Tucson, AZ!!!

So much has happened since the last time I updated and yet it has only been a couple days!! Our first show was absolutely AMAZING and we really rocked the house!! We had so many amazing moments on Saturday from our first green room, where we all laughed and cried, to our actual first performance for a live audience!!! It was a great day and it was crazy for me to think that we all just met each other a month ago but yet it was crazy to realize that a month was already over and that there are only a little over 4 months left!!!
Sunday was filled with rest and relaxation with my host family on our last day together!! My roommate Suzanne left early Sunday morning with her cast and it was hard on my host mom to see her leave! She and I both were rather mopey that day and so my host dad decided to get us out of the house by taking us to the Harry Potter movie #5! It was a great movie and it was nice to just spend the day relaxing and enjoying their company!
Monday we left early in the morning for Gallup, NM! We got there and immediately met our host family! There ended up being 6 of us “uppies” staying with one family and it was great! Our host family was so much fun and I think their favorite part of having us there was the fact that they got to feed us all of their food!!! They use to own a small bakery in Gallup which their son now owns and so we went there for breakfast on Tuesday morning and ate Mexican pastries and Mexican breakfast burritos!! Everything was soooo good!!! Tuesday we worked on preparing for our show and then preformed Tuesday night!! It was great and even though Gallup is a fairly small town, we had a good sized crowd at our performance!! So it was a lot of fun to see!! Then Wednesday morning we had a guest speaker come and talk to us about the Navajo Code-talkers that helped the US win WWII. She was very interesting and I had no idea that our country came up with such a thing but I thought it was very cool!! We then boarded the bus and headed to Tucson, AZ!!! We arrived in Tucson at 5pm and immediately met up with our host families and went home to spend the evening with them! I am staying with Emi from Sweden who is part of the cast and my host mom is actually her mom’s best friend which is really cool!! I never thought I would come to Tucson and learn so much about the Swedish culture!! It is so great because they are teaching me some Swedish so when I go to Sweden on advanced work I can say a few things in Swedish to them!! This makes me really very excited!
And finally, today was great!! We started by having some Advanced Team Training and then we went to the resort that the UWP reunion is at all weekend and got the opportunity to mingle with alumni!! Also while I was there I got to see a friend from home that traveled last semester and her mom because they came all the way to Tucson to help with the reunion!! It was so great because I didn’t realize how excited I was to see people from home until I saw them!! It was so wonderful because even though I love what I am doing and am so excited for where I will be going, it was great to have a piece of home come to me and comfort me a bit!! So today was great and when we got back to our home we ate dinner and then got to go swimming in our host family’s pool! It was so relaxing and needed because today and the upcoming days have been and are going to be CRAZY!!!