Category: Friends (Page 1 of 7)

We have a Japanese boy with us for a couple more days. It was a busy weekend anyway, but we’re trying to be that “fun” family and make sure our boy has a good time. It’s quite exhausting to be that fun. I looked it up, and this is our 5th Japanese boy. Our first was in 2009. Since then we have hosted 6 girls from China for two weeks(2 at a time), 3 Taiwanese girls for 2 1/2 weeks (also at the same time), one French girl for a month, 2 Brazilian boys for a month (we all remember that wonderful experience, don’t we?) and Larissa, our German daughter, for one school year.

One of my friends asked how we can host, isn’t it awkward? Yes, it is awkward. We mostly don’t explain a whole lot of things and just say, “Come, it’s time to go.” Yesterday we took Nozomu to church with us, and he had no idea where we were going, but when he saw that we were dressed up, he was a little worried that he was in a t-shirt. “That’s fine,” I said, trying to ease his worries. It was a very emotional sacrament meeting, as we got a new bishopric, and I felt the spirit there very strongly. But he was trying to stay awake. When it was over, we stood up and he said, “Finished?” I felt like a wretch as I said, “There’s another meeting, still. John will take you.” Poor boy. But he made it through 3 long hours of church, which must be pure torturous boring for him. Yes, it is awkward, and I always feel like I should be connecting more with these kids. I should be LOVING them more. I should be more of a good mother. But we got a little burned with those boys in January, so I think I still have my guard up a little bit. And it’s hard to not compare ourselves to others in the group when we see pictures of what the other host families are doing. One family took their boy flying over timp. Flying? Really? There’s always some family that takes the kids to Moab or St. George over the weekend and it always looks like they are having more fun than we are. Oh, well. We do our best.

I’ve been a little worried about him not eating much. We went out to Mexican when he first got here, and it was too spicy for me, so I didn’t like it. He didn’t eat much of his, either. For breakfasts, he has had toast, a little yogurt and a banana. Even when we made pancakes and offered him some, he is sticking with the toast and banana. That reminds me, I’ve got to go the the store today and get some more yogurt and bananas. I don’t know what they are feeding them for lunches, but when he’s here, we got out some japanese ramen (left from a previous guest) and he liked that. When we had pizza, he took one slice. I don’t think they like cheese. Well, last night for dinner we finally had time to do dinner right. We had grilled chicken and rice, warm rolls, and cooked vegetables (I even cooked broccoli, which I hate). He ATE and ATE. I think he took 3 rolls, had a bunch of rice, and a LOT of chicken. I was surprised when there were no leftovers, since it was a whole package of chicken we had grilled up. Wow. Either he really liked the food, or he was just really hungry from not eating much the rest of the day, but I was glad he was finally eating. Now, what to cook for tonight?

On Saturday we had our busiest day. I had a rehearsal at the Tabernacle, so I invited the family to come up to temple square and meet me there. They got there for the last 1/2 hour of rehearsal and got to listen in. Maybe that’s a cool thing to see. I don’t know if he’s impressed or not.

As we were walking through temple square back to the car, we had a lot of people say Konichiwa to us. Two sisters talked to us for a minute while one of the kids used the bathroom.
We aren’t allowed to proselyte or give them literature, but the sister was friendly and talked to him in Japanese for a bit. After a quick lunch I took the kids to Cornbelly’s.
We have never been before, so we really didn’t know what to expect, but it was a fun activity. We golfed, rode the little cow train, some of the kids did some nerf type shooting, Natalie and Nozomu rode the zipline. It was fabulous weather, too. I took off my sweater and was enjoying the 67 degree day. Too crowded and confusing for me (so imagine how it must have been to him!), but it was all fun stuff. There was so much we could have done, but we were getting tired, and wanted to get ready for trick-or-treating.

I sent him trick-or-treating with John and a friend. He had a cape. That’s enough of a costume, right? I don’t know what he thought of the whole trick-or-treating thing, but he was willing to go along with it. They were out for two hours. In fact, I was a little worried about them and glad that John answered his phone when I called to ask where they were. The instructions had been to go around our neighborhood and then come home, and I would drive them somewhere else if they wanted. They expanded the boundary a bit, but Ryan went and got them.

On Sunday, after church, we decided to go into the canyon for a drive. See some leaves, take some pictures. However, when we got to the pay station in American Fork Canyon, the guy said, “I’m going to have to ask you to turn around. There’s some police activity and we aren’t letting anyone up the canyon.” Wow. Never heard that before. So, we turned around, and went to Pleasant Grove. We decided to hike the Battlecreek Falls hike. Can you believe I’ve never done that before? The kids were NOT excited about a hike, even though Ryan said it was really a 2 mile walk. Ha. Not flat. For out of shape people, it was a climb. But we did it, and even had fun.

