame excuse? Yeah. But a valid one if you spend time here. Things just get lost in the daylight :). But there have been some big changes and some awesome times. So I will try to highlight these for you:

Schoooooooooooool's out/ For the Summer!

School got out at the end of May, and with that I switched full time to the Hanson House. Which is fantastic. From 7am - 3pm I play taxi for the residents. It certainly has its ups and downs. The mood and energy swings are sometimes incredibly draining, and friends often get the, 'We are going for a drink later' text from me pretty early on. But at the same time I love the kids and they are great. Just don't try to tell them that, they will deny it to their dying day.

Kristin's Visit

So my good friend from college was able to visit at the same time three JVs from Juneau were able to make it in. We had a Top Gun themed party. We all wore aviators. Some showed up in flight suits. It was awesome. Kristin and I then got to spend some time tramping up mountains, watching 'How I Met Your Mother,' and just had a pretty great time reconnecting at my favorite places around town. Oh, and she told my roommates that they don't hit me enough. Glad she's going to be living two hours away from me...

Hope, Alaska

Take 23 Alaskan Jesuit Volunteers. Put them in a retreat center in a town of 56 people. Add an interesting old Jesuit. Add two area directors. And finally schedule it during a weekend of a 'secret' bluegrass festival, and you have a pretty fantastic time. And yet bittersweet. These people, as I have written in the past, are great, and it was hard to say good bye to many of them. It also made the retreat aspect of the weekend difficult to look forward to. I kept finding my mind wandering to the breaks and when we were going to get to hang out again as opposed to the spirituality that I was supposed to be focusing on. Whoops. But it was a fun weekend. And it led into...

Denali!

Wow. Words cannot describe how incredible this national park is. After months of planning and anticipation we each strapped packs to our backs in excess of 40 pounds, hopped on a bus, and got dropped off by the side of the road at a spot, and trekked into the wilderness. Wow. There were some not so great moments: bushwacking through chest high brush in a marsh. Climbing a 2000 foot ridge to get into another valley. Having to make sure all our 'smellies' were in the bear-proof containers that we were provided with and place those 100 yards away. But with that came the knowledge that we were miles and miles from the nearest human. I also got to see Denali (Mt. McKinley's native name) on my first day, so that was awesome. Then after three nights, we got back to the road and hopped on a bus and made our way to Anchorage for a few more days of hanging out with some Juneau and Anchorage JVs. Watched some World Cup. Drank some drinks. Watched some movies. Explored Anchorage. Good times.

So my family came. Right after we got back from Denali. Great planning Greg...

My parents, Emma, and Christopher came to visit for a week (we missed you Erin!), and it was a lot of fun. Though I had to work most of the time we got to do a bunch. The highlight was probably the Herring Cove to Beaver Lake hike we did, where we spent two hours walking around my favorite hike in Sitka. We had a cook out with a few other visiting families and our Sitkan friends. I made them take me to all the restaurants I have wanted to try but cannot afford. Got to give them crap about everything. And we went on a charter. Where Emma caught the biggest king. Big shock there. But it was really hard to say good bye to them. Having them here was a huge reminder of how much I love and miss them, and I am looking forward to that next step, being closer to them.

So I guess I should clarify that next step. The timeline goes as such. Less than three weeks of my JV year remain. I will be staying in Sitka working for Hanson House until the 19th, when I will shoot down to Seattle and join Zach for a trip that will go from Seattle to St. Louis and back again. I will then fly back to Buffalo and be there for a month or so, depending on a few different things, people I need to visit, etc. Then, in the first month of October or so, I will be moving to Albany, NY to work for my uncle. And that, my dear friends, is my next step. Big stuff, I know :). But I am excited about it.

One more thing before I leave you for the next month or so :). As many of you know, I lost a dear friend of mine my senior year of high school, Mike Neary. Many times during this year I have found myself thinking of him and talking to him, asking him for guidance and just letting him know what has been going on. But every once in a while he decides to interfere a little bit. A little before his death, Mike heard this song a few different places and introduced it to me. This song has been difficult, at times, for me to listen to because of the emotions it causes to run over my heart. Well, one of the big things I am always working with my kids on is controlling their emotions, primarily their anger. Not an easy task. But one method that I use a lot is encourage them to remove themselves from the situation and listen to music, one that does work well, at the very least just for a cool down period. We were driving in the car on the way home from somewhere last week and the aforementioned song came on over the iPod (they have a car adapter). One kid perked up and goes, 'I use this song to cool down all the time!' Two others said the same thing. After I recovered from my initial shock and made some comment along the lines of, 'Yeah, it's a pretty chill song,' I reflected on how awesome that was. It was just one more of those, 'Thanks Mike,' moments added to the pile.