Auctions, Parents and Moose Oh My!

Lots to talk about! Two visits and a Fantasy Auction later, I’m 3 weeks from coming home.

My dad visited a couple of weeks ago for a few days. We basically just bummed around a lot. I took him up to Mount Battie and Lincolnville so he could put his feet in the ocean. It was pretty cold. Still. We drove up to Belfast and had lunch too. We did a dining tour of Camden and had drinks at Brevetto’s, an Italian wine bar and kitchen, Smokestack grill, Waterfront Restaurant and others.

My mom and step dad visited a week later, the same week as our auction. They camped out at Camden Hills with Doug, Tracy and the boys from Friday to Tuesday before coming to stay with me for the rest of the time. During the first part of the week we drove to Bar Harbor. Apparently the Obamas had been vacationing there but left the morning we got there. We did some shopping before driving to Acadia National Park where we went hiking and took in the sites. We had dinner at a restaurant that was actually in the park and I had one of the yummiest things ever...a popover. I had no idea what they were at first but they’re basically nothing more than a roll. I had two as a bread before dinner and one with ice cream and chocolate sauce as a dessert afterwards. Delicious. I should have bought some of the mix and tried to make them. The next day we drove north three hours to look for moose. We spotted one on the side of the road. It wasn’t a big one but it was just starting to get its antlers. We also stopped at some beautiful spots along the way. After they relocated from the campground to my apartment we drove around and decided to try and go on a Puffin cruise because I’ve been wanting to do one since I got here. While we were waiting for our cruise we drove around and found some salt ponds. When the tide goes out it leaves little ponds full of salt water and sometimes wildlife. By the time we got to Pemaquid Point lighthouse the fog was starting to roll in so we ended up not going on the Puffin cruise because we didn’t think we would be able to see them.

I was supervising the putting up of the tent.

Hiking two hours to see "ocean caves" halfway up the mountain in 90 degree weather. Good idea Doug.

Moose!

Acadia National Park

Out on the edge of where the salt ponds were.

See em caught! Wicked.

Apparently my mom thought this looked like the forest from Twilight. She kept asking where Edward was. I told her it was the wrong side of the country.

Smalls Falls

In other news, do not ever open anything with your teeth. Last Friday I was trying to open a tab on a bottle of chocolate milk. It slipped and gauged the crap out of my gum. It was literally some of the worst pain I’ve ever felt and has lasted the entire week. I started rinsing with salt water and peroxide to take care of it because it was so painful. Lesson lerned. Won’t be doing that ever again. And also on the bad news front my guitar has died. I don't know if it was because it was cheap or the weird weather out here or a combination of the both but the wood actually warped and broke all on its own. I'm very sad about it's passing. The upside is that this means I can save up for a nice guitar that doesn't come from someone called The Guitar Dude on Ebay. Downside is that my calluses will probably fade and I'll have to go through all the pain again. Ick. R.I.P. Cheap Guitar.

Good news. Last night was our Fantasy Charity Auction finally. I’ve put a lot of work into it and so have A LOT of other people so it was amazing to see it all finally come together. I spent the better part of Thursday and Friday helping set up for the event. Once the event got underway I actually just got to sit in and enjoy it which was nice. I got to sit and eat dinner with a family whose daughter was just granted a wish. We sent their family to South Africa to see the World Cup Final! They got up and stage and talked a little about their trip and showed us some pictures. It never ceases to amaze me how grateful these families are for their wishes. We also watched some videos about other kids. The biggest moment of the night was the auction of the Shaq sneaker. We granted a wish several years ago for a girl who had brain cancer. Her wish was to meet Shaq. Her and her family were flown down to Florida to hang out with Shaq and the girl was given a signed sneaker from Shaq, if you can even imagine how huge it was. Unfortunately the wish girl passed away last year, after a 14 year battle with her illness. One of her last wishes was that the Shaq sneaker be donated to the auction to help other kids wishes come true. It takes on average $6000 for us to grant a child’s wish and we grant one about every 5 days. Guess how much this 1 sneaker went for? TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! The family of the girl was present at the auction and as soon as the man bid that much the mother completely broke down in tears. I was trying not to fall apart because it was such a great moment. Definitely one I’ll remember for a long time. People are so incredibly generous when it comes to this organization and it’s nights like that that make you realize how much people actually care. It makes all the work worth while. It was an incredibly successful night and we will be able to grant about 20 wishes just from this one night.

There's all your orange and your goldfish Amanda B!

Half of the room where the auction and dinner took place. I along with other volunteers had to personally put each and every chair cover on about 260 chairs as well as set the tables up.

My camera sucks but this is what some of the tables looked like. I chopped off the stems of all those leaves and did the fabric covering for the flowers.

