Lessons from Gold Beach

-Just because I think hosting an exchange student is the chance of a lifetime doesn't mean everyone else (or anyone else) thinks it's that exciting.
-It's stinkin' hard to find new host families.
-Hap can read e-mails with a Korean accent.
-Caleb and Papa work up an appetite when they ride quads on the beach.
-Elisa is resourceful. She needed a place to put her gum for a minute--why not the top of her head?
-Peanut butter is great for getting huge wads of gum out of hair.
-It's hard to completely wash the smell of peanut butter out of hair.
-Three kids might be able to do a good job washing a minivan, but seven kids will not.

Down South

The kids and I headed south to Gold Beach yesterday so I could spend some time looking for another AYUSA host family. Sometimes my desire to be thorough creates an awful lot of work.

The Short Version: AYUSA wants four students placed in our area.

The Long Version: We decided to host through AYUSA even though they had no presence whatsoever on the South Coast. I talked a friend into becoming a Community Rep. (CR) because there had to be one in place to oversee our student. I became a CR too to help place students along the South Coast. We need at least four students placed in order for us to be considered a separate "area" from Eugene--allowing us to have our own orientation meetings instead of driving to Eugene for them.

Another family from co-op also agreed to host [a Korean girl], so the other CR and I are still seeking two more host families. To me, hosting is such an exciting opportunity that I find it hard to believe how hesitant most people are about it. I finally got two decent leads today, so hopefully one or both of them will pan out.

Just another day

It's a drizzly Saturday and there's not much going on. Julianne is at a friend's house, Elisa and I bought some sweets from "Buck's Bakery" at the Coquille flea market, and Caleb is eating them up. Brad ran to rent a movie so I can have a fold-a-thon tonight and catch up on folding all the laundry Julianne ran through for me while I was painting. It's been a quiet, relaxing day--a nice change after the exhausting week of painting.

Last night we let the kids watch Jumanji for the very first time. It's a suspenseful movie about some kids that play a board game where all kind of wild animals come out of the game to wreak havoc. Once the game is over, the effects of the animals disappear too. None of our kids were scared while watching the movie, but wouldn't you know, a thunderstorm started right after we put them to bed and lasted for hours. Elisa ended up sleeping with Julianne (and Betsy) and Caleb joined Brad and me in our bed.

Our bedroom looks beautiful, but I can't get a picture of it to turn out. The brown walls are messing up the exposure. I'll keep trying.

Where shall we go?

Think they'll notice if we go for a little ride? Nice view from the front seat!

Chocolate Milk

That's the color of my bedroom now! The color is a little darker than I anticipated, but I really like it. It gives a feeling of warmth to the room and will be fun to decorate around.

Painting went very well with no unexpected problems. It went quickly and was actually quite fun! Our bedroom furniture is currently in the dining room, but I'm hoping the paint dries in time to move all the furntiture back in before we pick up Brad tonight. Once everything is back in order, I'll take a picture and post it. I think I'm really going to like the final result.

Primed and ready to go

I finally finished cleaning the walls at 5:00 this evening. Two and a half days of scrubbing--roughly 20 hours--to get "residual" glue off the wall. The kids have been wonderful! They've helped me when they could, taken care of other chores around the house, and played nicely (for the most part) so I could work.

After the slow laborious job of cleaning the walls, applying the primer was a breeze! It took me a couple hours, and now I'm ready to start adding some color first thing in the morning.

Today was a gorgeous day! We had to run to the store at 3:30 and it was 94° then! The kids had a water fight on the deck and Betsy panted all day long.

Below are some pictures from Caleb's game last night. They lost 2-0, but Caleb had a blast and that's what counts!

Caleb makes it to first base!

Ready for the pitch

Steam, Slime, & St. Louis

Last night I sat here with my fingers on the keys ready to update my blog, but my poor brain was just too tired to put sentences together, so I went to bed instead.

This has been a busy, busy, busy week! Early Sunday morning we took Brad to the airport to fly to St. Louis for some continuing training. He'll be gone until late Thursday night, so I thought it the perfect opportunity for me to surprise him and redecorate our bedroom.

