One of our favorite family traditions is being a host family for 1 week for a Japanese student. We look forward to this each year.
This year, Tomoya Kimura is staying with us.
In keeping with tradition, after we pick him up at BYU we go eat pizza at Brick Oven. We had Tomoya taste rootbeer. Like all of our other students, he did not like it and said it tasted like medicine. We always love watching their face when they taste it for the first time.
Several of our neighbors are host families as well. They came to eat pizza with us with their Japanese student.
After dinner, Tomoya gave us some awesome souvenirs. The kids were so excited!
Tomoya brought Abby a book of how to do origami. He is a good teacher.
Each year when the students come, I always think of their mothers and how scary it would be to send your teenage son to a foreign country to live with strangers for 1 week. I hope to update this blog each day from a mother to a mother. Because no matter where in the world you live, a mother's heart always worries about her children.
When Tomoya called home tonight, it was fun to talk to his mother on the phone. I can tell she is an amazing mother and I admire women who love to be mothers.
But everyone had fun trying. Tanner found a cat and was disappointed that I told him the cat was NOT coming home with us.
We told Tomoya he should take the cat back to Japan for a souvenir. He laughed and said he can't take pets home.
After fishing, we went souvenir shopping at the mall. Then the boys went to Jump On It. They had a great time.
Tanner loves the rock wall.
And Tomoya loved the trampolines.
Tomoya wanted to eat hamburger and cola while he was in America. So we went to the best hamburger joint around...JCW's. Abby is going to be VERY sad when Tomoya leaves on Monday. She follows him around EVERYWHERE!
While we were at the restaurant, Tomoya saw some of his friends.
We had a lot of fun eating.
