Back in Denver

I'm back in Denver and it's wonderful. The weather here is mostly beautiful. We can walk around outside and eat at picnic tables and enjoy the perfect weather. I have been so so busy helping Daniel get ready for his residents. On Thursday and Friday Daniel finished up training so he was busy all day. I stayed home and unpacked some things, made his bulletin boards, and put up his residents' door tags. We went shopping those two days and spent a lot of money, but I guess that's how it is trying to furnish an apartment. I always feel really guilty spending money. Even if it's like $20 I feel guilty. But I'm given an allowance for a reason, so I might as well use it. We now have a futon for our bed and I have my own desk in our room. Those were the two big purchases. Besides that, we had to buy organization stuff and we got some rugs for the bathroom and picture frames to put up more decorations in the room. We got dishes from goodwill so we now have a small pot and big pot, skillet, baking dish, cookie sheet, big plastic spoon, sharp knife, and a set of two plates and two bowls. We went to Safeway and bought some food to cook ourselves dinner. We saved every place we could. We bought store brand everything and only bought what we thought we would absolutely use. Last night we cooked our first dinner here. Daniel baked chicken in the oven and then added barbeque sauce while I cooked rice on the stove and vegetables in the microwave. It was really delicious! I was proud of us.

Daniel and I went on the United Methodist Church website and looked up what methodist churches are around here. We aren't completely committed to methodist necessarily, but we thought that would be an easy place to start. So after a little bit of searching, we found Grace United Methodist Church. It's about 5 minutes from campus. Based on their website, it looks a lot like Cross in the Desert. They have a worship band, a bell choir, and a young adult group that meets on Tuesday nights. They have an average attendance of about 300. After looking at their website I was really excited to go and see what the service is like and the people. So this morning Daniel and I woke up early and went to church. The church itself is really small (compared to CITD). The service was very similar to what I'm used to. The pastor's sermon was pretty interesting. He seems very young. After the service a lady said she didn't think we were on the mailing list so she handed us a newsletter. Daniel (being the outgoing person he is) told her that this is our first time here and we just moved. She introduced herself as the director of the children's ministry. She asked some questions about us. As soon as she heard that Daniel's a music major, and both of our experience in music, she introduced us to their praise band director. So I'm going to try to go to Bell practice which starts on Thursday night. Daniel wants to go to the praise team's practice on Wednesday. And we both want to go to Young Adult on Tuesday. It's really scary for me going to a new church. It's no secret that I hate change. But, I will take this as a learning experience. I will not just quit because it makes me anxious. So I'm excited and nervous at the same time.

Yesterday, Daniel's friend Jeff let me move in early. Jeff is in charge of the entire dorm. He hired me as a desk assistant and also offered to pay me for any work I do for him this next week. We were just hanging out at the desk and he made me a key, I filled out the paper work, and I moved in! My room is really small, but the view out the window is really nice and the closets are big. Another of Daniel's friends, well actually his boss here at Nelson, also made me a key for Nelson. So now I can get into my room and "our" room in Nelson! Every day it feels a little more like I actually live here.

Daniel and I have been spending lots of time with friends and making new friends. Being an RA means you meet a lot of new people during training and now they are all introduced to me. Pretty much every night we go out or hang out in a common area or something. Wednesday night we went downtown to celebrate a friend's birthday. Downtown was crazy! People were selling stuff on every corner and there were SWAT police officers completely decked out. They were in full body armor carrying HUGE guns. And 3 restaurants (that we wanted to go to) were completely rented out by DNC people. This coming week we will be helping freshmen get settled in and I'm going to get ready for class to start. I'm so excited for classes!