Tiki Bar in the auction display room.

I’ve been a busy girl these past few weeks so I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend before heading back to work on Monday to follow up with all the auction stuff. Brynn is flying out here on the 14^th to drive back with me and I’m so excited. We’ll be stopping in Boston for a little bit before continuing home. I’ll be moving back to E.L. the next weekend and start work the next week. Pretty soon it’ll be time for school again. See you all soon!

Fiyahhhhworks

So didn't do too much over the 4th of July because Camden was swarming with tourists and they annoy me. If I see one more fanny pack I might go jump in the hahbah. But I did go to the fireworks that they had down at the water. The hill that I usually go to for reading and fishermen watching was absolutely packed with people. They had a concert type thing there during the day and the fireworks started a little after nine. They were some of the most beautiful ones I've ever seen because I've never seen some over water before and that was so pretty. The picture above isn't an exact picture because my camera sucks so I didn't even attempt, but that's basically what it looked like. On Sunday I watched a four hour marathon of The O.C. Didn't work yesterday. Worked today and Dad's coming tomorrow. Woot!

So...

Haven't done too much lately, which is evident by the lack of entries. Work's been going okay. I've been doing a lot of busy work (which I guess you can expect from being an intern) but the good thing is that I'm not stuck back in some copy room. I'm right in the middle of everything and am getting a lot of exposure to the different departments. We also had an auditor type person coming for a few days this week so I had Monday and Tuesday off since they didn't really have anything for me to do while they were there. We're also starting to gear up hardcore for our auction and that's mostly what I'll be focused on. I did up the invitations yesterday and mailed them out so I hope we get a good turn out.

I've been working a lot with Jim, the development director who does specials events, and I've also done a lot of work with Melinda, who does wish granting, and I really like both areas. Melinda basically helps plan out the wishes and makes sure everything runs smoothly and works on fun little things to add a little extra to it. There's a lot more artsy projects when I work with her, which I love. I was always the kid in school that actually liked doing projects.

I drove to Augusta again on Tuesday to go to Target and buy Remember Me, because anyone that knows me well enough knows that I wouldn't wait to get it. Come on. Get real. I've already watched it and watched the commentary because I have nothing else to do. If you haven't seen it yet, go get it right now. Amazing movie and makes me emotional everytime I watch it.

Also really excited for Eclipse to come out next week. I was a little apprehensive about going when I didn't have anyone to go with but I finally got over it and realized that if I want to see a movie I'm going to go regardless if I have anyone to go with. So I bought my ticket online and will be going to the midnight showing next Tuesday. The closest theater is about 20 minutes away in Rockland so I told Sara I'd have to call her on my drive home and discuss, since we won't be seeing it together. Her, Amanda and Erin are my usual Twilight buddies and with none of them out here to be nerds with me I'll just have to improvise.

Speaking of my wonderful BFF Amanda, she went and found herself a job as a reporter and I'm so incredibly proud of her. She has so much determination to just do what she wants and not listen to some people ; ) and I really look up to her for that. So send her a little congrats if you can!

My dad is flying out to see me for a few days in the beginning of July, which I'm really excited about. I really love living out here but I really miss everyone so in that aspect I'm happy about coming home. Otherwise I really love the east coast so its definitely a contender for after graduation as long as I can tear myself away from my family and friends (we'll see). My mom is coming about a week or so after my dad leaves. Then I have the Fantasy Auction and I leave about two or three weeks later so I feel like the rest of my time here is going to fly by.

I'm so excited that my Brynner is coming out to roadtrip with me back. I don't get to see her enough and I miss her like crazy so it's going to be an awesome experience. We're going to head out of here probably the Sunday or Monday after I finish work, stop in Boston for a few hours since I've never been there, and then continue on home.

For not having much to say I guess I rambled a little. That's what I get for not having much social interaction.

It rained all night last night and I barely got any sleep. I did however forget to mention in my last blog post about how I saw a McDonald's and a Burger on my adventure to Target the other day and it made my heart leap. I won't apologize for my addiction to McDonald's fries. The closest thing we have to fast food in Camden is Subway or Scott's Place, which by the way is excellent. It's this little stand that has all types of burgers and fries and unfortunately its right outside my office and after my first visit I was already a "regular." Didn't do much at work this week, but I did get to write some press releases which is definitely amazing.

This weekend is supposed to be crappy weather so I'll probably just hang around at my apartment and try to get through my second book of the summer vacation. Peace.

