TINKERBELL, A PIRATE AND THE CONTESTANT

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

We had a fun Halloween this year. Camille was an American Idol Contestant, Abby was Tinkerbell and Tanner was a Pirate, which he bought with his own money.

Daren's parents are here this weekend and so for the first time in our marriage, Daren and I were able to go trick-or-treating with the kids together while his dad handed out the candy. It was awesome. Usually one of us takes the kids while the other hands out candy. It was great to be able to go together!

Pretty Tinkerbell

Scary Pirate

Future American Idol Contestant

THE PLAYSET

A few months ago in Bishopric meeting, our Bishop said his family was done with their playset (his youngest just turned 11.) Daren jumped at the chance to have it for our family. We were planning on buying one during the summer but since Bishop was getting rid of his, he said we could have it for free, we just needed to move it and it was ours! He lives about 5 houses down so Daren and the Bishop loaded up the playset in pieces and Daren assembled it.

The girls have been SO excited to paint it! I told them to find the ugliest, oldest clothes they have and they could help. They were out there for over 2 hours with Daren painting it. They were so cute!

Now all we need is woodchips! We will get those in the spring after the snow!

TEARS, TEARS AND MORE TEARS

Words cannot begin to describe the week our family has had with Sotaro. To say that we have had fun, laughed, learned, played, etc. are not enough. I NEVER imagined that Sotaro would capture our hearts the way he did. He is one of the most special people I have ever had the opportunity to know. He is smart and funny. He is kind and caring. He has a sweetness about him that has made our family closer. He has brought joy to our family.

My heart breaks tonight as we had our final evening together. I don't know if we will ever see Sotaro again and the thought of never seeing him makes me so sad. I have invited his family to come to America and stay with us. I know they love to ski as a family and it would be a dream come true to meet them. They must be amazing people to have such a wonderful son. I feel like I already know them because of Sotaro. I really hope they will be able to come to our home someday to visit.

We told Sotaro tonight how much we love him and we know he will be successful in whatever he pursues in life. We hope he will always remember us because we will NEVER EVER forget him. We hope that he always remembers that there is a family in America, The Bloxham Family, who loves him and is cheering him on to be successful in his life. May God bless you, Sotaro and be with you until we meet again!

My favorite Japanese friend...Sotaro Iinuma - - Out of all the Japanese people in the whole world, Sotaro is our favorite!

Tanner with one of Sotaro's teachers at the closing social

Daren, Sotaro, Abby and Tanner playing air hockey

Tonight we said our goodbye's to Sotaro. We take him to BYU very early in the morning. We gave him a lot of gifts to take home to his family. At the end of the evening Daren gave Sotaro one of his favorite things in the whole world...his BYU flag! For those of you who know us well, Daren's BYU flag hangs in front of our house EVERY Saturday in the fall when BYU has a football game. We love our flag. With tears and heavy hearts Daren wanted to give Sotaro his flag as a token of our love and friendship. We will miss you friend! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS

Today we went to Salt Lake City to hear Music and The Spoken Word. Every Sunday since 1929 the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs Music and The Spoken Word. While we were there, we saw other host families of Japanese students and Sotaro's teachers. The choir was beautiful and Sotaro seemed to enjoy it. He took a lot of pictures to show his family. As a special surprise, at the end of the Spoken Word, we realized that President Monson was there. It was such a blessing to see our Prophet.

The message today was called "Unexpected Blessings." That phrase captured up how I have felt all week having Sotaro in our home. He has been such a blessing to our family. I was not expecting such a wonderful blessing to come into our home. I am so grateful he was able to visit America and come into not only our home but into our hearts.

Temple Square - Salt Lake City

After the broadcast, we took a tour of Temple Square with some of the other Japanese students and their host families. We saw 2 of our neighbors there. It was a great morning!

After we came home, we built a fire in our backyard and roasted hotdogs. Sotaro LOVES hotdogs!! Then we made s'mores but he didn't really like them. He said they are too sweet. I love how the Japanese don't like a lot of sweets. I wish I could be more like that!

RISE & SHOUT

Today we went to the BYU football game. It was a lot of fun. I think Sotaro could understand how American football is played. He cheered for our BYU Cougars. After the game (we won, by the way) he was very tired. We are having a rest and then we will play games tonight.

STEAK & THE YANKEES

Just like our family, Sotaro LOVES steak. Tonight we took him to Texas Roadhouse. We ate steaks and Sotaro tried peanuts for the first time. He liked them. We also went to the mall and he bought some souvenirs for his family. He also bought a New York Yankees baseball hat, like Tanner has. Both Sotaro and Tanner like the Yankees.

