Today is a very busy day. I'm leaving for my trip in about 15 minutes! Wow. I cannot believe I'll be in Africa in a few days. I have a whole mix of emotions- excited, nervous, anxious. I'm sad to be leaving home for two whole weeks but I know it will fly by and the experience will be priceless.
So here's an update on some things that have been going on!
April- The Tennessee trip was awesome! I know I wrote about that but I didn't post any pics! Here's a pic of our cabin:)
May/June- I tried out for Wheel of Fortune! That was a very interesting experience! I went the first time to the Roanoke Civic Center with mom. There were more than 6,000 people who auditioned from Roanoke and Danville this year. They play three hour-long games (kind of). They had this big barrel on the stage with everyone's applications in there and they selected 5 names at a time. They only got to 30 per hour. I didn't get called the first hour. I was in the second to last group for the second hour. They called my name and I said, "Oh Crap!" I don't know what I was thinking- I wasn't thinking I'd have to get up on stage in front of over a thousand people and talk! Anyway, they said they would take the videos back to L.A. and they would send out an email in 3-4 weeks to those selected for final auditions!
The week before we were headed to NJ to see Tiffany and Tristan, I got this email saying I was selected for final auditions. How crazy is that?!? I went to Roanoke the following week and there were 60 people in the audition room. It was intense! They did several puzzle rounds and called out people's names. I got 6 letters right and then they put me on bankrupt so that everyone would get a change to have their name called! Then we took a written test that was insanely difficult! It was 16 word puzzles with one or two letters in each word filled in. We have 5 minutes to figure out as many words at possible. I think I got 6 puzzles done haha. Most of the people around me got 4. It was definitely not easy. Anyway- then we had a break and when we came back, they let 50 people go. I was in that group of 50 (which I figured after the terrible test). They told us that the 10 people that were left were going to keep competing until they had 2 people. Those 2 people may or may not make it on the show. Apparently there was another audition earlier in the morning and they kept 28 from that group. They could only go back to L.A. with 30 names total!
We then left the next day to see Tiffany and Tristan! It was great catching up with them! I want them to move back home so badly! We went to Atlantic City, spent an hour on the beach, and hung out at their place playing games and watching movies. It was a good time:)
The Friday after we got home, we threw a surprise party for mom's birthday. She was definitely surprised! All of her siblings and Mawmaw came up for the night and Tara even came from Massachusetts. It was a lot of fun and it was nice having my sister here for a few days:) She was here for our 4th of July celebration which ended up being all of us sitting on our front porch, hoping to see the fireworks from our house. It turns out that we can see the fireworks from our place, but only when there isn't a huge cloud in the way!
Well now I'm leaving in about 10 minutes so I better get going! Say some prayers for our team while we are in Zambia! We have a long layover in London and should get to Zambia around 7 a.m. on Saturday.
Until next time...
