I am entering day 4 of my 7 day shift this week and it has had many ups and some downs. I came on duty and Wednesday marked the first day of SAP (Summer Activities Program) which basically means someone comes in and plans out activities for our entire summer. :) It makes schedules a little bit easy because we don't have to plan an entire summer for the kids but get to partake in the activities with them...along with of course taking care of the kids, paperwork and taking kids to appointments. Although there is all of that it brings some fun as well to mix. Thursday brought to be an interesting day. It started out wonderful with our girls. We went to SAP and played games with the other cottages one game which included 9 Lives...which for those of you who don't know what that is...it is basically dodge-ball to the extreme where instead of getting hit once and you are out, you can instead get hit 9 times before you are out. It was intense, by the end of the game I was the last girl standing against two boys and then I got out...needless to say after many hits, run ins with other players I was pretty sore! It was super fun though. After SAP we returned to the cottage for hangout time and that is when it all came exploding. One of our girls had a rough visit that past weekend where she broke rules, etc and we explained to her that because of her actions she lost her visit for the next weekend. Well she didn't take it well and she ended up walking back from the office to the cottage and started packing her things stating she was leaving and she was ready to go. Then she ended up playing basketball to let her anger out, throwing things and threatening the program manager and my fellow staff while I was downstairs with the other residents. In the end the Sheriff had to come out and she ended up having to leave Grace. It was sad though because we know she could have done so well here and she had already made some major progress while she was with us. It is harder when they leave unsuccessfully and you know they could achieve great things but they choose instead to be stupid with their choices. I do hope the best for her though, even if it means she has to hit bottom before she can pick herself up and make good choices.

So after that night it was pretty rough and Becca and I were exhausted. Then when all you want to do is sleep it doesn't happen. One of our other girls was returning from visiting her family in Kentucky and her time had changed so instead of her returning at 1am she returned at 5:15am! So I set my alarm for 4:20am to be up when she was supposed to get home at 4:30 but fell asleep and she walked in 5:15am. That was indeed a very long first night on duty. I passed out for another hour before I had to get up for the day Thursday.

Thursday was a great day! We spent the morning mowing which went fine and then we took our girls out camping at our boss's house since he has a lot of land! We packed up for a night all the tents, sleeping bags, food, etc and left at 5:30pm. We set up camp, cooked hot dogs, banana boats and these tasty things called Dough boys over the fire! It was so much fun to get out into the nature and spend some time outside with the girls. We must have worn them out because they all were in bed in their tents by 9:30pm! So it gave us as staff the opportunity to just hangout together by the fire and talk. It was great being able to get to know one another more and just hangout and have fun. Especially because Becca, Hannah and I never are off duty together so to hangout together and have fun when we don't have to worry about the kids that much was great! I love camping too and so to be able to share this experience with the girls was awesome! We told them that if they cooperated together we would get them McDonald's breakfast the next morning for doing so well. So we took them to McDonald's for breakfast before we went back to the cottage to shower and get ready for SAP.

Friday comes and we went out for breakfast after packing up camp, returned to the cottage and showered, then went to SAP. Friday we played volleyball and soccer and man was that intense. I never realized how competitive I was in sports until I came here to work. I do just love being outside and being active. We had a great day of sports then had a relaxing evening for pizza and a movie like we do every Friday night.

Today is Saturday which marks day 4 of 7 for me. It is pretty low key which is nice. We have spent the day deep cleaning, playing board games and right now we are making Bagels. It is quickly becoming more and more like home to me here and I love every minute of it, even if it is challenging. I look forward to sharing more summer fun memories with you all! I am sure there will be more to come by the end of this shift!

Love,
Ashley

Bader Staff Summer 2013

Becca, Hannah Annie (Our Summer Intern) and Myself

This week will begin the end of school and the beginning of summer. I am on break yesterday and today and will go on duty tonight to cover a day for my friend Hannah who is in Ohio with her family. So yesterday was awesome my friend Caitlain and I went to Lincoln to go thrifting, have pedicures done and go to Starbucks so she could work on homework and I could just hangout. It was a glorious day! I had my first pedicure ever and let me tell you it was amazing! My feet felt wonderful and we decided we were gonna try and get one done once at least every month. It was a great way to relax and unwind, plus the chair was a massage chair so a massage plus a pedicure was amazing! I found some great deals while thrifting and it was great to get out of the town and just spend a day away, especially considering summer is now here. So I am going on duty tonight and tomorrow will begin summer. It is crazy to believe that 1.) Summer is here already and it is only the end of May and 2.) that tomorrow marks my 5 months of being here! It seems like time is flying so fast here and yet some days it seems like it is going so slow! Not to mention in two weeks from Thursday my mom and step dad will be coming down for a visit for my birthday weekend! Holy crap! I will be 24 on the 5th of June and it is hard to come to terms that another birthday is here again, or the fact that my family is coming down to visit! I haven't seen my mom and step dad in 5 months! I am super excited but at the same time I am super nervous. It will be nice to have some family down here though to show them what I do and where I am living! I love my new life down here in Henderson and I cannot wait to share that. I am also excited and nervous as to what the summer will bring. I know a few things it will bring with new experiences...learning how to water ski every Monday in June and to ride a 64 mile bike ride! Two things I am super excited for! Scared to death to learn to water ski but also excited...we shall see what is in store for me next! I will keep ya posted on my first week of summer and how we survive! Love you all and thank you for following me along with this journey! I love you all!