Earlier in the day Sotaro visited a farm and did some work there. He brought us home a pumpkin from the farm. Tomorrow we are going to the BYU Football game. Our family LOVES BYU Football. We are really excited to take him there. Sotaro is such a joy to have around. He has brought our family a lot of happiness this week.

THURSDAY

Sotaro went to an American junior high today. Then he went to school with Tanner for the last hour of Tanner's school. The 6th graders thought Sotaro was really cool. After school, the girls gave Sotaro a snack that he has never tried before. POPSICLES! I found out that Sotaro loves grapes so he really liked the grape popsicle. He also likes peaches (momo) in Japanese. He ate momo yogurt during breakfast.


After a snack, Tanner showed Sotaro how to play Guitar Hero. Sotaro had never played it before. He was really good at it!



Then Sotaro's teachers came over for a visit. Our house was selected to have his teachers visit. It was really fun to meet them.

Tanner, Sotaro's teacher and Sotaro with Tanner's snake.


The Teachers, Tanner and Sotaro

After the teachers left, Sotaro and Tanner jumped on the trampoline.

We then went to Cornbelly's. We went to the cornmaze and played games.

Sotaro ate a corndog and LOVED it!

Riding bikes

When we came home Sotaro gave us more gifts. His family made us beautiful placemats. I started to cry when he gave them to us because they were so beautiful and his family made them for our family. When we signed up to have a Japanese student stay at our house, I NEVER imaged that this experience would be so wonderful. Sotaro is such an amazing person and I am already sad about him leaving on Tuesday. I really hope he can come visit again someday. We would LOVE for his family to come too. It is so wonderful having him here!

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT...

Daren was supposed to pick up the girls from dance at 5:00.

Frantic phone call at 5:00 from Daren.
Daren: The girls aren't here.
Julie: What do you mean they aren't there? (Anna picked them up from our house to take them to dance.)
Daren: DANCE! I'm at GYMNASTICS!

This is why I pray I don't die while my girls are little. They would be still standing outside of dance waiting for their dad with messy hair and clothes that don't match!

HAMBURGERS, FRIES AND CHOCOLATE

Today Sotaro went sight-seeing with some other Japanese students. He went to Temple Square in Salt Lake City, to the State Capitol-also in Salt Lake City. Then he went to Kennecott Mine. He really enjoyed the mine.

When he came home we went to Tanner's basketball practice. On the way home from basketball, we were talking about Tanner's hair and how there aren't many blondes in Japan. Tanner then taught Sotaro his favorite American sign:
For dinner, Sotaro loved our hamburgers, french fries and salad. He was really full but we begged him to eat some dessert. He ate a hot fudge brownie sundae.

After dinner, Sotaro was so kind and gave us all souvenirs from Japan. He brought the kids some yummy snacks and some toy erasers. He also gave us a Japanese kite and a fan. The funnest part of the evening was when Sotaro brought out his Japanese to English book with pictures. We all took turns trying to speak Japanese and have Sotaro guess what we were trying to say. We were all laughing really hard because none of us were very good with our Japanese.

We are having such a great time with Sotaro. His English is great. We can understand him really well. He is such a nice young man. He is well-mannered and is a lot of fun! He fits in great with our family.

More tomorrow. He is going to an American junior high all day tomorrow. Then, our house was selected by Sotaro's school to be toured by his teachers. We are really excited to meet his teachers!

P.S. Sotaro told me tonight the he likes meat, not very many vegetables, and he likes chocolate! Perfect answers! That describes our family perfectly!

WELCOME SOTARO!

Tonight we picked up Sotaro. He is great. He is a very nice young man and we are going to have a great time with him this week. He is really funny and laughs at all of our jokes. We can understand each other pretty well.

After we picked up Sotaro we were all really hungry. We went to eat pizza at Brick Oven. Sotaro has never tried rootbeer. We gave him some to drink. He did not like it because it is too sweet. Tanner, on the other hand drank so much that he had a stomach ache!

We learned that Sotaro likes to ski. We are sad that we don't have snow yet. (He came a month too soon.) If we had snow we would all go skiing this weekend. Bummer! We also learned that Sotaro's dad is an engineer for Sanyo and makes TV's and DVD players. Tanner thought that was the coolest job ever! His mother is a pharmacist.

