PA Vent Camp

Since being in Millville, PA, I have been back in State College for 2 and a half weeks now, but I still long to be back in that secluded piece of the world that I think so fondly of nearly every day. PA Vent Camp has been a part of my life since my amazing parents founded it in 1994, and I truly cannot imagine my life without it. Every morning at camp when I wake up and ride trusty old Brittany the Bike (whom I rode all week this year with a flattened back tire!) up to the cafeteria, I make a point to look out across the field at the mountain that Camp Victory sits under. It truly is a beautiful scene to look upon, and I thank God for allowing us all to be there together, if only for a few days.
Kids who depend on ventilators to help them breathe are able to come to camp and for 5 days participate in activities that they may only have access to during that week.


They can fly along on the zip line, or scale a rock wall.

They meet new friends (some, much furrier than they expected!)

And reunite with old friends.


Clearly, the BFFs are looking as good as ever!
This week is the time that these kids can throw away everything and just act like kids!


(The adults can, too!)



Each year we remember the lives of the beautiful children who changed our lives while they were with us.



And we pray that next year we will all return to see each other again, and that I get a date to the dance, and it's not my underwear hanging from the flagpole!

Home is wherever I'm with you

I just got off the phone with my Grandmother (my dad's mom). I love talking with her. I think of all of my family members, we are the most alike. I tell stories exactly like her, she is constantly surrounded by people she cares about, and is very sentimental. We talked about what we were both up to the past couple of weeks, and then she told me how blessed I was because I had such amazing friends and a wonderful family. I know how blessed I am and think about it every day.

I'm so happy to have been able to spend the past weekend with so many of my closest friends. Arts Fest in State College is always a great reason for people to gather in Happy Valley, but this year really outdid all of my previous Arts Fest experiences. I finally made it to the Allen St. Buckets, which ironically enough was on my Penn State bucket list. Every year there are buckets set up on a platform that fill with water and dump on the brave people who race underneath. During the day it's popular for bathing suit-clad children, but once the sun goes down it's the students dressed in their going-out clothes that frequent this spot. I was privileged enough to have a blast in the buckets three nights in a row, and can definitely say the buckets now rank in my top 10 favorite Penn State memories! For the first time since just before New Year's Eve my four best friends were reunited! Zig has been in London for the past 6 months so she finally ventured back to Happy Valley with KB and Emily to join Sara and I in the festivities. As our favorite song, Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros came blasting through the speakers we shared one of my most favorite moments of all time. The five of us disregarded everything that was going on around us and danced like we've never danced together in my living room. It felt so amazing to be together again and to be so full of love and happiness. That may sound corny but I've missed my best friends.

This weekend I am venturing to D.C. then to Baltimore to spend time with my sister, aunt, and uncle. I cannot wait for the opportunity to be able to hang out with my family. We're going to Artscape which is the largest free arts festival in all of Amurrrica, so I'm pretty pumped for art, music, food, and my family!

Working for the Weekends

So it's been a while, but I must say that my life has truly only consisted of weekends since I've been back from California. My weekday usually looks like this: Crisp from 9-2, Lab from 3-5:30, Lion Line from 6-9:30. It's a long day, let me tell you. This is what I stare at on the computer screen for hours when I go into lab. It's pretty thrilling. The point of our lab is to try to find out how typical learners develop language and how atypical learners develop language with the hopes that we can then target how we teach atypical learners to match the way that they learn. That part is very interesting to me, but it's the analyzing data part that's really killing me.

So to break up the workweek, the past two weekends I have done well with entertaining myself (or rather, being entertained by my wonderful friends!) Two weeks ago we had a San Diahhhgo reunion with most of the kids who traveled to the West Coast (Leddy was still in CA, and Perri was sick, but everyone else made it!) We had canned wine, danced on the coffee table, got Iced, played card games, and brought out kitchen utensils:
All in all it was a fantastic weekend-exactly what I needed after throwing myself back into a 50 hour workweek from vacation. Weekend number two brought with it another incredible break. Saturday was Ambi's graduation party, so to prepare for our roadtrip to Allentown, Elaine, Kirsten, and I decided to cross one of the goals off of our summer bucket list before heading out: Whipple Dam. We spent a lovely two hours laying on the beach (the first time I had been outside besides walking across campus since I got back to the East Coast!) Our journey to Allentown then began. On our way there we stopped to pick up Coop who is in Reading for an internship for the summer. In a crazy coincidence, I discovered that he is living 2 minutes down the street from my Aunt's! An hour later we pulled up to Ambi's sister's house for the party. Before I even walked through the first set of lawn chairs I was being warned by a stranger that, "Mom's on the loose!" I looked at her confused before I heard a high-pitched yell, "Noellllle!!" I turned to see Ambi's mom, Nancy, staring at me from across the yard with arms in the air! "Nancy!" I responded, with a counter of, "We Are...!" This was the first of many times that evening that Nancy shouted my name, then the "We Are..." chant. Coop walked in behind me, 'terrified to meet the family' and introduced himself to Nancy, "Hi, I'm Will." "Cooper!!! Go Lakers!!" was her response. I informed him that Nancy is an avid facebook stalker, thus her knowledge of his last name and interests. We were all glad that Nancy set the bar so high for the consumption of alcohol for the weekend because we were ready for kegstands, canned wine, and karaoke. I would include the video of Coop singing "Genie in a Bottle" here, but he would murder me if he discovered that video made it to the world wide web.

