Where's Waldo? And goodbye.

I'm not Waldo, but I certainly have felt like him!!!
Things have been very busy at my house, to say the least. I'm sure it's no different for anyone else. We just got done hosting Ryo (pronounced Yo!) from Ohara, Japan. He stayed with us for the last 10 days and kept everyone pretty busy. Particularly Cory and Brad. This is all part of the Duluth Sisters Cities exchange program. Cory stayed with Ryo and his family in July and now it was our turn to be the hosts. All of the kids, parents ands Japanese students were extremely busy all week long. They went to the Aquarium, met the Mayor, went to the Edge waterpark, Valley Fair, a Minnesota Twins game, our cabin, the movie in the park, etc., etc....it was exhausting and a lot of fun. Ryo did not speak much English, and we certainly don't speak Japanese (well....Cory knows a few words) but we managed to communicate somehow! Ryo was a nice, polite boy. He often got confused, but was always up for anything, and very trusting. He loved playing our piano and Cory's guitar. He enjoyed fishing with Brad, didn't like the dirt at the cabin, ate anything we put in front of him, loves Snoopy, the Simpsons, and baseball. None of us were prepared for how sad we were yesterday when it was time to take Ryo to the airport. The night before, Ryo managed to tell Brad that he didn't want to go, and gave Brad a big hug. (And I don't think they hug much in Japan.) We were all crying like babies at the airport and hugging a lot. It was especially hard to see Ryo crying. He was the only boy in the whole group who was crying, but some of the girls were especially sad. Of course the whole goodbye was protracted because we had to wait with them in line, get them through security (Ryo had to go twice, once with me along for assistance!) and all. We seriously feel like we were his parents for a brief piece of time, and have been joking that he will show up on our doorstep one day! He loved America. In fact I will never forget how, upon exiting the airport when he first got here, he fell to his knees and hollered just that: "I Love America!!!" It was a great experience, and one we'll treasure for a long time to come.

News to me...

Yes, I know it's been a while since I've posted but I've been VERY busy trying to keep my head above water. With all of my BPS classes and Crop for a Cure preparations and two kids to chauffer, laundry to do, cellulite to try to burn, a Japanese exchange student on the way and yada, yada...I'm a little pressed for time. Anyway, in my off time (ha!) I am busy trying to get our Crop for a Cure blog functioning correctly. (Note link on this page!) I tried to install a counter-type thingy so we could track who and how many people were visiting. I uploaded it correctly (I thought) after a few haphazard attempts and lost the color on the blog. Oops. I'm not quite sure what happened. More importantly, I'm not quite sure how to fix it. So, I have been monkeying around with THIS blog in order to try to fix THAT blog. Comprende? As you may note there is indeed a little pink counter thingy on the bottom of this page, counting away. (And, yes, I am WELL aware that it is in the single digits. Harumph.)

Anyway, in my efforts to figure out that problem, I discovered how to add photos to each one of my posts on here. (Yes, I'm slow...the "add photo" button has been staring me in the face all this time.) Man, I need to slooooowwww down and pay attention once in a while!

Well, I'm off to try to fix what I have wrought on the other site. But, in honor of my discovery, I will leave you with a picture of a sign I took on the way home from CHA out the car window. You gotta love it...."Almost famous"....that's so me. After all, I'm the Queen of Coulda-shoulda-woulda!