Homestays '09

This summer we had some Japanese children stay with us. There were 3 groups (2 groups of girls and 1 group of boys). The Japanese call this a "homestay" and it is something quite common between the schools and the bases. They were loads of fun for all of us. These are pictures from all 3 groups.
The first group was the largest (3 girls) and I had put them in Eli's room. My thinking was that 1 could sleep on the bed and the other 2 on the air bed we have...however, they all slept on the air bed in fear of falling out of the "big" bed. It is only a twin but it sits so high off the ground in their eyes. So, I quicky learned my first lesson in having them stay with us!

The parents come and visit for an hour or so before leaving their children in your care. So, they all posed for their parents with Tony's guitar...after playing a few...ummm...notes (?) through the computer (Tony has something hooked up and it sounds like you're playing through an amp so it was really loud and they just thought that was very cool :~)

This young lady has actually lived in the states
longer than she had in Japan because of her father's
job.

This was the sister of one the girls. The girl was too shy
to get her picture taken and this sister was too shy to
stay with us :~)

Tony playing for them. As you can tell, I wasn't
planning on having everyone in my room or I would
have found somewhere else to store the laundry
baskets - thank goodness they were empty :~)

PIZZA!!!!

She was cold!

So, I asked them...are all of you cold??? Yessss, they
said, so Dakota had to lend them all a sweatshirt!! And
yes, we did turn down the air.

Making heart-shaped biscuits for breakfast....

to go with the pancakes being made on the other
counter!

The pancakes are almost done.

Everyone's ready to eat!

Time for group 1 to say good-bye and go home
with their parents.

Group 2 like having a "nob" fire and making
s'mores...actually they just liked burning the
marshmallows and catching their sticks on fire.

Our charcoal writings...they wrote their names
in Kanji under their English spellings

This is Dakota on the high dive!!
ALL the groups LOVED going swimming in the
the "huge" pool. I don't think uncrowed, big
public pools are common in Japan.

Our last group was boys and Dakota couldn't have
been happier :~) Games, games and more games -
the universal boy langauge!

We went bowling too!