Shack Day Four – I Still Love The Ocean

It’s hard to describe my feelings towards Day Four of our Shack Adventure. Today was a great day in many ways. We woke up and had our daily 2.75 eggs to eat for breakfast before heading to work at the Big House. Work was pretty fun. We swept the driveway and chipped paint off of paint trays. To pass the time I sang most of the songs from “The Sound of Music”. It was a jolly time. We did a great job working there for the morning and then we got to head back to our shack for a couple hours (possible siesta!).

We made lunch, patched up our shack and packed our bags for out trip to the ocean. We got to ride in Gus the Bus and we even got to jam out to some pump-up music on the way. We were headed to go clamming and we were actually excited about it. For those of you that don’t know what clamming is, it’s when you get a type of pitchfork and you go into the ocean, stabbing the ground until you hit a clam. Once you hit one, you reach down into the water and sand to grab it in hopes that it is big enough to keep.

It was very cold at the beginning but after a bit it actually wasn’t that bad. This would have been a fabulous experience for me if I hadn’t nicked my toe with the pitchfork within the first few minutes of clamming – an occupational hazard. Despite this it was still a great time even though we were really chilly by the end. We warmed up by a fire and ate our daily macaroni and hotdogs for supper. Our day got extremely better when Julia brought over a pot of hot chocolate for us to drink. Going to bed tonight I still feel great. I know that we are struggling through this but we are staying positive and trying to make the best of it. I am extremely thankful for all that I have in my life and Day Four has helped me realize how lucky I really am.

~ Lisa Gudjonson, a current LiveDifferent Academy student living in Mexico in a shack.