St. Louis–Part 2 (Downtown)

 

Jeremiah, our little bud.

Ai

Jesse 

How many pairs of shoes are there ? 

Jared

Jubilee

After that  we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory .

Johanna feeding Jeremiah her ice cream.

The Gate Way Arch

 The End!!

by Jolene

St Louis–Part 1

We left home around 6:20 this AM so we could get to the Arch in good time (before the crowds).  Chad planned it just right.  We purchased tickets first thing and went into the museum for a little while.  This picture is from the ride to the top!!!  I felt a little nauseous going up but I was ok once we got up there.  The way the ride rocked a little made me a little dizzy.  It wasn’t much, but just enough.  Ai was a little nervous but not too bad.

After the Arch we visited the Old Capital Building.

 

The Old Capital Building framed by the Arch.

Life with Ai, Part 3

Ai is enjoying working in the garden and helping us put up produce.  She has helped pick lots of green beans and canned them.  We also made Dilly Beans together – like pickled beans, you at as a snack or like an horderve.

 

One day she was helping the children pick zuchinni and she picked some green peppers as well.  I didn’t realize she picked them and I told the children to wait till I said they were ready because those were too small.  Ai was surprised at how big I said they would get, she said in Japan they are only half the size of the ones she had already picked!

We are picking peppers AND tomatoes now!  Next week I hope to be making spaghetti sauce – along with some fresh salsa and guacamole!!!

While we snapped green beans together we talked about favorite memories.  Ai likes the snow and sledding!

Life with Ai ~ part 2

We took Ai on a kayak trip down the Mackinaw River on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  It was perfect weather!  She had kayaked on a lake with the Kaisers but had not been on the river yet.  She said it was kind of scary at first (probably mostly the little rapids) but she really enjoyed it.

ALWAYS need to find time to swim!

We pulled out at Si’s which is just down the road from us, so we brought the ranger to help get the kayaks to the van.

After the first trip to the van we ate a picnic lunch.

 

The End!

Life with Ai

We have a summer visitor for the month of July.  Ai (shortened pronunciation is I) arrived on July 8th.  She is from Japan and wanted to experience life in America and learn our language well.  Someone from our church in Japan contacted us and asked if we would be interested in hosting her.  She started at another family’s house and will have about a month after she leaves us before she returns to Japan.

Ai is a very sweet young lady.  She is a hard worker and ready to participate in whatever we are doing from cleaning, to gardening, to swimming, and everything in between!

Oh!  We musn’t forget the teasing – she hasn’t been spared, not one little bit!  She’s fitting in quite well! 

Ai brought 2 suitcases plus her carry-ons.  I’m beginning to believe that her clothes could have fit into a carry-on and the other bags were filled with souvenirs and stuff!  I have begun to call her Mary Poppins because she is always surprising me with what she is pulling out of her bags!

Here she is teaching children yarn games – similar to cats cradle and others we were already familiar with.

We went to Oak Run to celebrate Jared and Jubilee’s birthdays with cousins.

Jubilee will be 8 on July 31st.

Jared turned 12 on the 13th.  We picked up his ice cream cake on the way through Peoria.  We couldn’t find our cooler bag so we used towels instead but it just wasn’t good enough to prevent a little melting!  Oh well, they say it tasted just fine!

The next day we packaged 220 pounds of blueberries for the freezer.  (Minus what we ate!)  120 pounds were for us and 100 pounds for other family.  Grandma Plattner came to help.

 

Ai told us she wanted to learn how to play guitar so we taught her a few chords, here she is practicing with Jolene.