Golf Tournament Adventure

So I didn't do anything for Memorial Day Weekend, which was okay because I like laying around and it was a nice weekend to do that.
On Tuesday I drove to a little town right outside Augusta, even though my car was acting funny, to work at a Charity Golf Tournament that donates part of its proceeds to us. My boss and I were stationed at one of the holes to "run" the hole in one contest. He sat at the tee and I sat in a chair down by the green just to watch and see if any of the 160 golfers made a hole in one. No one did. I was glad that I brought a book to read because that would have been the most boring 5 hours of my life. It also started raining about halfway through, so that was kind of miserable, but oh well. It was nice not sitting in an office all day. I also got to "meet", as in he walked by me, Olympic Gold Medalist Snowboarder Seth Wescott.
After the tournament was over they had a lunch and my boss told me I was free to leave, since I was planning on venturing into Augusta and going to Target. Melisa got me a Target gift card as a going away present and I was determined to buy Alice in Wonderland since it came out Tuesday and this Target was the closest one (over an hour) to where I live. When I got out to the parking lot I found that someone decided to park beside me, essentially blocking me in. So I got in and waited...and waited...and waited. The guy finally came and got in his car and proceeded to talk on his phone for another 20 minutes or so while I was sitting there with my car on, ready to go. He eventually left and I waited a few minutes, getting everything situated so I could go. Right before I pulled out, a few of the golf course employees lined up the golf carts behind me as well. It left me barely no room to pull out, I literally felt like Austin Powers with his little cart trying to get out of this parking spot. Once I got out, narrowly missing taking out a few golf carts (I refused to be trapped there any longer) I started typing the Target address into Fran, my GPS, and was surprised to find that the street it was on was not listed. So I had to backtrack and find a street that my GPS recognized and would just have to go old fashioned directions from that point. The Target was a little hard to find but I eventually found it and got my DVD. I was a little worried about my car on the way back, considering my Service Engine Soon light was flashing at me and my coolant had been acting weird. I told my dad, who assured me it'd be fine as I was leaving Target, that it was his fault if I ended up stranded alongside the road of a deserted highway. I made it home fine and he called to make sure about five hours later. Good thing I hadn't been stranded. It was all worth it though for my Johnny : )

And the work has started!

So the momma has left me. Anxiously awaiting for someone else to come visit me.

I started work yesterday and I think it's going well so far. I just hate getting acclimated to a new office and feeling like I have no idea what I'm doing. The main thing I've been working on the past two days are the Walks for Wishes, which take place all over the state. I've basically been getting kits together for the last few that take place this week. They're very similar to Relay for Life, except they don't go overnight. I've also started to work on things for our Fantasy Auction, which is kind of the big event of the summer. We have a ton of auction items as well as a nice dinner that takes place at a resort at the end of July. That's going to be my major project once this week and the Walks are over.

I haven't done that much the past few days. I've been pretty tired at night and for some reason have been waking up at like 6 am everyday for no apparent reason. The weather has been really hot the past few days but I think we're supposed to get a storm tomorrow.

Still waiting to hear back from Owl and Turtle Bookstore about the job, but I really want it so I hope it comes through. Thinking about going and getting a library card because I've already rushed through one book since I've been here (Water for Elephants, new favorite book, go read) and as much as I'd love to I really don't want to spend all my money on books. The good thing is that I'm already starting to get a little color so at least I don't look like an anemic ghost anymore. I also think that the short week that I have been here has converted me to a Red Sox fan. It must be something in the water. I don't have any new pictures to share right now so I shall leave you with this.

Went grocery shopping and went in to see where I'm going to work on Wednesday. It's a pretty small office but they seem like really nice people so I'm excited to start work on Monday. It's probably only a 10 or 15 minute walk from my apartment so I'll probably walk as long as it's nice outside. I also applied to a bookstore that's right down the road from me called Owl and Turtle Bookstore to help take up some of my time and give me a little extra spending money. We drove into Lincolnville yesterday to check out their "beach" which isn't much of a beach at all, but it was pretty. Also checked out Mount Battie, which overlooks the entire harbor and out into the ocean. We ate lunch at the Lobster Pound in Lincolnville and I had a bite of some of my mom's lobster. I didn't mind it, maybe I'll come back converted.
Today we drove about 20 miles up to Belfast and had lunch up there and walked around a little. I think Camden is definitely my favorite out of all these little towns though. The hill overlooking the harbor is the perfect reading spot. I think I should probably get a library card because I'm already halfway through one of the books I got.
Momma leaves me tomorrow. We have to make the 2 hour drive to Portland, where she flies out of, and I'll drive back. Next visitor isn't due till the end of July, but I'm hoping someone will surprise me and come out here sooner than that ; ) *cough, cough Sara and Erin*

Lobster Pound! Super good and right on the ocean.

I thought this was really funny so naturally I took a pic.

My lookout spot for cute fishermen.

From the top of Mount Battie. That cluster of buildings is Camden.

View from my reading spot. Pretty nice huh?