and later on the six o clock news...

so this week went extremely fast, after last week's craziness, it should seem fast. we had one school a day except for thursday where we had two schools. the two school day was not much of a time issue seeing that they were only about five minutes apart; but they were both our hardest stage setups yet.

the first stage was too small to set up on so we set up on the floor in front of the stage. our second school wanted us to use the stage which barely fit one screen across it, so we had the two side screens coming off the stage onto the floor. this was a very complicated setup and if it hadn't of been for the students (camea, carolin, ben, and isaac) we wouldn't of been able to setup on time. they were all in eighth grade, and really fun, shy-at-first students. they were eager to help and very good at following instructions.

the second school was also exciting because there was a fight between two students. and when i say fight i mean both stranding up on their chairs thrashing at each other with closed fists. they were both jumped on by teachers and escorted out of the assembly. i guess my intro was pretty bad....just kidding! neither of the students were hurt, and the situation was dissolved very quickly. this incident happened right before the start of the assembly, so minda and i gave a pretty awesome intro and conclusion touching on how it takes courage to say "no" to yourself; like starting rumors, getting in fights, ect. and how participating in those activities actually makes you a weaker person.

BUT, the most exciting part of our week was that we were on the news!! so we were at norristown high school, which had the biggest stage ever! it was amazing, like heaven! it also had a giant orchestra pit which was great because our projectors were able to sit inside of it, out of harms way. the school had around 2000 students and they apparently have their own in-school news channel, which also airs on local channels. we were interviewed by two students after our second show. they asked us questions about the presentation and what our job is like. it was a fun interview that we both really actually enjoyed!

hollywood, not all it's cracked up to be...

ok so on sunday, our day off, we decided to go to hollywood and see a movie.


but, before we left we (minda, steve, ashley, and brianna) went to the apple store close by where we are staying. the reason we stopped by was because brianna (another tech) bought an iphone, it was broken, so we went to get it fixed. short story apple is awesome and with no questions asked gave her a new phone to replace the broken one. cool deal.

anyways, so we got back to base camp and then left for hollywood. only bri, minda, and i ended up going in our van, but it was such an amazing time talking with bri and learning about her life and sharing ours with her. she is truly a gifted girl with an amazing heart for God; and she has a Minnesotan accent which is just awesome.

after encountering about a half hour of famous californian traffic, we arrived in downtown hollywood. parking garages were plenty, but very expensive. after a few parking tips from our local friends that are also techs, we got ourselves parked!

hollywood was pretty busy, and honestly it is about one block long and packed with people. we stopped by the most famous spot in hollywood, grauman's chinese theater. we hung out in front of the theater and took some pictures of the cement blocks there signed by famous celebrities!

minda got her picture taken with harrison ford

and i got my picture with morgan freeman

we also took a picture of the hollywood sign, as a side note you may click on any picture to open a higher resolution picture!  

 

moral of the story, we didn't get the chance to watch a movie :(.........o well!

btw, be on the look for a blog post very soon regarding our first show! it went very good btw!

training, training, training

so this week has been a very, very busy week for us to say the very, very least. we begin around 6:30 in the morning and end around 5:00 in the afternoon. our days are spent rotating between four different sessions, each focused on a different part of the camfel job. the four parts are: setting up the different frames to accommodate different stages and ceilings, A/V set up and trouble shooting, and two rotating sessions that focus on different things associated with eqiupment maintince. needless to say, every night we have both collapsed into bed, only to be harassed by our alarms early the next morning.

two days ago (friday), minda had a really, really bad migraine that  kept her in bed all day trying to sleep it off. so i spent the day alone without her as a partner to keep me company :(. but it was ok because she woke up the next day feeling right as rain and ready to go!

yesterday (saturday) was a "half day", but it felt a little longer than that. much to our relief it was more of a laid back non physical day. we are getting excited and also a little nervous because andrew, the team manager, let us know yesterday that we will be doing our first show tomorrow (monday). we won't start our official tour until later this week, but tomorrow is our first show. in fact, it will be the first official showing of this year's new show. the even cooler thing is, is that the entire camfel team will be coming to see the show at the high school!

Team Camfel!

we will hopefully update tomorrow and let everyone know how our show went! pray that:

• God will work through us to further His kingdom.
• He would direct us in our setup
• that everything would run smoothly 
• God would speak through us to students we come into contact with

away we go!!

way we go I wrote this while on our first plane on our way to dallas/fort worth airport. We were a little stressed this morning, because I set my alarm for 2:30 am and it never went off. Luckily mama j woke us up a little before 3:00 when we had to leave, no shower for a while :(, o well.
Our flight has been smooth so far and the flight attendants seem like they are having a good morning. It was hard to say goodbye to the Whitlock clan, it was pretty tough for minda jayne, but it was a great way to be sent off, with loving hugs and encouraging words. Minda is a little worried, because she had to check her guitar. Apparently you are unable to bring a guitar with a hard case on the plane with you, would have been nice if that was posted on the website. O well, we are rolling with the punches and going with the flow right now, preparing ourselves for a California mindset. We are both excited and seriously extremely nervous. Usually I am unhindered by stress until the last minute, and the last minute is upon us.

Minda took some pictures from the plane after we reached our cruising altitude. I love flying, it is super-surreal, it is just one of those things that seems normal, but if you think about it, you start feeling uncomfortable and fidgety. Ok random, but I find it extremely displeasing when I am trying to type out a blog post and the woman in front of me decides it is time to lay her chair back so I have to bend my arms in weird directions to type, grrrrr.

Anyways silas (minda’s youngest brother) hooked us up with some pretty sweet silly bandz that are in the shape of airplanes!! So COOL! We will rock these bandz til they fall off!

My arms are getting extremely uncomfortable so, at least until our next flight I am signing off!

send us Love!

while we may not have a permanent address for the next 10 months there are still ways to get things to us! while we are traveling we will receive mail once a week on friday. the mail will be sent to the school that we will be working at. if you would like to send us a letter, package, or some love you can address it:

attn: Andrew

Nicholas and Arminda Walborn
15709 Arrow Highway, Suite: 2
Irwindale, CA 91706

t-minus 4 Weeks and Counting

today marks four weeks until we leave for California. furthermore we only have three weeks of Church left at Christ Community Church which we are both really saddened about. we are both getting more and more excited, but we are also getting more and more disappointed about leaving our family and friends. BUT, we are not planning on becoming disconnected while we are gone. we are going to try our hardest to stay connected in a plethora of ways, really attempting to give you a variety of avenues to keep up with us in the way(s) you find easiest or most interesting. these are the ways we are staying connected:

• our blog, duh right? if you would like to spread the word please post this link on your facebook!: http://nikandminda.blogspot.com/ we really would like as many people to know about and see this blog as possible. so please spread the word! also we LOVE comments, so please comment away either at the end of each post or on our facebook profiles!
• Facebook updates of course! we would also appreciate your comments and encouragements on these, we LOVE your personal encouragements and love.
• Twitter updates. if you are unfamiliar with twitter you can check it out at http://www.twitter.com/. it is basically a site completely dedicated to facebook style status updates. if you want to follow us or get our updates texted to your cell phone via text messaging our twitter name is nikandminda
• UStream video blog. we will be broadcasting a video blog that you can watch live while we are recording or later at your convenience when you are free. during the live blog as many viewers as want are able to watch and chat with each other and us without signing up for any service. the link to follow to find the blog is: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nikandminda we will have listed blog times on the website and later on facebook and twitter.                                                                                            

we also just added a "like" button for facebook as you can see below, so please "like" each post you read and get the word out! there is also a small box with the facebook icon below that will share the link to facebook, so please share away!