News from Provo:
This next week, Heather will be in Arizona to present a research paper that she did with a grad student. It is a conservation conference with hundreds of scientists attending. Her presentation deals with a study on how ungulates affect tree growth. In other Heather news, she auditioned and was accepted once again as a member of BYU's Women's Choir. Congratulations on all accounts, Heather! Good luck this week at your conference!
What a fun week for us here in Fallon.
Our 15 year old freshman, Kyung-Dae (aka Danny) arrived Tuesday night from South Korea. Ryan was still in town (he left to go back to BYU-I the next morning), so Ryan, Hannah, and I went to pick him up from the airport. He arrived around 8:15 pm, having been traveling for about 16 hours.
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| Hannah, Danny, Me, and Ryan |
I was subbing the next day, so Hannah was in charge of Danny. She had to wake him up at 12:30 to get him in to his appointment with the school counselor at 2. He told the counselor the kinds of classes he's interested in. The only requirements foreign exchange students have is that they have to take an English class and then either a US History class or a US Government class. Due to incomplete immunizations, it looks like he won't start school until Tuesday.
Wednesday night Danny, Aom (pronounced "Ohm"), and I met Hannah and Rusty at the airport to greet our 2nd foreign exchange student, Kaweepat (aka Sam). Aom is a foreign exchange student from Thailand staying with a family that Hannah babysits for. Sam, who is an 11th grader who turned 17 today, had 25 hours worth of traveling (3 layovers) to get to us from Thailand. His plane landed at 9 pm. We started to worry because he was the last one from the plane to come to the waiting area...we saw the pilot before we ever saw Sam. But he arrived safe and sound. Sam and Aom spoke Thai the entire way home from the airport. It's a beautiful sounding language.
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| Danny, Rusty, Sam, Hannah, Me, and Aom |
When Danny, Sam, and I got home from the airport, Glen greeted us with some apple cinnamon muffins that he made. We had some, but
Alex and Glen were kind of laughing, so I asked what was up. It turns
out that this was Glen's 2nd batch. For the first batch, he reached
into the cabinet for the cinnamon, but he had taken down the cumin instead. That
first batch, of course, was inedible. He threw them out, saving one for
us to try if we wanted. We didn't.
The next morning, the boys slept in until about 11:30, when they had to get up because Sam had his appointment with the counselor. He should be starting school on Monday.
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| Sam, Hannah, Becky, and Danny at Lattin Farms |
I was texting Denise Friday morning where Hannah, Sam, Danny, and I
had met up with Hannah's friend Becky at a pick-your-own raspberry place (only $3/pound!), and Denise said that I was a great host. I said
"ha!" (though I wanted to put "5!"...see the note at the end of the post). I later shared the following story:
Thursday the boys woke up about 11:30 am (remember that Sam had been on planes for 25 hours
without any sleep), had breakfast/lunch, got ready, and then we went to
the school to have Sam meet with the counselor. We went to Walmart and
came home, at which point we made sandwiches. It was about 3-3:30. After
that, Hannah had somewhere to go, so Sam, Danny, and I went to meet the
cows.
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| Sam really likes animals |
Glen came home at 5 and he was leaving again at 5:30, so he
wanted to eat, but the rest of us weren't ready (Alex was at a tennis
match in Sparks). So, Glen just made himself a grilled cheese and left.
The
boys had been invited to a 3rd and 4th ward YM/YW friendshipping activity at
7. Hannah took them. It was held in the classroom of Lance Lattin at the
high school. It was Lance's wife, Laurianne, who had texted asking me
if we were interesting in hosting a foreign exchange student this year. Anyway, I think
all the foreign exchange students were invited.
When Alex got in from tennis he drove himself (ack! I'm still not used to that) back to school so he could attend, too.
They
got home around 8:30, I think. We decided to play a game. We played
Apples to Apples Pictures. Sam won. People went to bed, though it took
me a while to get there.
Have you seen my fail?
I realized at 11 pm THAT I HAD FORGOTTEN TO FEED THEM DINNER!!! It's not that I ate dinner while they were
gone. I'm really not an evening eater, so I never
noticed we hadn't eaten. I was just done eating for the day and forgot.
When
I told Glen this morning, he said, "No wonder they were eating so much
popcorn while they were playing the game." Glen had gotten home towards
the end of us playing, so he saw that.
Any way, I put a note using my Scrabble letters on the fridge this morning:
MIANHAE AND CHAN KHXTHOS (what the internet tells me is "sorry" in Korean and Thai)
FOR MY PARENTING FAIL
Hannah then added underneath:
MOM STARVED YOU
After
they were both up in the morning, I apologized in person. Sam said he
noticed and said he just told himself that maybe we don't eat dinner.
Poor Sam. Poor Danny. I told them that if it ever
happened again, to speak up, but that it wouldn't happen again. They
have already been told that they are allowed to forage for themselves if
they get hungry. Sigh.
The
boys are so nice. Often asking if I need help. In the grocery store
(we've been twice now), they take the cart from me. Then they grab the
bags to carry. Wednesday night, before we left to get Sam, I was cooking dinner
and Danny offered to help. At first I was going to refuse, but since he
really didn't have anything else to do (Alex was at tennis practice), I
had him chop up some ham and then stir the white sauce. I later asked if
he helped his mom in the kitchen, and he said no. So funny.
Oh,
which brings up one more interesting thing. We noticed on Sam's
facebook page (he had friended us before he ever even got here) that he and
his friends often put a bunch of 5's together...the number of 5s not
being constant. I asked him about it today and he said it means laughing...the
Thai word for 5 is "ha" so they used it to show they are laughing. I
love it.
On Saturday we went to Wild Island, a water park. We had a blast. Besides the water activities (my favorite is the lazy river, but the boys enjoyed the slides), we played mini-golf, we went through a lazer maze, and we bowled. The boys conked out immediately upon getting in the car. They are still adjusting to the time difference between here and their homes. Hopefully they will be okay by the time they start school this week.
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| Danny, Sam, Alex, and Jayden |