After waking up the next morning and grudgingly leaving the wonderful hospitality of free food and drinks that came with the beautiful time spent with some of my closest friends (and their family), I was excited to make it home to Harrisburg for a quick stop to hang out with my Dad on Father's Day. After dropping Coop back in Reading I checked the gas gauge and decided we would be safe to make it back to the Hustle without stopping for gas. As we were taking the Linglestown exit the gas light dinged on, so I pulled into the station near my house to fill up. As I attempted to turn the ignition after filling my mini-van made a horrible yelling sound at me! I called my dad to tell him I was down the street with a car that wouldn't start...Happy Father's Day! So after several attempts and some very helpful gentlemen, we finally got the van started and Elaine, Kirsten, and I ventured to the coffee shop to visit with my sister, brother, and dad for a bit. A little while later I went to test the car and of course it would not start. So after jumping it again, my dad took my sister to test it out on the highway before we attempted to take it to State College. To make a long story short, it stalled out on the highway and my mom had to pick them up while the van was towed. She then brought Elaine, Kirsten, and I back to State College. Life is always an unexpected journey! (Update, the van is now fixed-woo hoo!)

This brings me to Sunday evening, just a short couple of hours after our arrival, we were reconvening at my apartment to celebrate Elaine's 21st! The three of us, plus two of the San Diahhhgo boys ventured to the Phyrst to ring in another year of Elaine's life! If pictures from this glorious evening ever see the light of day I will update with some illustrations, because we had quite a blast! Logan stole a tray full of french fries off an empty table for Elaine's birthday present-which may have been the hit of the evening.

All in all, my weekends have been full of laughter and wonderful memories with my friends. I am so blessed to be able to spend time with them! I am now getting ready to venture off to Millville, PA for my favorite week of the year, PA Vent Camp! I am looking forward to this week so much! Especially because one of my best friends in the entire world is joining us for a few days! After "graduating" camp three years ago, Kevin has been off spending his summers working for Obama (when he was still Senator), at internships in hospitals, and just being his fabulous self! But once again, he is joining us at camp, and word on the street is that I will be returning to the stage as a backup dancer for one of his famous performances! Stay tuned for evidence of my fabulous backup dancing moves!

California Dreamin'

A lot has happened in the last two weeks. Namely traveling across the country to spend a few days with my friends. Let me tell you, it was the best trip. It couldn't have come at a better time. We are all on the brink of adulthood, living on our own, working at internships, preparing for grad school and the real world and for 5 days we all got to be carefree kids again.



I can't remember a time where I felt more relaxed, laughed as much as I did, and just felt good from the time I woke up until the time I went to sleep. I hope that I can experience times like this with all of my friends and never lose sight of the joys of feeling like a child.

Stay Classy, San Diego

I'm preparing to travel across the country with some of my best friends to celebrate the 21st birthday of one of my most favorite people in the world. I've always dreamed of moving to California and becoming a surfer when I grew up. Well, I'm not really moving there (yet) and I've still never surfed, but you've got to start somewhere, right? I have in my possession the journal that is shared between my 5 best friends and I, and am super excited to keep track of my trip with it! Hopefully I will have some interesting stories to share upon my arrival home to State College...

In my spare time...

There are tons of things I would like to do in my spare time (the small amount that I actually have!) Cook. I love to cook. Homemade pasta is my favorite...making it from scratch with my mom and cooking it with some crazy sauce she makes up. I miss not being able to cook while I'm at school. Scrapbook. I love scrapbooking/creative journaling. I do find some time to do it, however it's just not in my budget to do a whole lot of it. Supplies don't come cheap. Travel. There are few things I enjoy more than driving around listening to music in cars...once again it's this whole lack of budget thing that I face as an in-debt college student that's killing me.

So what do I actually manage to do in my spare time? (besides this) I get tricked into cleaning the basement of my home away from home, The Hintz. This is where my beloved Blue & White Society calls its home base. And speaking of bases, the basement is pretty tragic. We only have a small section of it dedicated to our storage, but we really take advantage of every square inch. So this morning on my day off I trekked to the Hintz (with a pit stop at Dunkin) at 9:45 to begin our journey. We're not even close to being finished, but organizing is under way. Why is any of this significant? Well, we found a few gems while rummaging through bags and boxes. My favorite being these:
So, in my spare time I toss double XL men's tighty whities into the trash. Just a day in the life.

