Tuesday 24 July 2012

My life 10 years ago .

My life 10 years ago, wow how my life has changed.

This exact day it was coming to an end of my adventure in America. I gained my Queen Scout award in the April and when sitting in St Georges chapel inside Windsor castle, there were loads of leaflets on all the seats and one of them was for Scout camp America. Well I looked at it and thought nothing of it until I got home and I looked at it again and I thought what if !

The application process was hard work with lots of forms and lots of phone calls - one of my pet hates, phone calls! I was amazed and stunned when I got accepted - and it cost a fortune! but it was always something I had wanted to do go travel into America. I used all my savings to pay for my flight and visas    and all the other little costs. At the time i had 2 part time jobs. I worked as a shopping assistant and a cleaner  - not very glamorous.

So off I went on my first adventure to America just 18 months after my 3rd Heart operation my poor mum was really worried but she couldn't stop me going! I was so pleased my Heart doctor let me go- we had some fun with the insurance company.

I ended up at Philmont Scout ranch and boy it was Amazing with a capital A - my placement was working at PTC which stood for Philmont Training Centre which is where all the American scout leaders got trained and we the staff looked after the children(5-18) and family of those getting trained. We took the children on hikes and adventures around Philmont crafts and they even had a small petting zoo. Philmont  is this huge chunk of land that was donated to the BSA from Waite Phillips an american oil tycoon. It is a sunning place to the north east of new mexico- near to a small town called Cimarron. The photos I have are on photo paper as digital cameras had only just come out and was really expensive, so they are in a box in my mum and dads loft along with other memorabilia from my amazing time there even wrote a diary - wow I bet that's a good read now !   

My time at Philmont was happy and sad , I got really homesick as I had never been away from home before but I did make some good friends and the friends I made there I'm still friends on Facebook. One day I hope I can take H and G to see the stunning rocky mountains and sing them camp fire songs.

This time 10 years ago I had no hope of ever finding or been in love and I was told I couldn't have children.
 look at me now, I have a beautiful son and we get married in 4 months time :) So for all you single ladies out there - there is hope.

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