Today they go to a local school, and I’ll pick three of them up from the Junior High so they can hang out here for a while. We need to do our required activity of Bowling, and we’ll probably still go to Thanksgiving point. Busy, yes. Fun busy, though.

Megan and I took off on a roadtrip on Friday to Arizona.

She has spring break this week, and I really wanted to go and see my dear friend Robin. So, it was just the two of us.

Megan had a nice camera from school again, so she was the designated photographer, but I don’t have her pictures uploaded yet, so we’ll have to make do with pictures from my not so nice camera. We stopped in Kanab for the night, which is a cute little town. We even ate at the Three Bear’s Cafe, which my mom recommended.

It was nice that Megan could drive some of the way, since this was my first trip driving without Ryan.

We used our phone GPS, and sometimes they gave us differing directions, but we made it there ok. Well, most of the time. I had to call Robin twice because I was seriously like 3 blocks away from the destination, but had gotten lost. Darn Arizona neighborhoods–everything looks the same and I can’t really tell what direction I’m going.

Robin was one of my roommates at BYU.
We roomed together for 3 of my 4 years there. And she’s come to visit us in Utah a lot, even staying with us for 6 weeks one summer to attend BYU (or was it 8 weeks? There’s some confusion about that). So, when I found out she has breast cancer, I knew I had to go and visit and help out if I could.

Saturday night we met up with Jenny, who was also a roommate of ours my sophomore year. Jenny was kind enough to offer her house for us to stay this trip.

She has a beautiful house and a lovely family and it was so great to meet them all. Unfortunately, all the pictures of Jenny are on MEGAN’s camera, so I don’t have one right now, but you can read all about her and her family’s adventures on her blog.

My favorite thing about Jenny’s house is the huge ice maker. Fill up those water bottles with ice, and you don’t even have to worry that you are taking all of the ice in the house.

Sunday we went to church with my brother and his family, and had dinner with them. They even taught me how to index names for genealogy!

On Monday, I really wanted to make some meals for Robin and her family. So, we went shopping and picked up all the ingredients for 6 meals that they can just throw in the crockpot, and then there’s dinner. I got the recipes from here,, and it was very easy. I’m going to do some of these for my family. Robin also wanted some of my wheat bread, so while at Jenny’s house, we made a batch of bread. Unfortunately, her wheat grinder was funky and spewed forth flour all over the kitchen. Sorry! She was so nice to let me make a mess in her kitchen to prepare food! Don’t worry, I helped clean up.

While there, we also went to see Cinderella with Robin and her family.

We looked at wigs, went shopping for super comfy clothes that Robin can wear to chemo appointments, and debated about what to do with her hair. I think she should color it some funky bold color, and then if she doesn’t like it, she can cut it all off!

Sadly, our trip ended so soon. We had to leave on Tuesday, but not before a nice brunch with Robin and Sarah. Sarah is like a cousin to Megan. They have known each other since they were tiny, and even though they only see each other once or twice a year, they really are great friends.

And so cute!

Of course we couldn’t leave without citrus. We picked grapefruits from Scott’s house and lemons from Robin’s house.

Quick trip, but a great one. Good friends, some sunny weather, and lots of time in the car to talk with my girl.

There may have even been some singing into that tiny microphone.

It started in 2009. A lady from the ward asked if we would like to host a Japanese student for a week. They were going to host, and it’s always easier if you have another family to share the driving, so she recruited me. We talked it over as a family and thought that sounded like a fun experience. That family actually backed out and didn’t host, but I guess I should be thankful to her for introducing us to this hosting thing.

We were sent Urichiro (Yes, I probably spelled that wrong), a quiet, shy boy from Japan. We remember that he was a slow eater, tiny bites, and he was worried that he would have to eat huge amounts of food. We did not make him eat huge amounts of food. We tried to take him some fun places and do some fun things with him. We had a great experience.

That same company also does a program with Chinese girls in the summer, and the coordinator called in 2010 and asked if we would be willing to host 2 girls for two weeks. We said we would, and Daisy and Vivian came to stay with us. I guess they are given American names, or they chose their own, when they start English class.

I remember the coordinator told us that she was going to place these two girls with us, that they were special. One was beautiful and the other was from an important family, they were both from a private school. Can you tell which one was which?

Since then, we have hosted several more students.
There was Kodai. He’s the one who brought us our favorite frisbee called the “Dojeebee”.

He was here for our wettest, most miserable Halloween ever. Poor boy had no idea what trick-or-treating was or why we were making him dress up and go around the neighborhood in the POURING rain.

In 2011 we hosted Chinese girls again. Phoebe and Coco were their names. They were a little younger, just as shy. I think this year was the most frustrating because I couldn’t find a decent carpool, and had to drive the girls and my kids, who were buddies, back and forth to Provo so many times.
But it was still a fun experience, We went to a cast party for the play we were in, Thanksgiving Point farm and dino museum, bowling, out to eat.