Love,

Ashley 

My last few days on duty were some emotional ones for sure. Thursday and Friday were pretty normal, aside from that fact that I had to help set up the house for one of our girl's graduation party's for Saturday. It was super busy plus I took one of the other girls Thursday morning to her Medication Review. A med review is always interesting, especially their first visit. It gives you the opportunity to see how the kid's meds are working...or not working and they evaluate how they are doing. It was an interesting appointment for sure that ended up lasting over an hour and half!! I obviously can't go into details on what is discussed and what for, but it really opens your eyes to the challenges the kids face in their lives and how the choices they make in their lives really effect their future and how they can process things such as life skills. It gave me the opportunity to really understand this girl and how much work she is going to be. She is sweet most days but she is also a very difficult child. I think with time and patience she can go a long way but it is the leading to it that will take a bit, especially until we can give her the new medication. But until then I will just need to have some patience I think, and a lot of support from my friends.

Saturday was my first day off but it didn't really feel like it. I attended my girl's graduation party from 2-5pm, and since it was super busy I figured I would lend an extra hand to help out Hannah and Becca since they also  needed to take care of the other girls as well and so they can use all the help they can get. Which I didn't mind at all, it gave me an opportunity to hangout with the girls and show support to the one girl of ours and her big achievement! After the party I went and relaxed then went to hangout with Caitlain to help her decorate another kid's graduation cake...and when I say help I mean I kept her company and simply baked cupcakes while she did all the decorating. It was a great time to just relieve some stress that we both had been having this past week so that was nice. It is great to have fun and have a friend you can just be yourself with and vent and rage, which we both needed so to have that support it is great!

Today has been pretty low key. We went to church, then attended the graduation ceremony. It was great but also emotional seeing my girl graduate, sad but happy all at the same time. Especially knowing that she is being discharged on Tuesday. It is hard I think because she is my first girl to leave successfully since I have been here. I am so proud of her for achieving so many great things and I can't wait to see what she will be doing in the future! After graduation I went to another graduation party for another one of our students from the Boy's Cottage. Spent some time over there and now Caitlain and I are just sitting down in Starbucks enjoying coffee, dinner and working on some paperwork/school work. It is wonderful to just sit in here and relax for what feels like the first time my entire break. Keep in mind I still have tomorrow off until I go on duty tomorrow night but even just having this one breathing moment for the past 2 days of my break is fabulous! I am also looking forward to tonight when we go back to the house and eat ice cream, vent, relax and watch some chick flicks. It will be a great end to the night. I just hope that we both will be able to recover not only physically from a long week of work but also emotionally. I just know for me personally it has been a rough week especially emotionally and so trying to gather all of that together and prepare to go back on duty is a lot of work. It is hard to deal with your own personal things when at the same time you are trying to deal with those emotions of 5 teenage girls! I suppose that is the most challenging part of my job is trying to stay in check for the girls but at the same time deal with my own personal issues and emotions on my own time without it effecting how I work with the girls. It will definitely take some time still in order to grow accustom to how I am feeling and how it effects everyone around me. Even though they don't know I am feeling what I am feeling most days, it is nice to know that I do have those friends that I can vent and express my emotions to as well. I continue to appreciate each and everyone of your friendships and support as I continue what God has planned for me to do. I love you all! A special shout out to all the moms out there and a Happy Mother's Day to you all! And a very special Happy Birthday to my brother who just turned 27 today! And a Happy Birthday to my other brother who turned 32 the 2nd! You all are loved!

