Oops!

I'm glad I figured it now, but somehow I've been spouting the wrong flight plan to anyone's that has asked. For the past two months I've been saying that we're flying from PDX to Seattle to Taipei to Hanoi and that Seattle to Taipei is a 17 hour flight. Wrong. Don't ask where I got this from, I don't know, although I'm presuming that all my internet searching got me confused. The actual flight plan goes PDX to Seattle to Seoul to Hanoi and the flight between those two cities is 11 1/2 hours. My dad was in Seoul 30+ years ago, so there's something kind of cool about that.

At home half a world away from home

So far, so good.

Visiting America from Shenzhen, China, Tommy has been here for 4 days so far and has adapted quite well. He was a bit reserved the first couple of days, but by last night we had him up and dancing in the living room with us. Yes, silliness abounds. He's an old pro at homestays--this is his third (he's also been to Britain and Korea)--and has mad English skills (according to S.). Both boys are the same age, born only 6 weeks apart, and have gotten along quite well. Last night they spent hours on S.'s Nintendo playing Yugioh and Brain Academy, then watching America's Got Talent (we were all appalled at the audience choice, as usual-hmmph).

He hasn't fallen in love with American food, to say the least, but is always willing to try it. So I took us all out for dinner at Legin, a local Chinese restaurant where he was quite happy to order in Chinese. At home, it's been typical American fare of sandwiches, spaghetti and pancakes. Yesterday we had rice in the morning and he was adorably surprised that we had chopsticks to use. "What, what? Chopsticks? What you have these for?" I explained that it was part of a promise to learn to use them before visiting Asia and hopefully, practice makes perfect.

Everything I had hoped for my kids (and me!) to gain from hosting exchange students has happened. They are more excited about living in SE Asia, interested in other cultures and tolerant of other's differences. Really, it's been all I could hope for.

Quickly, before the tears fall

Since the 15th, we've had a 20-year-old Japanese exchange student living with us and I'm honestly amazed at the ease at which she integrated into our family. I'd been a bit worried that it would bother me or frustrate the kids, but it was, instead, a wonderful experience for us all.

Guilt pangs had bothered me, making me feel bad that Yurie had been 'stuck' with us, a poor family living in a small house, but we did our best to show her some fun, as well as a snippet of our American life. The kids were on great behavior for the first four or five days--refraining from the arguing that tends to permeate most interactions, willing to eat whatever I offered for dinner, even cleaning up after themselves if I asked them nicely (and gave them the raised-brow-"do it!"-look). By Wednesday we'd become comfortable enough with each other for the kids to gripe about the evening's lack of plans or balk at brushing their teeth before bed. Back to business as usual.

On Thursday, we went out to dinner at a Viet-Thai restaurant with her; A was reticent but willing to order the food in the language and got an enormous (though labeled small) dish of pho ga [with the appropriate marks that I can't seem to do from here]. Yurie had Thai food, green curry with rice, and attempted to show us how to use chopsticks correctly. A has it down pat, I'm getting there, but S may be resigned to eating with his fingers when we are abroad and fork-less.

My dear friend Keith's former housemate invited us over to use his pool on Friday when temperatures hit 104F (40C). What I had cautioned the kids would only be an hour-long excursion to the pool turned into more than 2 hours, but we still managed to leave before the kids annoyed all the child-free folks that inhabited the shallow end of the pool while my kids and Yurie had taken over the deep end with floaties, tubes and sinking dolphins.

Saturday was spent at my parent's house, an hour outside the city, enticing to a young lady from Tokyo. We passed all sorts of animals she'd only seen in zoos, including (on the way home) a dead skunk. Okay, so she'd only seen live skunks in the zoo, but they are more prevalent around here as road kill. There were goats, horses, cows, sheep and chickens. The country life was foreign to her, so we gave her a nice taste including the church picnic with bbq chicken, twelve varieties of potato and macaroni salads, a rope swing and the requisite bullhorn prayer. Then it was back to my parents' to use the zip line (a perennial favorite), make brownies, ginger snaps and mint brownies (per her request), walk in among the forest searching for deer tracks (found!), playing on the tree fort, etcetera.

Then my dad pulled out the big guns, quite literally. He asked if she was interested in shooting and not quite understanding what he meant, she declined. I explained a bit more that he had a few guns and that if she wanted to try them, he would help her and I would do it with her. All it took was a bit more understanding and she changed her mind, "oh yes, yes! Want to." So we found my dad, who, disappointed, had started back out to his shop to start work again, and told him that yes, she would like to try shooting. Out came the pistol, rifle and shotgun, along with a simplified English version of gun safety, including the fact that the one gun/bullet can travel up to 8 kms, so shooting into a stump was required. This was the result (click to see the movie):

An experience to remember to say the least, and sure beats visiting Washington Park.

We all had a great time hanging out, country-style for the day, having a slumber party at my folks' house for the night. I just wish that we hadn't been required to drop her off already. My nephew cried saying goodbye this morning, A said she felt just terrible about leaving her and I struggled to keep the tears out of my voice. I will miss her around here, but am so grateful for taking the chance in hosting a student. The second chance comes in just a few hours, anyway. Our new friend from China shows up at 10:30pm to start his week with us. We are eager to have him with our family, but already I am not looking forward to the drop-off in 10 days.

Zander takes on the globe

I am officially green with envy. Add to that list, one more fellow who is doing what he wants, where he wants. And, from the little I know of him, I think he's going to do some pretty great things. (Think I could convince you to vist Viet Nam next spring, Zander?)

through his eyes

Thanks to our good friend, Keith, my son has a wonderful little digital camera that he uses all the time. I particularly love it when he takes it on our little excursions. Sifting through the photos I get to see the activities through his eyes, something that is getting rarer as he gets older. Yesterday, we headed north to my sister's city of residence and wandered around the city park, watching the small town "fun" of log-chopping and elephant ears. S. asked to go down to the lake to take some photos, I okayed it and off he went. Last night I downloaded the photos and was impressed, yet again, by the lovely images he had captured. This is my favorite:


He's currently working on collecting photos for a book that we'll make for the school we work at in Viet Nam, including photos of his school here, downtown Portland, the forest and tree fort at his grandparent's house and typical tourist spots that we've visited. I am eagerly looking forward to the photos he takes while we are abroad.

Like mother, like daughter.

My daughter, A., is a list maker. Just like her father's mother. Just like me. She begged for a magnetic pad of paper from the dollar store last week. It's lined paper, with the heading of "The List" on each page. She won the argument and has used the pages diligently including this to-do list for going to the movies on Friday:
1. Get tickets.
2. Get food & drinks. [yes, she drew an ampersand]
3. Give ticket to person.
4. Find best seat in the house.
5. Talk quietly during the movie showing.
She carried it with her, crossing off each item as it happened (and as it so happened, #3 came before #2). Then refused to throw the list away.

Last night she indexed her blank book, marking pages to be used for "flower pictures," "word dictionary," "poems," "life stories/fairy tales," and "anything you want," then writing up the index at the back to point out where each is in relation to the others. Word Dictionary is before Poems. Poems are before Pictures. Anything You Want is in the middle and Life stories/Fairy tales are at the end.

It reminded me of the summer that I was 10; I marked and organized our small home library using the Dewey Decimal system. I saw the same look of pride I had felt then in A.'s eyes yesterday. The apple surely hasn't fallen far from the tree.