adventure – isabel notes

My Vienna, Austria Travel Diary

Here it is! The third installment of my Europe Travel Diary 2015! (I know, it took me that long to upload this haha!)

This footage was taken when my family and I visited my aunt and uncle in Vienna, Austria in November. My mom helped me film this, so you’ll see me a lot more in the footage. Hope you enjoy!

Filmed with the iPhone 5c and iPhone 6.

The links to the other two Europe travel diaries are at the end of the video.

My Accidental Reverse Bucket List

Now there’s bucket lists, and then there are reverse bucket lists. Things in your life you’ve already done. But I’m going to take it a step further and present you all with my reverse accidental bucket list. These are things I didn’t think would ever happen until they actually did happen. I think it’s fun to sit down and realize all the random cool things that have happened to you. If you want, think of some from your own life and comment a list!

Watched the Phantom of the Opera in the theater it was first performed
Gotten my writing published in a book (Regarding Franz)
Gotten photobombed by a SWAT team in Paris
Climbed up a mountain in heels
Seen Big Time Rush in Walmart
Been messaged by Perrie Edwards
Been whistled at by R2D2
Seen Billie Piper
Been asked to speak in front of 1,000 people within two hour’s notice
Been to a fashion show
Swam with an olympian swimmer
Gotten on the newspaper (don’t remember why)
Became godmother to a grouse in Alaska (Google it)
Been in a live audience in a TV show featuring Nick Vujick
Gotten paid to taste test for Cheetos

Adventures in Alaska- Part 2

The day we got to the camp, the Hope Youth Corps leader told us that we had 5 days until we had to actually run a church camp. There were 30 kids from 2nd to 10th grade coming to stay with us for 3 days, and we were totally in charge. (Obviously, there was adult supervision, don’t worry, but we called the shots.) 22 teenagers were supposed to be the counselors, lead lessons and activities, feed the kids, and we had to plan all of this on our own while doing the 8-hour-a-day blue-collar labor. This was our big second task. Kids.

We thought it was impossible. At least, I did. I was shocked that they were giving all these responsibilities to us. We had just gotten to know each other, now we were expected to run a camp? We were just teenagers!

But we had no choice. We had to pull off this camp for the kids. We each thought of our experiences with church camp and wanted to give someone else that great experience. I was so surprised at what we were capable of. I think the world has such low expectations of teenagers sometimes, and things like this reminded me of how much of an impact we can make with God and each other.

We had a blast those three days. It was great. It felt like one big play date. We got to know each kid and spend time with them, play with them, teach them, talk to them. It felt like a big family at the end of it.

Yes, there were smores. What else would we do in the woods in Alaska?

On one of the weekends when we drove down to Anchorage, we got to climb Flat Top. Being from mountain-less Texas, I had never climbed a mountain before. (The picture above was taken probably when we were a third of the way up. ) I’m not going to lie, it was super hard. But I’m glad I did it. I’ll spare you a cheesy mountain analogy.

What’s a mountain adventure without a motivational speech? This is my friend, Nathan, giving the best mountain speech I’ve ever heard. Yes, he was very intense.