Love,
Ashley

I am now on day four of my shift this week and it has honestly been a pretty rough week. Most of which started last night. One of our girls is struggling with making up her make up work within the next two weeks before school is out. We have been of course having her work on a lot of it each day and night during free time, which of course she hates and never fails to complain about it. I want to encourage her, but at the same time it is frustrating because she just processes things differently and slower and it is hard to keep her motivated when she wants to complain. The best I can do is do what I am doing along with my other staff members in encouraging her to keep at it. Advice is always recommended! Then to top that off, yesterday another one of our girls had a major attitude and my other staff sat down with her to discuss her attitude which ended up in a huge blow up. Which, we also got after her for changing into Capri shorts at school when we told the kids they couldn't wear them because it wasn't warm enough, and so she changed at school...which of course we noticed after she returned home and told her she had a consequence for that. This in turn caused another blow up between her and my fellow staff. Which, I tried to do the best I could in supporting my friend with our decisions, especially after she had to talk to the mom of the child, which was fine until the child got the phone and turned the tables. I just wish I could support her more, perhaps that is something I need to work on more. But at the same time I hope she knows that I do support her and want to make it easier on her in anyway possible, especially since this had been a rough week for her and was a half rough week for me since it was only day 3 yesterday. So I ended up staying back from an event last night for the one girl to work on her homework, and the other one throwing a fit because she was in no way earning to go out. I am totally okay with staying with those two, I mean if Becca can take the brunt of the blow with parent conversations and yelling, then I can take the after math at least. In the end it just ended up being a long night, with both of us extremely exhausted. I went to bed drained and hoping that tomorrow would bring a great day...

Wrong again, it hasn't been completely horrible with the kids really. I mean yes the same two are upset about having to work on consequences and homework, but that I can handle. But I had my foster parent training class again today, and this was an extremely hard day. We ended up having to share some personal stories that are heavy on our hearts and I shared some stuff that has been going on with my mom and those situations. Well I won't tell you what that is because it is super personal but it has definitely been heavy on my heart. Sharing it is class was extremely difficult and it wasn't even all that I had to share but what I did share has just sat with me throughout the rest of the day. It is hard to processes it as well when you hate crying and sharing emotions with others. It obviously is something I need to work on but it is still hard. It just is really hard to try to process your own emotions while trying to handle the kids and their emotions, complaints, etc. I thankfully have some great friends down here to process with, but at the same time I just hate having to burden my problems on them....I don't know maybe another thing I need to work on? I hope tomorrow and the rest of my week plays out okay but as of right now I am not super positive, just down in the dumps.

Love,
Ashley

This week of work has been an interesting and fun filled shift. It was wonderful outside, mid seventies and so we have been spending most of our time outside with the girls. I got a bit burnt but the nice thing is it has turned into a wonderful tan after a few days. :) Which makes me laugh because the same time I was getting a tan my family was getting 14 more inches of snow back home. I guess I moved just in time to miss the crazy weather. And so one of my days it was like 86 degrees out (I know mid April crazy!) so two of our girls decided they wanted to challenge us to a basketball game. Now let me set this up...on of our girls had a family visit and so her and her family were sitting outside on the deck just hanging out. The two girls who are 17 and 18 years old, one is 5' 2" and one is 5'10" and so they are all talk and saying things like "Ok old ladies come on we may even go easy on you!" etc., so Becca and I decide ok we will do it. So Becca goes up against the 5'10" because she is pretty tall herself. Well we start playing and getting our competitive juices going, and let me tell you Becca and I both get VERY competitive when it comes to things...especially sports! So we are going and kicking the girls butt. Well they decided to pull another of our girls in who is 15 so it is now 3 against 2 and we are beating them...so I may have accidentally elbowed the 5'10" girl in the face...which is a miracle in itself because 1. we somehow ended up against each other and 2. because I am only 5'5" so I don't even know how I ended up reaching her face! Well she got me back on accident so I got poked in the eye by her hand as well....fare enough trade....we TOTALLY kicked all 3 of the girls butts!!! IT was fabulous and the whole time the other girl and her family were just sitting and watching the game and laughing. They were all like "man we had never seen you guys this crazy or competitive!" and at the end of the game the 5'2" girl goes "Man remind me never to play basketball against old people again!" HAHAHA! That is what you get! We are good players...not to mention we are NOT that old!

Well the rest of the week was a pretty decent week. We spent it getting one of our girls ready for prom. That is crazy to think of yourself as a parent especially when it comes to prom! The emotions come from all over as you help them get dressed and all fancy. Then the snapping of pictures and walk through! IT was amazing. You never expect to get emotional until it happens. I saw her getting ready and it overwhelms you...the feeling of "this is what it is like to be a mom!" Never would I have thought I would have that feeling at the age of 23...almost 24, especially about teen kids! But being a parent is definitely something I am and it takes over you no matter what kind of parent you are. And it is a great feeling! I am looking forward to more of these moments. I got to experience the mom feeling with Becca and Caitlain as we stood at walk through before prom began with our cameras...snapping away it was like "oh boy we are those parents who yell stop so I can take a picture!" But I honestly wouldn't change one thing about it! I grow each day as I work with amazing friends and although days are rough with the kids...it's the moments like this that make it all worth while! These little pleasures and happy tears are what make this difficult job worth it...it is what keeps me pushing through and waiting for that next moment! And I am glad to say I have some pretty awesome friends to go along this ride with!

Love,
Ashley