I Got the Job!

I was going to post pictures today, I swear it! But then the pictures Jeremy so kindly put on the flash drive, I left at home...oops.

On another more important note, I GOT THE JOB FOR THE CAMP ADVENTURE INTERNSHIP!!
"What does this mean?" you may ask!  Well, let me tell you.

First off, in case you are new to my little piece of the internet, my husband and and best friend is going to join the Air Force come sometime in January or Feburary, (it's all a waiting game I guess).  And he'll be gone for months, anywhere from 4-9 months.  Long time. Yes I know.

Sooooo....instead of moping around the house, not that we have one, but instead of moping around I wanted to do something, I thought about volunteering in Figi with the Turtles, teaching English in Thailand, Georgia, or working on a ranch in Austraila, or a hotel in Hawaii.  But then I found out about Camp Adventure.

Camp Adventure was started at my university (UNI...woot go panthers!) and what they do is they work at day cares around military bases around the world, Germany, Turkey, Hawaii, Italy, Netherlands, and more. So....I got a job with them!!! They pay for my flight there and back, and I'll get one of my top three choices for the internship program, which are Italy, Germany, Hawaii, Florida, and Alaska, in that order. So yay! It'll be from Janurary to May 12th, which means I may very well be celebrating my birthday in Italy come May. Awesome. 

So, this is what's been keeping me up waiting for news about this, but I got it, and accepted...now I have a mountain of paperwork to fill out, but it'll all work out!
God always provides...sometimes you just need to apply for the right job before he does ;-)
Love you all,
Aj

ps. Going shark cage diving in Mossel Bay this weekend...I'm kind of nervous but I'm sure it's going to be amazing, and I'm going with Kelsey and Jeremy...life is good....very good.

Hogsback

O my word. First off, let me apologize for not posting more pictures, I promise I will soon.  But Hogsback...mmm...delicious. It was awesome. It is where J.R.R Tolkien envisioned and was inspired to write the Hobbit, and we stayed in a fairy backpacker, and I traveled with my group of friends who are just phenomenal.  Man, I love my life here in S.Africa, it just makes you so happy to be able to have these once in a lifetime oppertunities to meet people and experience cool things.  Like a bath tub over looking the mountains, or a fairy meander, or a hike up a waterfall.

I used to consider myself a person who had to be go go go all the time.  Ask either my mom or my husband for the proof in the breakdowns at 2 am that I was so busy I couldn't do anything and had to get my homework done.  But all this time to just enjoy and breathe and volunteer has given me a new outlook on life.  As long as I have oppertunities to be social, love God, and give back I'm okay.  This is a nice way to live.  Given me a lot to think about.

ps. I found out that our school sells cinnamon rolls for 6.50 R, which is like 75 cents, and they are HUGE cinnamon rolls. Def, not as good as mine, or my moms, or goodness, that bakery in Orange City, but decent and fabulous.
pps. I hear back tomorrow about whether or not I got the job for the spring, which would be working on a military base at a daycare for their kids, either in, wait for it...Italy...Germany, Hawaii, Florida, or Alaska. Keep your fingers crossed!

Love. Love. Love.
And adore. It's all quite magical.
Love you all,
Amber Jane

My Spring Break Trip!!

Spring break was fantastic I had a wonderful time, and it was quite the adventure. I figure I’ll tell you my top five favourite things/stories of the week so I’ll be able to cover most of it.

1.       We went rafting down the Orange River, I was really nervous about this, because as most people know I am really afraid of water that I can’t see the bottom of and here we were going through rapids.  I told Jeremy if I died then he needed to put that I died rafting on my headstone, so people know I went down facing my fear.  It turned out to be an absolute blast, we got soaked, went swimming, the suction at the bottom of the boat to keep the water from filling up sucked up Jeremy’s shirt…quite funny if you ask me.  We stayed at a beach that night and set up camp and I had just a fantastic time sitting around the fire sharing stories.  Lately a theme has been to tell about traditions of the different cultures, and so it’s been really cool to hear all of them.

2.       Camping. I have not been camping in quite some time, and so when they told us that we were going to be sleeping in tents for a whole week I was kind of nervous, but put on my best face, and it was awesome.  The first night we got in at like 8 pm, and so it was totally dark out as Jeremy and I were trying to set up our tents, after accidentally stabbing each other a few times with tent poles we finally succeeded, quite hilarious.   The nice thing about tents is that you can see the sky through the bug screen, the bad thing about tents is that when you want to change you invariably fall down many times from tripping on things inside your tent.

3.       Rock Climbing.  They told us we were going on a hike…liars.  We climbed legit cliff things. It was crazy, if I would have slipped I could have died, but it was sooo cool. I just trusted my body to know how to handle itself and I propelled myself up these steep things, we saw some rock cave drawings, and I even crawled into the tight crawl space that let out 30 feet above the ground into the open sky. Scary as hell, but quite awesome.  I did happen to slip on a rock, and have a FANTASTIC bruise on my knee. I’m extremely proud of my war bruise.  We ended up hiking for about three hours and by the time we got back we were all sweaty and disgusting, but the place we stayed at that night had a mulberry tree (I was able to tell the myth of the mulberry tree) and orange trees, so it was delicious.

