north platte. nebraska

so i have been so slack in my blog that i need to go through and just tell you what i have been doing in each city.....so here goes..

north platte was a very fun city since khan, sam and i set it up....the cast arrived on monday august 7th and went bowling. everyone had a blast and i was amazed at how many people had never been bowling before.

tuesday was regional learning day ...this is when we all learn something about the community that we are in. since we were in north platte we decided to concentrate on the canteen. in north platte during the 40's and world war 2 a bunch of trains came through because that is where the soldiers switched trains to either go east or west. well one night there was mistake in who was coming on the train so everyone in the town brought food to the soldiers that they thought would be from their area. it turns out these soldiers were from kansas....well instead of wasting the food they decided to give the food to the soldiers and that is what started to canteen. the idea was to treat every soldier that came through north platte as a son or daughter so everyone donated food. they would feed over 8000 soldiers a day...and everything was donated by local farmers!! amazing...especially during the time of rations. anyways.....we decided to watch the canteen spirit documentary ( really good if anyone ever wants to watch ) and then have 2 people come and talk to us about the canteen ( two ladies that helped during the canteen ) after the talk we surprised the cast with a "real" canteen....even dressed in 40's outfits and uniforms. the really cool thing was that we made it on to the front page of the paper....above the fold and in color....

tuesday night was bingo night with doris....the lady i met on the minivan ride to north platte. one of the sweetest ladies ever. ( she was the speaker for the canteen..she was a volunteer). doris lives in the highest building in north platte....11 stories.....the retirement community. i thought it was funny when the bingo pot was maximum $8...

wednesday and thursday were community service days but since i was on the advance team i could not do either of the community service projects. i had to make sure that everything was running smooth in my city. wednesday night we went to cody ranch which is buffalo bill's ranch for dinner. it was very cool. i never knew buffalo bill lived in north platte nebraska. we had a fun time exploring the ranch and also seeing a buffalo bill impresonator. ( i knew he was going to be there, but the cast didn't so it was a fun surprise. )

friday night we had most of the staff over to dinner to celebrate the week and also for them to have a home cooked meal since they were in the hotel all week. we had a really good time and it was a nice way for me to get to know the staff better.

saturday was show day and boy was it awesome to see the show. it was so excited to see everyone perform and i could not believe those were my friends that i left 2 weeks ago. they were amazing. it looked like a whole new cast. what a great job at practice. sam, khan and i were amazed that the show sold out!!! how cool is that...sell out on the first city. we also raised 9100 dollars for our community partner for the week..the connection ( a homeless shelter ) after the show we our our review for advance team work....overall we had an awesome review. what a great week. everything ran smooth so we were happy.

sunday was our day to relax...we went back to jim and annette's lake house. this time instead of just sam, khan, and i there with our host families the whole staff was there. once again it was fun to get to know everyone. we went rode on the jet ski and i even went water skiing. i have not done that in years....i think the last time i was water skiing was in the ohio river with sarah holton. we had another awesome dinner at the lake and every one shared their stories from the week.

monday was travel day...i was off to my first city. kansas city!!! pretty emotional day saying goodbye to everyone that i had lived with for 3 weeks. just want to say thanks for everything north platte.