DCF? You bet.

This exists. We found it sitting quite conspicuously on the counter at my friend, Amberly's apartment. Intrigued by the fact that chocolate fudge existed in the 2 liter liquid variety, (and diet I may add) my friend Melissa and I stared at the foreign bottle while waiting for Ambi to get ready. I was challenged, "You won't try some." I tried some. It tasted very odd...like a chocolate tootsie pop melted and you could drink it. It wasn't bad, but I can't say I enjoyed it. Try it for yourself. You won't.

Senior Week 2010

So this past week I experienced my first college Senior Week. Let me tell you, it's pretty intense. Senior week is the week after finals and before graduation so all the seniors go on bar tours and basically drink all day. Now, I didn't participate in full effect, but I did my fair share of celebrating. Thursday was also one of my best friends' birthday so we had a two day celebration Wednesday and Thursday.
This might explain my lack of blogging. I found a load of change in my room and cashed it in at the bank and that became my budget for the week.

Wednesday night my wonderful friend, Eric, treated a small group to a delicious Italian dinner featuring the following: olive crostini, bruschetta, insalata caprese, penne all'arrabbiata, pizzelle con gelato, vino rosso, asti spumante, disaronno e limoncello. It was absolutely fabulous!


After dinner I went on to commence the birthday celebrations at the Phyrst where our favorite band, Go Go Gadjet was playing for the last time until the fall. We got there at 8:15 and the line was already halfway down the block! While waiting a lovely girl came stumbling along the line and offered us $5 to let her get in line with us. Obviously we agreed which was one of the best decisions of the night. Kelly introduced herself to us and pulled a pair of jeans out of her purse while looking for something. I knew then that she was a keeper. She entertained us for several minutes while waiting in line before she made a phone call and started wandering away. 10 minutes later she was walking down the line again presumably looking for us, but couldn't recognize her new friends so she walked away. I would call that a good investment.

After an hour and fifteen minutes of waiting in line we finally made it inside! I can definitely say that in the last three years as a student at Penn State, Wednesday night was one of the most fun nights I have ever had! The band was great, we had a connection behind the bar hooking us up with free drinks, it wasn't too crowded because the bouncers were cracking down on all the bar tours, and I was dancing like crazy with some of my best friends in the world!

I left our mark in the bathroom along with the hundreds of other Phyrst-goers that night.

Friday morning I got a text from one of my good friends saying, "My mom wants you to come to dinner and a concert tonight." I'm not one to pass on an evening out with some great people so I met him, his mom and her husband, and another friend at my favorite restaurant, Cozy Thai. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner and killed some time before the concert by stopping at some of State College's finest establishments (bars, obviously.) We then went to the State Theatre where we were entertained by John Hiatt and the Combo. They were really great! I got to hear one of my favorite songs, Cry Love, which was incredible!


Overall, Senior Week taught me how good a hand I was dealt here at Penn State. I know some of the most amazing people in the world. I have been blessed to be treated like family by them and have made countless memories. Thou didst mold us, Dear Old State, and I thank you for that!

We Are...

“Wherever you go, Penn State will go with you. You are now a part of her. Her image will be cast in your image. Your reputation will become her reputation.

And her future—her ability to prepare future generations of young men and women for leadership in our complex society—will be determined in part be the image you create.”

President Eric Walker, Penn State’s 12th President, to the Class of 1958...Congratulations, Class of 2010!

And I love you for giving me my eyes...

Today I called one of my Grammys to wish her Happy Mother's Day since I didn't get to talk to her yesterday. I apologized for being a little late with my wishes and she said, "Nonsense! I will take it 365 days of the year!" And I thought that she was onto something...Moms (at least the ones that I know) should really be celebrated/recognized/thanked every day. I have been truly blessed to have amazing women in my life.

Some of these amazing women were gathered together for a celebration yesterday. My sister came home from D.C. and she joined my brother and I with our parents, my mom's sister and her family and my mom's brother and his family at my aunt's brother's house (I hope that made sense!) Also with us were my Grammy, my aunt's mother, Grammy Silvers, and Grammy Silvers' mother, Nonni. If you can follow all that, there were four generations under one roof.

Nonni is now 98 years old and looks amazing! She has a thick Italian accent and a hearty laugh. About 12 years ago my mom took me to go visit Nonni at her apartment to learn her family's recipe for biscotti. This was one of the most memorable moments I share with my mom. It was so special learning from a woman who had had this recipe in her family for generations in Italy. I can't tell you how many times my mother and I have used Nonni's recipe to make biscotti since then. (I was going to include the recipe, but I didn't have my computer at home and now I'm at school so I'll post it in the future.)