Sunday after church I dug into the job and started stripping wallpaper. The blue stuff in the spray bottle that makes wallpaper come effortlessly off the walls--doesn't. So we headed off to Coquille Supply and rented a wallpaper steamer. This handy device is worth every penny of the $15/day rental fee and it made easy work of stripping the wallpaper. The second step is to "remove residual wallpaper paste from the walls". Hmm. I don't see any paste. Maybe I can skip this step. "Skipping this step will cause the paint to bubble and peel later." It's like the book can read my mind!

I spray more of the blue stuff on the bare wall, let it do its thing, and then attempt to wipe it off. But what I'm looking at now looks like a scene out of Ghostbusters. (In case that doesn't bring up a mental picture, think a preschool art project involving a bottle of Elmer's.) I guess there was some residual paste. Wiping does nothing. Scrubbing just moves the slime around. I'm getting a little frustrated by this point, so I search Google for another source for removing this stuff.

TSP. It's an industrial strength cleaner that will take all debris off the wall and make it clean as a whiste. This information comes to me at 6:45 p.m.--after the hardware stores in Coquille have already closed. Only one thing to do. We pick up Caleb from baseball practice and head into Coos Bay. A pit stop at Dairy Queen for Blizzards ensures energy to keep working when we get back home. We swing by Fred Meyer and are now the proud owners of TSP.

After more trial and error (I'll spare you the details) I finally get some good advice from a fellow homeschooling mom regarding the technique for using the TSP. Now we're in business. It is a slow process, but the glue is coming off. After a day and a half of scrubbing, just over half of the walls are done. At this rate, I may not get to the painting until tomorrow! Next time I'm going to paint over the top of the wallpaper.

Parade of Ponds

Julianne and I had an awesome day together! This past week she won tickets to the Parade of Ponds, a one-day event consisting of a self-guided tour of 12 man-made ponds, streams, and waterfalls in the community. We had a blast driving around finding the homes and enjoying their ponds, imagining what it would be like to sit on each deck and sip morning coffee with the sound of running water and the beauty of the ponds, most of which were home to very cool-looking fish.

At lunchtime I let her choose a restaurant and she opted for a place we'd never been before. It's called Su-Min's and advertises serving Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisine, as well as having a sushi bar. We were looking forward to trying Korean, only to find they only have one dish on the menu, and it didn't sound particularly good. So I settled on the Teriyaki Chicken Vegie Bowl (delicious!) and Julianne ordered--are you ready for this?--a Sushi Combination plate. It included California rolls (vegie & rice), tuna sushi (raw!), and flying fish egg sushi (I kid you not). She liked all three varieties, although she said the fish eggs had a weird texture. She is an adventuresome eater!

Saturday morning

It's Saturday morning. . . sausage & potatoes are sizzling on the stove, and a pan of biscuits is ready to go into the oven. Julianne and Caleb each had a friend spend the night last night and the five kids have already watched a movie this morning and are now in the middle of a game of Monopoly.

I've been up since just after 5:00, when Betsy woke up and shook, making her dog tags jingle like Santa's reindeer landing on the roof. (I hate it when we forget to take her collar off at night.) I didn't want to get up and take her outside, so I called her into bed with me instead. Somehow our coordination was off, and when she leaped onto the bed, she head-butted me and gave me a fat lip. So I got up and Betsy slept on my side of the bed. What's wrong with this picture?

It actually was nice being up before the kids. I read my Bible with no interruptions and even had time to check my e-mail. Oh, and did I mention the perfect cup of coffee? What would Saturday morning be without that?

Time to pop those biscuits into the oven and start the eggs. I think this will be a good day.

Photo: Batter up

Caleb's ready for his first game of the season!

Play ball!

Caleb had his first baseball game tonight. Last year the coaches pitched, but now that he's a third-grader, the kids do the pitching, resulting in lots of walks. Caleb only ended up at bat once, but he made good use of it by having a good eye and not swinging at balls. He got walked, which eventually resulted in a run in. He plays shortstop, which is ok, but doesn't include enough running. (his words)

They lost their game 4-10. The game was in Port Orford, so he got home late and was exhausted. He's not sure he wants to play baseball anymore, but I think he'll feel differently after a good night's sleep.

School's Out

Our school year is officially over. The kids have completed their curriculum, and today was the co-op's final activity: the awards program. It's a neat opportunity for each parent to publicly recognize their child's achievement for the year. It's always a fun time for me, as the mom, to ponder what area each child has shown the most growth in. This year's awards went to:

Julianne: the Growing in Godliness award. She has certainly excelled academically this year, but we've seen the most growth in her spiritually. She's been making a great effort to be diligent, responsible, and teachable in matters of character. It has been a blessing to watch this progression take place in her.