Sotaro seems happy to be here in America but he seems very tired from his long airplane ride.

Tomorrow Sotaro is going sight-seeing with the other Japanese students. When he gets home, we will go to Tanner's basketball practice and eat an American dinner - hamburgers, french fries and brownies!

THANK YOU Iinuma for sharing your son with our family!

WE ARE SO EXCITED!

TONIGHT we are picking up our Japanese student at BYU. We are so excited to meet Sotaro Iinuma. He is a 14 year-old student who will be staying with our family for a week. We have a lot of fun things planned while he is here. I will be keeping my blog updated everyday so Sotaro's family can see pictures of him while he is in America.

There are 6 Japanese students from Sotaro's school who will be staying in our neighborhood. So if he gets too homesick there are 5 other students close by. I have 2 friends who speak Japanese. One of them brought over a note written in Japanese for Sotaro. I can't read any of it because it is in Japanese but my friend told me it was a welcome note with her phone number in case he needs anything.

Sotaro's family has a link to our blog. I hope they will know how excited we are to meet their son. I'm sure his family is nervous about him coming to America but I hope through this website that they will know their son is doing well and enjoying America.

MY PLANS ARE RUINED!

WHEN I do Camille's hair in a way that she doesn't like she cries and says, "You Ruined Me!"

WELL tonight, Cougars - YOU RUINED ME!!

WE had some friends over to watch that horrible, so-called game BYU attempted to play against TCU. After the game we were licking our wounds, realizing we won't be spending New Years in the Valley of the Sun (my favorite place to be in the winter, by the way), we will end up at some lame bowl in Boise or Albuquerque, we won't be ranked anymore, we just flushed away a chance to go to a BCS bowl, we were out coached and outplayed, yada yada yada.

WHEN all of a sudden we heard DING-DONG on our front door. And this is what we saw:

The paint wasn't even dry yet. It says "This Is Our House!"

Notice it is cut out like the state of Utah

Our flag which we hang faithfully in front of our house before EVERY game was desecrated by a band of hooligans! Dang you Wendels... Dang you!!

I am seriously scared to death that I'm going end up with that stupid U of U trailer in my yard! (See 2 posts down)

WELCOME TO MY WORLD!

Daren had to go to St. George for a couple days for work. He decided to take Abby with him and drop her off at my parents house in Cedar City. Abby was so excited!

Call #1: 2 minutes after departure

Daren: Yeah...we aren't even to the temple yet and Abby has to go potty!

Julie: Laughter...it's going to be a LONG 3 hours for him!

Call #2: 20 minutes after departure

Daren: Just left the gas station. Abby feels much better. She won't stop talking and I can't hear sports radio so I bought her a Gatorade and Oreos!

Julie: Again... laughter. Abby has a bladder the size of a thimble. And he just bought her a Gatorade, which doesn't come in a small container. Oreos? Really? It's 9:30am? No wonders why my kids like to travel with Daren more than me!

Call #3: Just south of Nephi

Daren: I can't get sports radio anymore so Abby let's hear all of your questions and comments now.

Julie: Apparently the Gatorade is gone and so are the Oreos!

Call #4: Meadow, Utah

Another potty break

Call #5: Cedar City, Utah

Daren: Just dropped off Abby. Our conversation from Meadow to Cedar City went something like this:

Abby: Dad guess what? Blah blah blah

Daren: That's great Abby

Abby: Dad guess what? Blah blah blah

Daren: That's great Abby

Abby: Are we there yet? How much longer? Is it longer than if I count to 100 3 times?

Daren: Yeah a little longer than that.

Abby: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

Daren: Count in your head Abby.

Abby: Dad guess what? Blah blah blah

Daren: That's great Abby

(The above repeated for an hour and a half!)

Julie: WELCOME TO MY WORLD!

RIVALRY WEEK HAS BEGUN A MONTH EARLY!

Travis & Daren - Even when they do yard work they are appropriately dressed

We have these really fun neighbors, The Wendels. They are great people and we totally love them, except for 1 thing! THEY ARE UTE FANS!! I mean they are BIG TIME UTE FANS! We have had so much fun with them through the years, especially during rivalry week. This year since The Utes and BYU are both undefeated and aspiring for a BCS bowl, THE PRESSURE IS ON!

Both Daren and Travis agree on 1 thing. Every football fan in the state of Utah needs to be rooting for both BYU and The U of U right now. These 2 teams need to go into the rivalry game at the end of November undefeated. Secretly, I think Daren is just hoping that the ESPN crew shows up in Salt Lake so he can go see Lee Corsco and that Herbstreet guy.

