Goodbye Yumiko. We will miss you!

***Update: We received a call from Yumiko yesterday and she is home safely. AND! The airline did NOT charge her for the extra box. They told her she was lucky...indeed she was! I do think, however that if she showed up with a 75-lb suitcase, they would have fined her. I'm glad we decided on the extra box instead.***

Well, we said goodbye to our Yumiko yesterday. We know she is happy to be with her husband and family again, but we really enjoyed having her in our home. She was more than happy to pitch in with helping with dishes, watching the kids (only occasionally-I made sure of that!) and joining us on family outings. When she first arrived, she was staying with another woman while she attended classes in Orange County and she was texting her husband on her cell phone to the tune of $200 a month (go ahead and gasp, I did!). We IMMEDIATELY set her up with a Yahoo email account and she happily emailed her husband every day. Then she met up with some au pairs from the same organization that she came with and they convinced her that she needs a Facebook account. So being the cool Facebook mom that I am, I showed her how to create a FB account. Now she and I can email and FB to keep in touch. That's been the best part of technology. I have kept in contact with many of the students that stayed with us due to email. We had a student from Russia several years ago and until email, it was difficult to stay in touch because the Russian mail system was unreliable-and she was renting a room from a crazy woman, but that's another story.

Back to Yumiko. I called the airline to find out what the checked baggage requirements were. To go from Los Angeles to Tokyo economy class you are allowed 2 checked bags and a carry-on. Checked bags cannot be more than 50lbs. One of her bags was a whopping 75lbs! Overweight bags will be fined $252.00!!!! (yes, gasp again!) So, how much if she has an extra bag? Answer: $84.00. Better, but still yucky. I asked if the "luggage" could be a box? Answer: Yes. DONE! We put the extra 25lbs of stuff into an archive box, taped it good and tight, printed an address label so it wouldn't get lost and off she went!

It was great having her stay with us. Having international students is always an adventure. We have had a great many stay with us. Some have been not so great, but the majority have been wonderful and has given our children a positive view of other cultures and traditions and has been teaching them how to be hospitable and share their blessings with others. All in all, a good experience.

Valentine's Banquet

We had the Valentine's Day banquet at church last night and it was very cute. First I must brag on my son's guitar playing and TaeKwonDo demonstration. He did a great job and at least one mom was impressed that he was a green belt! The mistakes the kids made just made it all the more cute. Quite funny.

I also have to brag on the job my friends, Michelle and Karen and I did on the HUGE cardboard backdrop that the kids used to tell their jokes through (like the old "Laugh-In" show). It was quite the undertaking. First, Karen and I broke down boxes and taped them together to make the "canvas" and then trimmed it down to the size we needed. Then Michelle hoisted it (by herself if you can visualize that!) onto some trellis with zip ties so that we could paint it. Then we got an overhead projector and outlined the design then painted it. Then we trimmed out the "windows" for the kids to talk through, placed the "confetti" and Rick attached it to some brackets with sandbags on the legs to keep it from falling forward. It took a week and a half to get it all done and we were so happy with the result!

Me, Michelle, and Karen in front of our backdrop.

You can just see Peter poking his head out above the "I"

We invited our neighbor, Liz to the program and she really enjoyed it too. I was concerned because she and my sister ended up sitting next to each other and didn't know each other. I shouldn't have worried. They talked all night about their cats and the new motorcycle my sister just bought (she got a great deal on a new purple and silver Harley that she is having built and will be ready in April!) My mother-in-law, Gladys was sitting next to Dana and they had a great time too. Yumiko took pictures with all the friends she had met over the last 6 months from church and was sad to leave. She heads back to Japan on Saturday morning. We will miss her very much but we know that she is looking forward to being home with her husband and family.

Yumiko, Liz, Dana, Gladys

Liz and Caroline

The kids danced the Macarena and the Chicken Dance and the parents had to join in. Yumiko was surprisingly good at both considering she had never seen either one done before.

Liz and Yumiko dancing the Chicken Dance

Yumiko, Peter, Me, Caroline

We had a wonderful time and the kids enjoyed performing for the parents. Michelle (the Ebay queen!) is hoping to sell the Fiesta board on Craigslist for Cinco de Mayo. Takers anyone??

Tree Decorating!

We decorated our tree Monday night and it was a lot of fun. We actually took pictures of the decorating this year because, well we have a blog to post them on! Yumiko got to help decorate the tree and we gave her her very own Christmas stocking to hang. We're looking forward to making cookies for Santa and doing our Christmas program at church and doing some shopping and gift wrapping. Going to Grandma's on Christmas Eve and enjoying spending time with family and cousins. What is frightening is the short amount of time I have to do all of this! Yikes!

One of the things I have done every year is create an ornament and put in it things that are significant to our family that year. I have done this since Rick and I were engaged and I put the rose he proposed to me in it (dried out, of course). I'll post some pictures below of some of the ones I've done. I haven't made this year's ornament yet, but when I do, I'll post it.

Yumiko, Caroline and Peter in front of the tree.

Yumiko got the honor of putting the angel on the tree. We call the angel "Dolly" because her sleeves are so puffy that when you look up at her, she looks like Dolly Parton (well, part of her anyway).

We got Yumiko her own stocking. She loved it.

This ornament is the one I made the year we were married. The coin in it is from Jamaica, where we honeymooned and the ribbon and velvet flowers are from my wedding bouquet, which had artificial flowers.

This is the ornament from Peter's first Christmas. The outfit he's wearing he wore at his baby dedication. I had that outfit for 2 solid years before he came home. Sniff!

This is Caroline's First Christmas ornament. There is a piece of jade hanging below the ribbon (can't see it) that was given to us by our guide when we adopted her. The diamondy ladybug just below her face was found by my niece in MN (thanks Abby!). Ladybugs are the unofficial mascot of adoption from China.

This is an ornament I made just because I liked the picture I copied it from :)

I'm still a bit behind on things and haven't even started Christmas cards. Sigh.