It was so great being able to spend the afternoon with 7 amazing mothers (and everyone else there too) celebrating the women that we owe our lives to. I would like to take the time to recognize my mother for all of the love, support, dedication, and inspiration she has provided throughout my life. 17 years ago she had a vision to provide a place for children who are ventilator dependent to experience summer camp like any other kid. PA Vent Camp was created. With the help of my father and a core staff of volunteers from the medical field, her vision became a realty. Although she has since then handed over the reigns of camp to Hershey Medical Center and the Children's Miracle Network, it was the endless hours of hard work she spent raising the necessary funds, securing insurance to keep 14 kids equipped with hospital care in cabins, finding volunteers, and easing the minds of parents who were doubtful about leaving the care of the children in the hands of strangers for 5 days that built the foundation for the success of PA Vent Camp. 17 years later there are over 30 kids who come to camp each year for the time of their lives. I am so grateful that my mother had the guts, knowledge, and heart to see this endeavor through because my life has been touched by so many people I have met through camp.

Another vision that my mother had had for many years was owning a coffee shop when she retired. When my dad got laid off from AMP 11 years ago this dream of owning a coffee shop came closer to a reality. She convinced my dad to start doing research into the coffee business and they became serious about starting their own business. She has kept her job working as a respiratory therapist, but for the last decade she has dedicated hours of her life to insuring the success of St. Thomas Roasters Coffee Shop. On May 1 my parents celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the coffee shop and I couldn't have been more proud of their accomplishments over the years.

These are just two of the many notable accomplishments that my mother has to her name. It is the way she never says die, sticks to her guns, and sees everything she does through to the end that has inspired me to be involved throughout my life. She leads by example and I hope to show as much dedication and love to the people in my life that she does to those she has touched in hers.

I love you, Mom!

Happy Birthday

I'll read all your dreams to the stars...Happy Birthday, Kaeli

So much of me is made from what I've learned from you

I've had an emotional day so far. Good, but emotional. My mom got called off of work today which was exciting because I came home for a day and a half so I'd be able to spend time with her since I'll miss Mother's Day. We made a trip to the Farmer's Market to pick up some fresh produce for dinner and to take back to school with me. I love going to places like that where people get to share their livelihood with each other. We got some delicious homemade soft pretzels (see photo above) and sat together at a picnic table outside and chatted for a while. It was great to spend time catching up with her.

This morning I was laying outside soaking up some sun listening to my iPod on shuffle. Thoughts were flying through my head, among them all the notes I wanted to write to the friends I would be saying farewell to. As I started thinking about what I would write, "For Good" from Wicked began to play. As soon as I heard the first few notes the waterworks turned on. The song truly mirrored everything I was thinking and feeling.

Ten years ago today a little girl named Kaeli was born. When she was 6 years old she was diagnosed with cancer. My mother had the privilege to treat her at the hospital and we got to know Kaeli and her family. Kaeli was a Four Diamonds Child, so she was adopted into THON. I got to know her through phone calls, THON events, and camp, and she was such a joy to be around. She loved the color purple and Tinkerbell and was often found snacking on chocolate. On September 15, 2009 Kaeli lost her battle with cancer.

Today we are celebrating her tenth birthday with a request from her mother. She provided us with biodegradable purple balloons and asked us to write a message and release it around 5:15 (her birth time) in Kaeli's honor. So this evening, under a beautiful blue sky, my mother and I will release our messages to celebrate the life of this beautiful little girl.

There's only one planet Earth...

Yesterday I took my last final of Junior year. It was a very odd feeling...exciting to complete another crazy semester, but sorry to see one more year of my college career over. Even more sorry to see so many of my closest friends leave. Don't get me wrong, I'm so proud of all that they have accomplished and the amazing things that they will do with their lives, but I just don't know how my life next year will be without them! I don't mean for that to sound melodramatic, but this year and the last two have been so incredible and my life has been built up so greatly my many of the friends I know who are graduating in a week.

Despite my friends leaving, I have gained a great deal of wisdom from them over the years:
Always show appreciation for the people around you. Never forget to thank the people who help you. Let them know you care with a quick email or text message.
You don't always have to be serious. Sometimes your best, most creative ideas come from goofing off.
Don't brush off the opinions of your friends. They care the most about you and always have your best interest in mind. If they have a bad feeling about something, there's probably a good reason for it.
Trust yourself and believe in the best in people. Never sell anyone short before getting to know their story.
No matter where we may be in our lives, there's only one planet Earth. We're a lot closer than we may think.

These are just a few of the things I have picked up from my friends, but they are some of the most important ideas that I have applied to my life.