Where oh where has Shub gone?

I've actually had a number of people in the last few months ask me why I have not updated my blog. Look at that! People read it! Who knew.

Anyways, as I knew would happen, I've been very busy this summer. Aside from visiting family, friends, and the boat when I can, I've been on road trips galore. Both with church, with friends, and with family. After coming back from Cali, I spent a week taking church kids to DC, working with non-profit organizations and helping feed the homeless and such. Here's some of my kids making our 50 loaves of zucchini bread for the shelter! Yum!


Another week of church camp brought us to Sharpsburg, Maryland at a Heifer International farm. If you've never heard of Heifer PLEASE check it out. Heifer uses livestock and education to help needy families and villages in over 127 countries become healthy and sustainable. We LOVE Heifer. Along with numerous team-building exercises and farm chores, we learned about vermiculture (worms), how to make rope, how to make candles, and more! Yay Heifer! Check out our farm photos:

Building a rabbit cage!

S'mores:

After our week at the Heifer Maryland, we packed our bags once more and took some high schoolers to Arkansas, to the corporate Heifer Ranch in Perryville, just outside Little Rock. We had an absolute BLAST and though I just spent a week on a Heifer farm, I still learned more than I thought possible. And only in a week! Lord knows what I'll pick up in a couple years.

I did everything from work with beehives and chop down trees to live in an urban slum and sweat my butt off over a cook fire for oatmeal. BUT everything was ok again when I got to play with baby animals. Here's some highlights:

Our AWESOME group in front of church
before the LONG road trip
Beehives! (I'm the short one)

My spot by the lake

Climbing a GIANT ladder meant to help with

teamwork and pushing personal limits

A little something I fell in love with

And a final image of Shub on a farm:

Basically the weeks at Heifer showed me how truly proud I can be of my kids, and also taught me LOTS of interesting things that I might be able to use in Africa. (EeEek!)

SPEAKING OF WHICH, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about something else I'm going to miss while in the Peace Corps (again, if I'm lucky enough to get invited). Here's the most recent news from these people ---->



I got a call a little over a week ago saying I received my medical clearance. YES. This is apparently one of the biggest hurdles of the application process. So my records have been sent to the Assessment & Placement Office, I updated them on the things I've been doing this summer with Heifer, and now I get to WAIT some more :)

In the meantime I also signed up the take the GREs in October, so I need to get my butt in gear and start studying. It's not easy when you're out of college. Hell, it wasn't easy in college.

So that's what's up on the Shub side of town. I hope everyone is having a FANTASTIC summer (or start of school year) and I hope to see everyone soon.

Love you all!

<3 Shub :)