A year by the lists

Because everybody loves a good list. Or at least, I do. So, just for fun, here are some noteworthy lists from Colorado Springs Service Adventure 2015-2016.

First of all, movies: I saw more movies in the theatre this year than any year before. All but the last one were at Gold Hill Theatres in Woodland Park, CO (a little town in the mountains about 30 miles west of our home), thanks to a friend from church who owns the theatre and very generously invited us to come to a movie each month for free.

September - The Intern
October - The Martian
November - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2
December - The Good Dinosaur
January - Star Wars: The Force Awakens
February - Kung Fu Panda 3
March - Allegiant
April - The Jungle Book
May - Captain America: Civil War
June - Me Before You

My personal favorites were probably The Martian and Mockingjay, but I enjoyed almost all of them quite a lot.

We also did a fair amount of traveling, sometimes near, sometimes far. Here are the places we visited as a group:

Albuquerque, NM
Rocky Ford, CO
Central Kansas (Inman, Hutchinson, Newton, etc.)
Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp
Denver, CO
Jackson, WY
Yellowstone National Park
Grand Teton National Park

and separately, over Christmas and for other events that only one or two of us attended:

Lansing, MI
Gainesville, FL
Harrisonburg, VA
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA

As a standard part of Service Adventure life, we had weekly "learning components." During these sessions, the six of us took turns teaching the rest of the group about something. Anything, really. Sometimes the leader was already very adept at the topic they were teaching; other times the topic was something the leader was interested in learning themselves and they did a bit of research ahead of time to be able to give everyone an introduction. And sometimes, we invited a guest from church or elsewhere to teach us about something they knew or had experienced. In the end, we had a wonderful diversity of topics, from sports to traveling to life skills and much more.

Budgeting (Daniel)
How to be a good listener (Meg)
History of Colorado Springs (Daniel)
GUEST: Joe Schrag -- How to hike Pikes Peak
Painting glass mugs & plates (Anali)
Racism (Meg)
American football (Sarah)
Decorating journal covers with collages (Franzi)
Germany introduction and language lesson (Anna)
Yoga (Anali)
Islam (Sarah)
Documentary -- Hungry For Change
Giraffes (Anali)
GUEST: Aly & Sam Kauffman -- Hamster genetics
Bread baking (Meg)
Trip to MCC relief sale -- Apple cider making
Making Christmas crafts and decorations (Franzi)
GUEST: Ed & Irene Schrock -- traveling with YWAM
History of Dresden, Germany (Anna)
Human anatomy and physiology (Franzi)
Outer space (Sarah)
The Olympics (Anna)
Trip planning for our end-of-year trip to Yellowstone (Daniel)
Basketball (Sarah)
Making plantains (Anali)
Soccer/football (Anna)
GUEST: Joe Schrag -- Enneagram
Sign language (Franzi)
Classical music (Meg)
GUEST: Mike Martin -- RAW Tools
How to use Microsoft Excel (Daniel)
Contra dancing (Anali)
GUEST: Bob Harnish -- Birdwatching

German language lesson #2 (Anna)
Cardmaking (Sarah)

Compiling unit recipe books with our favorite recipes from the year (Franzi)
The 10 D's of successfully and unsuccessfully dealing with departure (Daniel)