Today I became a Federal Employee! I will be a Census Enumerator for 4-8 weeks. After hearing stories from my neighbor about his pre-Census experience I was worried as to where I would be sent. But I am fortunate...I will be assigned an area not far from home. It will cover basically 1 mile x 1 mile square. Houses and 2 schools. Not bad! Come to find out that 17 of the 18 fellow workers all come from the small town where I live! Who knows...we might be able to car pool.
We had our training today in a Navy Facility - who would have guessed the Arizona Desert would have Navy! But alas...it is a small base with a guard shack, barbed wire fense all around it. So today at my training...I was the only one prepared (I brought my lunch) while everyone else had to dash out for their 30 min to find food and return.
I must pause in my story here to give some back ground. I grew up Air Force. I went in and out of Guard Gates my whole life. I always thought that would be fun to do! Listening to the recruits who work it..it can be boring. But not so today! I was asked to handle the shack and let the Census Workers in and out for the 1/2 hour. I guess the Navy was busy. It was great! My half hour of controlling a base entrance!
Because of my willingness in class to help people (who were totally not there mentally) find the correct place in the book, etc... I was asked to be the "Assistant Crew Leader". No extra pay, but get to do some administrative duties for our group.
So...next week I resume training and then the entire month of May will be out tracking down those individuals who didn't mail in their Census!
This was the little kitchen and granddaughter loved the phone! You can see her reaching for it. This was Serina's kitchen. We still have all the food and play tupperware.
You can see the School House on the left and the Zoo on the right. These grandsons had so much fun hauling the school kids on a field trip through the zoo and in the tunnel. I wish toys like these were still made today. Great quality. Great fun!
This is the entrance to the church at the back of the building. They made it look like a Bazaar. The floor felt like you were walking on sand, they had jewels in baskets, fruits hanging.
The most clever of the night were these decorated drinking fountains. Notice the fringe around the bottoms. They even had those jars on top filled with little gold fish!
A painting and display along one wall. 
We had to peek in the men's bathroom. The urinals had dry ice in them with rocks and snakes! The men's bathroom was totally made to look like a CAVE. We didn't get photos of the women's but it was the complete opposite! Totally femine with drapery. Someone put in a dresser with the drawers open and all kinds of fun things in them to add to the ambiance. Pretty clever!
This was the other foyer entrance from the back of the building. It was blocked off so you could not enter. It had couches, lapms, jewels, etc... In the gym (which we did not get photos) was a large mural across the entire wall of the overflow area of a night scene with the domes, lights, etc...of an evening landscape in Turkey (or from the movie Aladdin). They also had on one side of the gym several tents set up with chairs or couches in a U-shape with lamps, lanterns, pillows. Looked just like the ones we saw down on the Sinai Pennisula! Pretty authentic! We had a fun time.