4.       Crossing the South Africa Namibian border 6 times. Yes. You heard me. 6. I was only supposed to be twice, in and out. The first time was because we thought our campsite was on one side but then turns out it was on the South African side, so we had to go back through, then a day after that we went to go drive through Mata Mata.  Mata Mata is a trans frontier park that is situated between 3 countries, and they share it, pretty cool in theory but the red tape around it is quite stuffy.  They wouldn’t let us drive through the park because we were not going to stay there, so we had to cross back over the border to go over to South Africa again, by the time we got to the other border at 4:35 it was too late, the border had closed. Mind you we hadn’t eaten lunch because we were trying to get to the border in time so we had all eaten some snacks for lunch, and were all wired.  We ended up camping outside of a township in this desert, it was awesome.

5.       Books.  Anyone who knows me knows I am a book worm. I love books. Fantasy, fiction, adventure, mystery.  Anything…except tax law books, use those for burning when the world ends.  On this trip because we spent a crazy absurd amount of time driving, I figure about 3 days worth of it (a lot I know). So I was able to read, a lot.  I reread books, yes for fun, and I just got my nook back (thanks mom!!) so I reread a couple Sookie Stackhouse novels, another scifi novel, Eat Pray Love, part of The Host, and I’m like 30 pages away from the end of The Fellowship of the Ring.  I know, I’m such a nerd. If I told my cousin Court this she’d roll her eyes, and say “O my gosh Amber, you read that much? Why?” and she’d roll her eyes, and laugh at me for wasting my time.  However, Eat Pray Love was fantastic and I highly suggest it, and now I’m halfway through Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Holy cow, awesome awesome book. Highly HIGHLY recommend it, hilarious and enlightening.

6.       We went to Fish River Canyon which is the second biggest canyon in the world (after the Grand Canyon of course) and it was huge!! Absolutely gorgeous, I’ll have to post pictures.

7.       The food.  Man, there is something about homemade food over a campfire that just makes me happy.  We had some awesome food, and some great noodle stuff that I’m going to try to learn how to make.  My favourite though was this apple crumble, apples, condensed milk, cookies, vanilla, cinnamon, all put in a pot to roast over the fire for half an hour, and then we put custard on it.  I sang.  Also, the chocolate soy milk here…nuh uh.  There is a reason I’ve been eating oatmeal for breakfast instead of soy milk here for the last 4 months…this past week was just reassurance of my choice.

8.       The schedule, the schedule was crazy, we’d drive for anywhere from 4-8 hours everyday depending on what we were doing and where we were going, it was crazy intense, all the places we wanted to see were really spread out so that made matters worse, but I sat in the front of our overland truck so I guess I had a little extra space, but you definitely learn patience when you are with 15 other people in a truck sitting quite close for hours…I guess I need to be careful when I ask God to teach me patience…but he did.

9.       Wine and friends.  Drinking is important to Europeans.  Granted it is important to Americans as well, but in a different way.  We went on a wine tasting, my first, and I had a lot of fun, but wine is not exactly my ticket to happiness (give me apple juice over wine anyday).  Every night they would crack open beers and drinks and talk about life, love, and general adventures.  Also comparing the European system to the US system has been a favoured topic, and can be ridiculous at times how intense the conversation can turn.  I’ve made some closer friendships over the trip, and had a blast just bonding and talking to people, but one thing is for sure, I can not hold alcohol like some of my friends.  After the first two weeks here in South Africa when I did drink quite a lot because we went out every night, I’d only have a few drinks, but it adds up.  So I’ve pretty much quit drinking except for here and there when we go out to somewhere special and even then it is just one.   My body feels a whole lot healthier, and my pocket book is a little bit thicker.  Nothing against drinking, but I know what it does to people, and I’m good with none, or sometimes one, but I’ve gotten to appreciate a full water bottle full of good clean water.

10.   The views…holy buckets were the views amazing.  I can’t believe I saw the things I did.  I saw the sun rise over the Kalahari desert, over the Cedarburg Mountains, and over a lush river valley in the middle of the desert.  I feel so blessed to have been able to be on this trip to see all that God has made, and the beauty of it all.  Wow.

Overall I had a great trip, and there are more smaller stories or things that happened that will be told over dinner in months to come.  I don’t have my camera on me or my flash drive to post pictures yet, but I will in the next few days. Sorry this post was so long, but I wanted to share.  I hope all of you are well, and having a great time. I know it’s getting colder in Iowa, two days ago it was 96 degrees here…going to the beach!!

Love and God bless,

Amber Jane

Spring Break Trip

I had a great trip this past week to Namibia.  I got home this morning at 7:30 after an 11 hour bus drive.  I am safe, I have a great bruise on my knee, and had a wonderful time. Tonight I'm going to write my blog post of all the cool things I did and I'll post it in the next few days.
Can you believe it's already October 10th? I'll be home December 2nd...time flies fast.  Wow.
Love you all,
Aj