**Hobbs America**

Ok, so I know I'm terrible at this... But I can actually put the whole last month in one post :) Well I think so anyways...

I spent the last week of June (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) in Texas spending time with Kenny's family... We spent a lot of time in the pool because it was very hot and alot of time just visiting :) I love going to Texas and getting to spend time with everyone. I have no pictures from this trip because I tore my house apart looking for my camera and could not find it anywhere, so I didn't have it (or so I thought) I get back and continue looking for it, and well it was in my purse... I guess my purse must be a little too big...

We then had a BBQ with all of my family at my aunts house... We all ate and sat outside and watched fireworks, we didn't even have to get any. Fireworks that go about 12ft in the air are illegal in Albuquerque, but the WHOLE neighborhood was lighting huge fireworks, and the cops never showed up :) Some people also bought like a roll of blackcats, you think those little strips are long, or even those bricks... This "roll" seriously rolled down the whole street... It went continuously for 25 minutes... WAY too many blackcats for me (I don't really like them)...

Finally... to what I have been up to this whole month... I am (as the title states) currently in Hobbs America :) I got here July 6th and I am here until July 29th... I was EXTREMELY nervous about coming... Everyone said I would hate it, but I really don't it is a great town and has so much to offer! However, I am getting to the point where I miss my family and Kenny a whole whole lot... And I am ready to go home...

Anyways, why Hobbs?? Well my program sends us out in groups to shadow a ton of doctors and do a community project... Our community project is teen pregnancy (Hobbs is the highest in the NATION) It's unreal how normal having a baby is in 7th, 8th, and high school... Our group was originally supposed to have 6 people in it... And only 2 of us are actually here... So needless to say we are SLAMMED... We are required to do the same 10 page paper and 10 minute presentation as the groups of 5. I feel like we are up from sun-up to sun-down with no breaks in between... So I guess instead of writing a whole bunch I'll put some pictures in and say what I'm doing :)

Ok so I think this is a pretty terrible picture of me... But give me a break... This was after a LONNNG shift.. I worked 8AM to 5PM at Urgent Care with Dr. Hurt... then 6PM to 7AM at the ER with Dr. Velasquez and 8AM to 2PM... And then I had meetings with various people until 9PM... Homework after that and talked with Kenny and watched movies... So I didn't get to sleep til about 3 or 4AM and was up again at 645... So I was running on very little sleep :) But I had a great time... I always thought that I may end up in the ER, after this experience... NOPE! That type of environment is not for me, I just feel like everyone is rude and you don't get to have the type of relationship you want, at least I want, with the patients... But it was a good experience none-the-less...

This is Alyssa and I at a lake we found here in Hobbs... It's actually right across the street from our apartments at NMJC... Ok maybe it's pond but it's still really pretty :) And yes she is WAY taller then me haha.

This is a picture of one of the days of a 3 day camp we did at the boys and girls club... This day was talking about future goals and college and stuff like this... So I had the girls make a "Dreamboard" and this means they put things they want to do with their lives... And it blew my mind that EVERY one of these girls wanted kids, several, by the time they were 20 and they thought we were ridiculous wanting to wait to like 25 to have kids... They said we will be so old... And they ALL knew someone 16 and pregnant or someone 16 that already had a baby... this is "normal" to them... However, the end of today I had a girl come up to me and say "After you've been here, I really want to go to college" before she had not felt good enough to even think about college... So if we helped ONE person, I feel like it was a success... Day 2: Is a talk about self-esteem friends and bullying and Day 3: Is a talk about sex education.... So we will see how all that turns out... This is our main project, but we also plan to meet at the correctional facility with pregnant teens and we have done a presentation at the town meeting... So like I said we keep ourselves very busy... (and on top of all this we have tons of homework and writing assignments every week)

This is Kenny and I at Carlsbad Caverns (he came up one of the first weekends I was here to see me) I had such a great weekend with him and was SO glad I got to see him... When we were going into the caverns it was POURING rain and we were soaking wet, so it was a little cold walking through the caverns soaking wet... But so fun :)

These are HUGE spiders that are crawling all over the roads here... We thought it was so crazy you could see them from inside the car, they are HUGE! So we pulled over to get a picture of how big they were... Kenny thought it was fun to swerve all over the road to hit them... This is another picture of Kenny's visit... This is us at that lake :) We went and played catch for awhile and skipped rocks... This was a couple hours before he had to go back home :( Us in the caverns :) Awww... How cute right??? I'm crazy about this boy he is so amazing :) Another picture of us in the caverns... I made him stop like fifty thousand times to take a picture with me :) Cuz it was hard to get pictures of the actual caverns :) I have some, but they are not very good so I'm not gonna put them up here...

All in all my month in Hobbs has been SO great, I'm just ready to go home and be back with everyone... I got to Skype with all my roomies one night and I LOVED that it seriously put a huge smile on my face... I love all of them so much and I'm so lucky to have them in my life... Only a few more days left here and then I will be home and getting ready for school to start up again :)

I need to become a more regular blogger so the blogs I do post aren't so extremely long... Sorry...