Girls visit High School, Rollair#3

Today we woke up so early because we had to pick the girls from their house and drop them at Manitowoc lutheran high school. We picked Carrot up first because her house near ours. After that we picked June up. I called her host family 5 minutes before we arrived. When we arrived, I found the June just woke up when I called. She was ready but she didn't eat breakfast. We picked Didi up last.

They were talking about jumping into the cold lake and dominating people. Didi said she is gonna jump tomorrow and dominate to me and Goerge. I told her she has to be wet head to toe so she can dominate. I'm scared! I don't want to jump into cold water. 

We met the principle and Carry, international coordinator at the school office. Carry gave buddy for each girls. They seem like nice girl. Since June, Didi and Carrot are already in Grade8. We want to give them an experience how high school be like.
In the future, if they're consider going abroad they will have some idea about hight school.

After we dropped the kids, we went to buy snack at Copps and we went to the library to get some work done. I did a lot of work. Around 3 o'clock, we picked the kids up. We didn't have time to eat so we just ate some snack at the gas station. We got there just in time. We took a group photo and leaved.

While we're walking to our RED car, we felt like Carrot didn't follow so we turn around and saw Carrot was opening the door of a grey car and she was going to sit in there. By our look, she realized she got on a wrong car. Somehow she thought our car was grey.

George asked them about the day. They seem to have fun. They're excited about Jean, the Thai boy who stays long term. They also gossip about Win that he didn't talk to them at all. Win pretend like he didn't know them and he only talks in English with American friends. The girls said it's pretty annoyed to hear him speaking English. Hahaha.

After we picked the kids up, we asked them where they want to get ice-cream and they choose Menchie's because Carrot hasn't been there before. They can eat a lot! George and I shared one 7 oz cup but the kids got 10oz each. 

After we finished, Carrot and June wanted to spend time at Didi's house before go skating. Carrot and June called their host mom and they're fine about it. But they forgot to think about Didi's host family. Didi called her host and she found that her host mom wasn't home. George had to bring the girl to the library instead. Hahaha Around 5:30pm Didi's host mom called us back and finally the girls were allowed to visit.

Around 6:30 pm. George and I met June, Didi, Carrot, In and Pooh at the Rollair.
George and I talked to their host family about all the funny stuffs. We went home at 8:30pm.

Tomorrow, George and I are going to St.Norbert and on the way back to Valders we will visit schools.
It's gonna be another long day.

Last Monday in Wisconsin

Today George and I stayed home all day. We checked all the reservation for our Chicago trip. 

Hotels, Six flag tickets, transportation from Gurnee to O'hare. We decided to get a 12 passengers van to move the kids and luggage between first hotel to the second hotel.

Around 3 o'clock,we say goodbye to Pam(George's sister). She flied back to Florida today.
George's parent sent her to the airport in Appleton.

Tomorrow we're taking June, Didi and Carrot to visit Manitowoc Lutheran High School.
We called their host family about it and we found that Carrot was going to jump to the lake in 10 minutes.
That sounds excited. George and I went out to meet Carrot and her host family at the lake immediately.

The weather was about 9c. but it's windy and the water was really cold. It's about 1-2c.
Just a little bit above 0c. There's a baby in Green Bay who has cancer and people help him to get doantion by jumping to the cold lake and upload video, also get ask 3 more people to do it and share.
Carrot and her host sibling did it too. I can't believe Carrot was going to jump. It's COLD. Carrot forgot to put Didi and June names in the video so she jumped another time for them and jump another time for fun. So total Carrot jumped 3 times. She is so crazy. She said the water was so cold and her legs numb. She felt like she swam slowly even she really tried hard. Hahaha

Tomorrow we will pick June, Carrot and Didi at their house and drop them at Manitowoc High School and then we will go talk with some school. We're going to swim at the YMCA Manitowoc instead of Roller Skate(this one is not cold). On Wednesday, we're going to Green Bay to get some flyers from St.Norbert and we will visit some school in the city on the way there. The rest of the day this week we will do some computer work and lesson plan for our center. We're getting ready for WORK. I feel sad. :( I don't want to go back yet.

Shawano

Yesterday after we had breakfast with George's parent and his sister, Pam that just fly to surprised George's mom from Florida.  

George and I went to Shawano. It is George's home town. He was raised there when he was 5 months to 13 years old. It took about 2 hours to drive up there. We stayed at Four Season Resort. We visited George's big sister, Diann. She lives here. After that we went to eat dinner at The Studio. It's similar to Rupp's. George had prim rib again. I had pasta. It was too big. I couldn't finish it. 

Last night was also Prom night for most of the schools. We saw some students couple dress up in the restaurant. 

We went to casino after dinner. I lose money again but I got free soda hahaha. 

