Famous International Soup

Well, Isaac has created his own soup recipe. It is actually delicious. He has served it to us here in America, to the French, Germans, and now the Chinese. Chinese? When did they come into the picture? Well, On January 16, we were blessed with the opportunity to have 2 beautiful University students from China come to stay with us for 2 weeks.

Rebecca and Jenny are perfect visitors and they are having so much fun here! While our weekends have been lighter than in the past, our weeks have been longer since I  have been teaching the classes 3 hours a day.

On Sunday, January 22, we were extremely lucky to be able to celebrate their Spring Festival with them. This is their New Year’s Eve day and they cooked about 9 dishes for us to try. Yummy!

Before dinner we surprised them with traditional red envelopes with money inside ($2 bills).

One More Year

Isaac is officially 9 years years old. Well, as of one week and 3 hours 20 minutes ago =)

He got all the essential nine year old list: Bear handbook, Bear neckerchief, Bear slide, pocket knife (well he bout that himself with his own money a week before his birthday so we need to get him is tote and chip card), knife sharpening stone, flint and steel, camera, and new helmet for his bike. I know I am missing some since he got 9 presents, but I think that is enough for the list =) We are taking him rock climbing at an indoor rock place soon. He has decided to save all his money for an IPod Touch. I am hoping the 3 years it will take him will give him the motivation to scratch the idea. On the other hand, he will be 12 and that doesn’t sound too bad of a gift for a 12 year old. I bet Apple will have an even better one by then!

Anyway,

Happy Birthday, Isaac. We love you!

Over the River and Through the Woods to High School Frederike goes =)

I was super silly and made her take a picture of her first day of school!

Frederike started Encore High School on Thursday. She was very nervous about meeting new people and them not understanding her. Of course the day was great! She met so many nice people. By Friday afternoon she was the talk of the school. They all talk about her great style of clothing and hair! She is enrolled in Jazz dance, Ballet, costume design, and Guitar. Oh and Pre-calculus, English, Chemistry, and U.S. History. On her first day of history, they talked about WWII. Perfect place for a person from Germany and lives 4 hours west of Berlin! She can teach them about WWII. She is hoping to be in their performance of Cats next month and to learn a love song to play on the guitar for her boyfriend in Germany (who owns a guitar but doesn’t play).

For dinner she picked tacos. Yep, that’s my girl! She got to eat on the ‘Blue Plate’ and we made authentic German Chocolate Cake for her (haha, she has never had German Chocolate cake before).

Big Canyon

To help Frederike adjust to the time change, we took her on a trip to the Grand Canyon, aka Big Canyon if you ask Benjamin, less than a week after she arrived. We thought 6 hours in the car looking at the desert might help her sleep a bit =) While there, we visited 2 Native American Ruins, a volcano, and the Grand Canyon.

Walnut Canyon National Monument

The Watchtower at the Grand Canyon

The Big Canyon

Sunset Crater National Monument

Wupatki National Monument

On top of the World!

EVIL! Just Plain Evil!

So, two years back we have a friendly little squirrel that actually came up to our sliding glass door and stood on his hind legs with his paws on the door to say thank you for all the apples and plums he ate right off my tree! Last summer, he brought a friend and ate all of my tomatoes!

Just now, we were sitting up stairs pretending to be busy doing school when we heard someone knocking on our security door. I naturally thought is was one of the neighbor kids politely knocking =) HA! I went down stairs and opened the door and THAT SQUIRREL was sitting on the ground next to the door just popping in to say hello and that he is back for year three! I feel like the people in Over the Hedge =)

Frederike is HERE!!!

We arrived at the airport around 6 o’clock. We helped the children pass the time by taking pictures of the airplane landing. Here is the extremely busy and over crowded Ontario Airport =)

She arrived right on time! And we were all very excited to see her!

We then headed to California’s greatest burger joint…. IN-N-OUT.

She really liked it!

We came home and were showered with gifts!

She brought us her favorite game to play with her family =)

Skip-Bo!

Now, is time for bed… tomorrow… COSTCO =)

It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s Frederike in a Plane!

According to my calculations, Frederike is either in her first of 3 airplanes or almost in her first of 3 airplanes! Oh are we excited! She will be with us until June. I am going to share some of her surprises! Our first destination will be In-n-Out! Yummy! Then, on Thursday…. COSTCO!!!!!!!! One of my favorite places =) Friday, my parents house to pick oranges for some tasty fresh squeezed juice and maybe some homemade marmalade! Oh, and the high has been in the 80’s all week, so maybe some swimming. Only in Southern California! Monday we leave for the Grand Canyon. But, the biggest surprise she will have is……… 

She is almost finished!

Well, right now our house looks likes this…

so, I had better get to work =)