I think the kids like hosting because for once, we go and do fun things almost every day. We do get paid to host the girls, but with a big family like we have, that money only goes so far. One trip to Park City for the Alpine Slide takes about a big chunk, but we have fun while they are here. Sadly, our conversational Japanese and Chinese has not improved.

That fall we hosted Kazuki from Japan.

We took him to our favorite Mexican restaurant, Los Hermanos, along with our ward Halloween party.

And bowling. There always must be a bowling activity.

Lest you think we ONLY go bowling when we have exchange students, I must point out that is false. We do go bowling at other times, when the kids beg and plead enough. They really love to bowl. I wish it were cheaper or there were a bowling ally closer to us, we would go more.

In 2012, I was tired of the whole DRIVE to Provo thing, so we decided to go with a different program, and hosted Marie from France.

Marie just came and stayed. No school, no schedule. It was a little different, but still fun.
She was here longer than the others, too. Three weeks. She was a good sport, and lots of fun to have around.

Of course, we can blame our acquiring a cat on Marie. Ryan was out of town, and this cat started to show up. Marie said we had to feed it. So we did. And she is now our cat.

We even took her camping. Worst camping trip. Rain, rain, rain. But she wanted to fish, and thankfully my uncle Keith took her out to the lake and she caught a fish.

Right after Marie left, we got a call from another coordinator to let us know that our year long exchange student had been approved, and we would be getting a girl from Germany in August. We had no idea what we were in for, but all the other experiences had been good, so we got rooms ready and Larissa came just before school started.

It’s a different experience welcoming an exchange student for the whole year. They are here for the chores, the meals, the homework and school and boring stuff, not just the fun stuff. But Larissa is such a cute girl, she made everything fun. We were quite blessed to have her with us that year. Cole left for college, so with her, we still had five at home.
She immediately made friends, even had dates.

It was fun to have her in our family, and I think she will be a good friend for ever. It was very hard to say goodbye when she left, and we are looking forward to having her come visit again this summer.

While she was here, we skipped on hosting a Japanese student, but we did host Chinese girls again in the summer of 2013.

Xio and Yiou didn’t take American names like the other girls had, but they were fun.
It was a bit different to go from a member of the family to “hosting” again, but we got used to it. This time none of the girls did the buddy program, and I did have a carpool (thank goodness!) and they moved the host school to Orem, so it was a shorter drive.

We took them to Temple Square to a concert, bowling (of course), to ice cream, even hiking.

It was a bit of a difficult time to have exchange students because I was in the thick of a play at the Scera theater. We brought the girls along to a dress rehearsal. Next time we host, remember not to do it at the same time as a play.

2014. I read in the Lone Peak email that they were looking for host families to host girls from Taiwan for a short stay. I called about that to find out more information, and it sounded like something we could do. We only have to transport the girls to Lone Peak. Their group has taken them places and done all the fun things that we would normally do with them. They have gone cross country skiing (the girls did NOT like that one), shopping, temple square, Music and the Spoken word, they even had a square dance last night.

We ended up with three girls this time. Everyone else has two, but I told them we could take three if we needed to. I cleaned out two rooms for them, but they are all together in our guest room/Cole’s room. There’s a queen bed and a twin in there, so I guess they just felt happier all together. They are Jessica, Cindy, and Cathy. And I can tell them apart now. We have taken them out to dinner, to a movie, to Thanksgiving Point, and we had a game night with another family in our ward who the parents both speak Chinese.

Yesterday after school we made sugar cookies and they had a blast cutting out cookies and then frosting them. I don’t know if they get to cook much at home, but they thought it was fun.

Then they had an activity with their group at night where they were square dancing. Today they went to school at Lone Peak, and after school they are going to eat the world’s first KFC and then go to the Jazz game. I love that they are doing fun things with their group so we don’t have to feel responsible for ALL the fun stuff, especially right now while school is in and we are busy. I think tomorrow night will be bowling, then Saturday we have the whole day with them before they leave on Sunday.

So,unless I have forgotten someone, in five years we have hosted….

3 Japanese boys
6 Chinese girls
1 French girl
1 German girl
3 Taiwanese girls

for a total of 14 exchange students. We have learned from them, and have enjoyed welcoming them into our family. Hopefully we show them a good picture of what it’s like to be an American, and they go home with fond memories of us. Someone asked me why we do this hosting thing. To give my kids experiences. I can’t afford to take my family all over the world, but that doesn’t stop us from meeting people and possibly making friends with people from all over. There is SO much that we can learn from hosting students from other cultures. I want to teach my kids tolerance, how to be nice to people they might not know so well, how to control their rude behavior at home when there are guests around, and that it’s ok to be different. And if we get to have a bunch of fun in the process, then that’s even better.