A Bet Has Been Placed. The losing family (which will be The Wendels) will have this placed in their front yard after the game: (By the way, when BYU wins we will be redecorating the trailer.)

And who wouldn't want THAT sitting in their front yard! This is one game I PRAY the Cougars don't lose!

SOMETHING TO CHEER ABOUT!

Abby, Camille and Erica

My friend Anna had this picture on her blog and I realized I totally forgot to blog about the girls cheer camp a couple weeks ago. This whole blogging thing is still new to me.

ANYWAY, Camille and Abby participated in the American Fork High School Cheer Clinic. They learned cheers and dances with the cheerleaders. The best part of the clinic was that they were able to participate with their friends and perform at halftime at the football game. They were so cute! They still perform the cheers they learned around the house.

Camille and Abby are so blessed to have so many friends in our neighborhood. They love to play, dance and cheer with all of them!

P.S. Anna I hope you had fun in New York! I've thought about you all weekend and was extremely jealous of you & Mark's trip. Welcome home!

FIRST CLASS!

TONIGHT Tanner earned the ranking of 1st Class! He has worked really hard in his scout troop. His scout leaders work with the boys to be a 1st Class by the time the scout is 12. Tanner earned this rank advancement 2 months ahead of this goal. Way to go Tanner! He also earned 5 merit badges tonight-Forestry, Geology, Citizenship in the Nation, Environmental Science and Music. He currently serves as Patrol Leader in his troop. We are really proud of you Tanner! Keep up the great work!

CONGRATULATIONS TANNER!

Tanner tried out for a 6th grade basketball team at The Factory! There were over 40 kids trying out for 3 teams. He worked hard and did his best! Congrats on making the team. We are really proud of you!

#1 FAN LAYS IT ALL ON THE LINE!

HERE'S THE DEAL--My husband bleeds blue, I mean true BYU blue. Typically his days (especially in the fall) include reading the BYU boards, checking out new recruits, getting any and all facts pertaining to the team, coaches and players. On Saturday and Sunday evenings he LOVES to watch Sportsbeat on KSL at 10:35. Me on the other hand, would LOVE to go to bed at 10:35 but can't because Tom Kirkland, Bronco Mendanhall or various other sports figures invade my bedroom.

Deep down in my Aggie heart, I've always cheered for the Aggies to do well. I attended Utah State and I love it when the little guy upsets the big guy. I also love it when Utah State beats BYU and recovers the prized "Wagon Wheel." Daren knows and accepts my devotion to Utah State. He loves to point out to me that Utah State started out this season DEAD LAST in all of the polls. I think they've moved up a spot or two since.

In tonight's game, #7 BYU is taking on the lowly Aggies of Utah State. (Go Aggies, Go Aggies, hey, hey hey!) Daren is SO confident of BYU defeating the Aggies that he came up with an idea. He said that IF BYU loses he will NEVER attend another BYU game again. He will NEVER read the BYU boards again. He will NEVER watch Sportsbeat again. In essence, he will NEVER be a BYU fan again! For me, the mere proposition of being able to go to bed at a decent hour on Saturday and Sunday nights without Bronco in my bedroom sounds heavenly!

However, I am so torn. On one hand I really want Utah State to be the BCS Buster and beat BYU. I would FOREVER and EVER have bragging rights in the entire Bloxham Family! On the other hand, I want BYU to win because it would be awesome to keep the 'Quest For Perfection' alive and well. I know that if Utah State wins and Daren has to give up his self-induced punishment for losing, I would totally have mercy on him. How could I deny the guy access to his beloved Cougs? Seriously, what would the fall be like around here without them? So I think IF by some freak of nature, Utah State can pull out the upset, a trip to Hawaii would be redemption enough for the #1 Fan to still be a fan! As my friend Pam says in reference to BYU, "Why get upset over things you can't control!"

Little side note here-Somewhere, someplace on the other side is our beloved Grandpa Bloxham. He would always give me grief about being an Aggie fan. The last time we ever saw him was 2 years ago at the BYU/Utah State game. BYU won by a large amount. After the game, he looked at me and said, "Maybe next year, kid!" He passed away 48 hours later. I really miss him at the games and especially in the fall! But I know somewhere he is still cheering for the Cougs and would be giving me grief today about the Aggies. WE MISS YOU Grandpa!!!