People smoke in the casino and it smell so bad. We spent an hour in there and we went to Bowling lane to play pool. We went back to the hotel at 11 pm.

(Sturgeon Park, where Sturgeon fishs lay eggs.) 

Today we woke up at 8 am. We had breakfast and went to see Diann before we left to Shawano lake where George's old house is. George showed me his area and we ate lunch opposite to his house.

(This is half of $6 meal)

There's sunday special menu. It's 4 pieces of chicken and mash potato, corn and bread. We ordered one dish and share. The cook put it in 2 plate for us. 2 pieces of chicken each plate and she gave extra mash potato, corn, bread. She also gave us 2 cups of soup. The meal costs only 6$. She is so nice and I love her mash potato. 

This house was George's house that he would sells fishing stuff, drink and snack for tourists. It isn't change but the area around the house change a little bit. George is sad that some of his play area becomes road and house.

On the way we drove back home, George stopped at the art place he came

When he was young. There's a play at that time so we decided to watch it. It was 2 hours show. A lot of old people love it. They laughed so laud. I think it's funny too but I didn't laugh that laud. 

We passed Green bay so we stopped to get yogurt at Smart Cow. Before we're home, We stopped at Asia market in Manitowoc. We saw Durian! We bought it for 13$ We wanted to show it to George's family. 

I spent all of my evening energy to break it down to pieces. I bleed myself. 

It's so hard to open because the shop freeze it. 

I let George's mom and sister try. Nobody likes it. George's dad didn't even want to try because of the smell.

George's sister, Pam said it smells like onion. Hahaha

I guess I have to eat the whole Durian. It tastes good. 

I thought it'd not as good as durian in Thailand but I was wrong. 

I afraid George's parent will smell it when I eat it. I have to be careful. I'd run to the basement to eat it and come back. I throw away the seed outside the house. We shouldn't buy this durian. 

I mean I didn't really want to eat it and it costs me a lot of work.

Visit Win at home, Looooong Day

Today was a long day. I woke up at 7 am. because we had a meeting with a property manager at 8 am. at Four Season restaurant. It was raining and cold. I don't like waking up early and the weather today makes it worse. We ate breakfast and talked with Robert. He is a nice guy and he knows what he's doing.

After a meeting, we went to talk to the school in Manitowoc and we went to Two River, the town next to Manitowoc.

We ate lunch at local restaurant. I'm so bored with fried stuffs but I didn't have much choices if we eat out.

We visited another 2 new schools there. The principle at L.B. Clarke Middle School is a very nice lady. She is very proud of her school. She showed us her school and we think her school is so nice.

(One brick, one student)

They have different kind of management. They have each grade a house. House is a big room, separate to 4 sessions. So grade 7 students will be in the same big room and separate to each sessions then they rotate to each session. There're 5 teacher in each house. They'll talk to each other about their lesson plan.

(Wood work shop)

(Music Room)

They also have a very nice library. They have many specialize teacher for many type of kids.
I love this school. Everybody is friendly and has a good mind.

After visiting school, we have 3 hours before visiting Win at home so we stopped at game shop for George. I slept in the car for an hour. When he came back we went to Starbucks because George wanted to cheer me up. I felt so down today. I felt tired. He thought coffee might make me feel better. But sadly that this Starbucks sucks. They didn't turn on the heater! I felt so cold. I don't understand why they have to be stingy about it. I never go there again.

Around 6 :15 pm. we left to visit Win at his house. His house is next to the school that his host dad is a principle. It's near the church too. We talked to Win and his host family. They're so funny. We're joking all the time. Win is really happy and he gets along very well with his host family. I think because he thinks fast so he can return the joke when his host family teasing him. His host family really want to keep him here. They said they tried to convince Win to study here but it doesn't work (yet) hahaha.

He told us about his ESL class at school. He and Jean (Thai boy) are on the same side and Korean boys are in the same side and fight each other over about Thai eat elephant and Korean eat dogs.
Oh he also told us the Jean had a date one day! (Where's Kay? Do you see this?)

(He got mustache from Eater basket)

We told Win that next week, Carrot, Didi and June will visit his school and he has to be a good host for them. He is so sad about it. He said he doesn't like girl hahaha. He said he's gonna try break his arm and legs so he doesn't have to go to school. We're teasing him that in the future he will be begging girl like those girls to date with him. Haahahaha.

We left his house around 8:15pm. I'm tired. Tomorrow we won't go out. George will go play game in the evening but I'll stay home and rest. On Saturday, we will go up to Shawano, George's home town.
I'm sad that the racing is cancel. We wanted to go on Sat because of it. Such a sad day. Poor Patty.

Visit June's house, Jenn's Java#4

Today we woke up early and started to work early.
We visited 4 new schools in the area in the morning and we went to eat lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings with Bob and his wife. Bob is George's older brother. I ordered original wings with Thai curry sauce. It's not spicy. It tastes like Japanese Curry. The wings are pretty big.