Caleb: the Mr. Math award. Caleb has the amazing ability to "get it" when it comes to all things math. He doesn't just know formulas for solving problems--he really understands the why behind the formula. He often solves real-life math problems in his head as they pop up in daily life.

Elisa: the Lover of Learning award. Being the youngest means Mom doesn't have time to make sure you're learning everything ahead of the curve like she did with the older kids. But this hasn't stopped Elisa from enthusiastically learning as much as she can. Most days find her pulling out her "school" workbooks and doing the pages (or sometimes practicing scissor skills by cutting said pages into a zillion pieces). I am managing to find the time to give her reading lessons, and her laughter at sounding out a word is more than enough pay.

And so another year draws to a close and I begin to look forward to having three in school next year!

Photo: Ah Reum in Korea

Ah Reum e-mailed us this picture of her, taken at school.

Introducing Ah Reum

This being a new blog and all, I thought it would be fitting to bring you up to speed on our newest adventure, that of a host family. I've wanted to host since high school, but for one reason or another the timing was never right--until now.

We decided to host a student next school year, and with Brad being a Rotarian and myself a former Rotary exchange student, hosting through Rotary seemed the natural choice. However, Rotary students live with three families during the course of their exchange and our local club had some difficulty finding other host families, so we began to look at other exchange agencies.

We thought we'd host through AFS since they already have a strong local presence. In fact, we went through the entire application process with them, but just didn't feel drawn to any particular student.

As I browsed through AYUSA's website, I came across Ah Reum's profile and immediately knew she was the student I wanted to host. I called the AYUSA rep who informed me that she had already been assigned to a host family. I was crushed. Does it sound ridiculous to get attached to someone after nothing more than reading their profile? I think it does, but silly as it sounds, that's the way it happened. We continued to pursue AFS and were ready to commit to them when we got a phone call that Ah Reum's host family had cancelled and she was once again available!

So now from our end the application process is complete. I suppose she is busy in Korea applying for her visa, buying her airline ticket, and thinking about what to pack. We've been e-mailing back and forth with her, and she sounds just as sweet as I imagined. I got an e-mail from her this morning asking if she can call us "Mom & Dad". I am so looking forward to her arrival in August!

Photo: The Fam

I thought we should have a picture of the whole family in the blog, so here it is! This is the picture that accompanied our application to host an exchange student.

One begonia, two begonia, three begonia, four. . .

I just finished sorting the final batch of flowers from our co-op fundraiser. $900 worth of flower bulbs can overwhelm the average family room, and making an error during the sorting process can overwhelm the average family.

Tomorrow I will distribute orders to the other co-op families and then all that will be left is to deliver to Julianne & Caleb's customers, which are spread out over Coos Bay, North Bend, Coquille, and Myrtle Point.

The co-op worked hard on fundraisers this year, selling Sally Foster, Current, and Dutch Mill Bulbs. Julianne and Caleb alone brought in $850 profit--enough to treat Brad and me to a very nice 4-day weekend in Bend.

Chip off the Old Block

Caleb approached me while I was creating this blog to inform me that he has chipped a tooth. I can't say I was terribly surprised; after all, he is an 8-year old boy. I was disappointed to learn that it's his front tooth, which of course is a permanant tooth and will from this day forward be permanantly chipped.

I asked him the same question you're wondering now: How did you chip your tooth? Part of me was smiling inside just waiting to hear the answer, which I knew would be interesting.

On the side of the staircase are some nails (one nail on every other step) that we use to hang our Christmas stockings. They only stick out about 1/4-inch, so we decided to just leave them there to be used each Christmas Eve. Caleb decided to remove one of those nails--with his teeth.

I guess that's what I get for making my mantra "If you see something that needs to be done, just do it; don't wait to be asked."

Just the beginning. . .

With such an exciting year on the horizon, I thought it only fitting to start a blog! As we begin to make our way through the adventures of the upcoming year, this blog will make it easy to share our lives with friends and family, and also serve as a place that we ourselves can come and browse through the happy memories we've created. (Of course, they'll be happy, right?!)

Enjoy! And please don't forget to comment. We live for e-mail, you know.

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