Yuma, Arizona

Yuma is said to be the hottest city in the United States. Allen's brother Bill, and his family live there. Now is a beautiful time of year in Yuma because it is not quite so hot YET. Actually, it was kind of pretty traveling to Yuma because the desert is in bloom. Lots of beautiful flowers along the road. There is a military base in Yuma and there happened to be an air show the day we came into town. Very fun to see the jets and very interesting to be on a military base. You don't get to do that every day!




Allen's brother is a teacher at the Yuma High School. We took a little tour to see where he works. Early on, in the school's history, there was a fire at the school. All the students had to attend a vacated prison while the school was being repaired and rebuilt. That is when they came up with the mascot name of...the CRIMINALS! I don't think there are many of those out there! There is a beautiful football field surrounded by the school buildings. The gates going into the field came right from the prison. Pretty cool. I often wonder if the kids at Yuma High School live up to their name - the criminals!!! Hope not! :)

SPRING BREAK

Well, after almost two weeks of traveling, I think I need to post a few pics and share a few of our adventures. Our Spring Break was a long one this year. We left for Phoenix on March 26 and returned to Minneapolis on April 6. We made our way to Yuma, Arizona, then over to San Diego, then back to Sun City. All in all, a great trip.

The highlights for me?
*Sea World.
*Easter Sunday in Sun City with extended family.
*Watching the Easter Egg Hunt. :)
*Time with our two nieces.
*Arizona Sunshine!
*A hike with JUST our immediate family (minus Bjork and Lindsay).

The forgettable moments?
*Carsickness
*Getting the masses up in the morning.
*An occasional moment of too much...togetherness.
*The challenge of traveling with a large family.

I am thankful that we are able to travel. It is always fun to see new places and experience new things. It is our first big FAMILY road trip with Roselyn, Romeo and Rodrigo. Shared memories... good and bad, bring families together. Now we are back and thinking...SPRING! It's all good. :)

JAPANESE STUFF

We have had such a great week with Natsuho. She is delightful and so easy to have around. We have dragged her to several basketball games, the Mall of America, a Japanese restaurant!?..and other "American" restaurants, Walmart, Cub and Target, the bakery!, church, the library, Caribou and anything else we can think of that might be of interest to her. She and Steph made chocolate chip cookies last night. That was totally new to her! I'm sure it has been interesting watching how a large family operates. She has one brother at home. We have had fun learning a few Japanese phrases. Dinnertime has been really fun! I can't believe that we only have a few more days to go with Natsuho. I am hoping to bring her to SHOW-AND-TELL in Rigo's class this afternoon. That will be a hit, no doubt. She is very good at origami. Here is a few pictures of our time together. Steph has been a wonderful hostess. I knew that I couldn't be in charge of filling the time for our exchange student and Steph had definitely been leading the charge on that one. It helps to have other willing siblings in the house as well, but Steph has done a great job. Here are a few pictures from this week.

WRINKLIER and WRINKLIER

"Mom, I feel like you are getting wrinklier and wrinklier."

Stunned and stammering to know how to respond to such a statement, I started to say something, but was quickly interrupted...

"No, Mom, Really. I'm not kidding!"

All I could do was smile. Kids just say it like it is.

NATSUHO

Yesterday, our exchange student arrived! She is from Japan and will be staying with us for 10 days. Our high school has a sister school (Taikyu High School) where we make visits back and forth. We have already had so much fun with her. She is darling! Last night when I took this picture, Natsuho had been up for about 30 hours! (That doesn't include a nap on the plane and a quick snooze at our house.) Anyway, I was amazed at how well she looked at 9 p.m. in the evening! I'm sure she was a bit overwhelmed by the NUMBER of people in our family, but she seemed to take it all in stride. No doubt it was a bit confusing as well! We are looking forward to learning more about Natsuho and helping her to learn a little about "normal" (if you can call it that) family life in the US!

CHANGES

Two big changes happened this week. Can you guess what they were?

MARCH 4, 2010

Yesterday was Roselyn's 17th birthday! I can hardly believe it. She is such a beautiful young lady. The number 17 makes me happy because it is the mark of so many great things that are still coming in her life. I'm glad that we will have her for at least 2 more years. It makes me sad because we missed out on so many of her early years. We were all at home (the 6 of us!) for dinner last night. It lasted only about 20 minutes, but well... we did get a few minutes to recognize her. We had chicken wild rice soup at her request and Steph made the cake. We will have a bigger celebration in a few weeks with another cake, candles and gifts. Our two girls, Kristin and Roselyn share the same birthday month. Add in my mom's birthday and there are lots of reasons to celebrate!

Roselyn's good friend, Janice (from CSC) surprised her with a skype call last night. Janice now lives in Colorado with her new family. I love that fact that these two girls are still friends. They have both been in the States for 1 1/2 - 2 years. They have been a support to each other even though their paths met for only a short time. They talked for a long time. It is amazing that we can connect with people all over the world through something called skype. The best part - it's free!!

Happy Birthday, Roselyn!

Other highlights from the day...

*I volunteered in Rigo's room yesterday. One little boy came up to me and said..."My parents haven't decided if I can come to Rigo's birthday party yet." The funny thing about this is that there has been no talk of a party at our house. Evidently Rigo has invited the entire class to his alleged party. They are supposedly all going to Chuck E. Cheese (which is also rather funny because I'm pretty sure that Rigo has no idea what the heck Chuck E. Cheese is)! I tried to bring him down easy and explain to Rigo's friend that we haven't exactly decided what kind of party Rigo will be having.

*Another little girl came up to me and said..."My mom is very sad because my dad is going to fight..." I, of course asked if he was going to Iraq or if he was in the Army. She said, "No, he goes to a bar and fights. He is a boxer." I had totally misunderstood. A little bit funny, but maybe more sad than anything. I love the simple honestly of little people. They just say it like they see it.

*Rigo busied himself while I was in the classroom. I sometimes wonder if he even knows I am there. When I got ready to leave, he came running over to me, jumped into my arms and gave me a big hug. It felt really good. He walked back to his desk and yelled "Bye, Mom!" as I left the room. I guess he did notice that I was there after all.