Last night, George's temporary front tooth popped out from his gum.(He is in dental implant process.) He has to use his father tooth glue to stick the tooth back. So today he has to eat boneless chicken. He actually like the bone. Poor man. 

It's so funny because today when we were eating with Bob and Judy. George told them about it and Judy was kind of freak out about it. And after we finished eating, George's tooth popped out again and George showed to Bob and Judy. Hahahhha She didn't like it at all.

After lunch, we went to visit 2 schools in Manitowoc and we stopped by at the library then we went to June's house. We talked to Kris about June. Today wasn't a good day for her but she was happy because June finally played kick ball and Twister today. Kris is a little bit concern about June. June is pretty passive and Kris afraids that June will be too bored.

I talked to June and she said she's fine. She doesn't want to play kick ball at the neighbor's house because she feels like she hold the team back (and I think she feels like the neighbor cheats her but she doesn't really know the rules well so she can't argue with them.) I asked her about food. She said she loves their food. They eat all the time. Their last meal is 10 pm. and they eat it seriously on the table. Hahaha

They played Twister together.

We left June's house and went to Jenn's Java. I don't feel like coming here. I afraid of the game's guy. I don't want to be scold. But today he is happy. We found that the game Didi's spill cocoa on is gone.

In and her host family came to Jenn's Java today. They played game together while adults were talking.

Visit Pooh, Japan and Dada at school | Visit In at home

Today we woke up at 8 o'clock. We ate cereal and I cooked soft taco for lunch.
I have to boil black bean which takes time. But it makes the taco taste good.

George told Sarah " Happy Birthday" and Sarah asked him for kiss and hug. Hahaha
George didn't do it so I hug her instead.

We leaved the house around 9:10 am. We went to talk to the bank about house loan for an hour.
We went to St. Francis middle school to talk about next year. The principle worked at Valders before so he knows our program but he has to present to the broad anyway.

After that we visited Pooh at his school for lunch break. He was eating hot lunch in the canteen with friends. We don't like to video and taking photo in canteen because most of the time Thai kids will be VERY SHY.
But we took some from far away anyway hahahaha.

After lunch, students went outside to play for 20 minutes. Pooh played Zombie Tag with his friends. He run very fast so his friends are kind of give up on taking him. The weather today wasn't cold but very windy. George felt cold but Pooh can run around with t-shirt.

Pooh doesn't stick around with Jacob all the time which is good that he can find friends with same interested.

But what is really great about Pooh is he is very confidence in class. He is one in 2 kids on this trip that answer questions to the teacher in class same like other American kids. I think that's really cool!

Jacob wasn't study with him on this class today because he forgot his instrument or something and he had to go to the music class instead.

We went to the other school we drove pass near by Japan and Dada school to talk with the principle but the principle was in the meeting. We waited for a while but seem like she wasn't gonna finished soon. So we left our info and phone number.

We arrived at Japan and Dada school around 2 pm. We visited them at the classroom. They're in the different class. Dada was so shy that we came for video. She tried not to smile or move. So these are pictures we got from her.

We talked to her teacher. She said Dada is doing fine. She fits right in with students in class.

She doesn't need buddy anymore because she kind of has her gang.

We went to see Japan another room across to Dada's room. He and his team was in the game that teacher will tell them the math question and if they're correct, their team will get point. Japan was doing math problem when we came in. He was really in to the game. 

Japan also was trying to answer questions. He actually had the right answer.
His teacher told us that one day Japan came to her and point out that she did the math wrong and his was right. Hahahaha

We're really proud of Japan this year. He make a big progress. He is friendly, talkative and playful. He makes joke with friends in poem class. He is laugh and happy. He is totally difference from last year.

This is the picture from last year and this year. He has grown up!




After we finished with the schools, we went to In's host family house at 4:00 pm.
In and Emma were making their bed when we arrived. There's a dog, names Harley. He likes me. Hahaha
But he bark a lot tho. In and Emma get along very well. In follows Emma like a shadow. They ran around in the house tried to find the cat.

(In showed her rubber band thing that she got from Easter)

George and I were surprised when we heard In talks to Emma. She talks laud and clear and her accent is very good, just like Emma!When Emma says something she doesn't understand, she asks. Whatever Emma does, she will does it too. It's really amazing. But when we (adults) ask In questions about her friends at school. She doesn't talk. She's just smile and say yes or no. So right now she mostly only talks with Americans I guess. Hahaha

She is happy and active.

(They tried to find the cat)

(They're playing with Harley)

I feel like we did a lot of work today and I feel a little bit tired. We went home after visit In.
We didn't go to the Rollair because today it George's mom birthday and we might go out for dinner with his parent.