Hello lovely blog readers!!

So, here I am. East LA. Typing away from the Starbucks that's within walking distance from my casa (which if you're interested, is called "Casa Ita Ford") Every "casa" that houses JV's in LA is named after a nun that was martyred in El Salvador: Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clark, and Jean Donavan. For more information on their story, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ita_Ford

The past week has flown by. I'm going to try to be brief. I had the honor of meeting my fellow southwest JV's this past Saturday as we all arrived at Camp St. Francis in Aptos, CA. This retreat center is located on top of a cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Fine by me. From Saturday to Thursday morning, we participated in workshops about simple living and being a JV, celebrated liturgy on the beach as the sun was setting, I lead a small group of motivated people in a yoga class three of the mornings at 7 am, we participated in a powerful afternoon of silence to reflect, engaged in a fist-pumping sober dance party, and then rented cars from SJ airport in order to drive to our perspective casas. The six hour drive from Aptos to LA felt like nothing with the friendly and fun company of Katie and Zach, but of course, once we got into the city, LA traffic warmly welcomed us to the City of Angels. Enough complaining :)

By Thursday evening, my casa-mates and I had arrived at our new, cozy and lovely home, Casa Ita Ford in East LA. We immediately checked out every room of our cute little house that is a living monument to 17 years worth of JV's living there. We've got pictures of each group on our fridge, we've inherited an incredible library, an array of board games, plenty of comfy couches, a collection of only the best 80s and 90s VHS tapes a girl could ask for, and TONS of other awesome stuff and quirky decorations. Within an hour, our "support" people were at our door with three boxes of pizza and a case of beer in hand. "Support" people are set up by JVC, and their job is to, well, support us! They give us great ideas about exploring the city, living simply, etc, and are just there to be super supportively supportive. Brady was a JV 5 years ago and lived in, you guessed it, Casa Ita Ford! He met his awesome wife, Christine, during his volunteer year who he "couldn't say no to" (direct quote), so he ended up staying out in sunny LA. Brady and Christine were married at Dolores Mission Parish, the church that I will be working at. They are a beautiful married couple and have an ADORABLE baby boy named Ben, who is 14 months old and uses sign language to get what he wants! We already named him "support baby," t-shirt will be bedazzled for him soon. Honestly, this couple is what I'd call a power couple. From just meeting them, I can already tell I'm going to be inspired by them greatly.

After our support family left, we had to return our rental car to LAX. So, we drove our swanky, little, red car nicknamed by another Casa Ita Ford community the "red barren." We basically smoosh ourselves into this little guy that definitely gets the job done. But, very uncomfortably. Hey, that's the fun of it. It was pretty awesome to get that look at the city lights at night while telling embarrassing stories and getting a little lost on the way back. Then......we passed out.

This morning, I popped up without the use of an alarm (which seems to be a pattern of the past week) at precisely 7 am. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I hung out while waiting for my casamates to wake up. We had a date with our job placements today.

Sorry to cut this short, but it's almost 8 pm, and we're thinking we should start walking back to our casa before it gets too dark out. I'll update ya'll tomorrow on the rest of the story!

Love, Love, and more Love,
Dana

View from Camp St. Francis (retreat site)

CASA ITA FORD!! HOME!