Wednesday, July 16, 2008

He's Gone

This weekend our foreign exchange students went to San Francisco, and we went camping with three other families up in Bass Lake, California. We camped at a beautiful campsite right on the lake...well not exactly ON the lake but the lake touched our campsite...here's a photo from our campsite.

We had some visitors in the morning...

Beautiful you say????? Let me tell you these geese must never sleep! Starting at 9pm both nights they started honking...and they honked all night long. Now if they would have honked in a rhythmic way, that might have lulled me to sleep...but no!!!! All night long we heard "honk, honk, honk, honk, honk...pause for 12 seconds, then 5 honks with an 8 second pause. The pattern continually changed and kept us awake the first night...sigh.

On Sunday the four families rented a boat and we also rented a big thing (like an innertube without the hole in the center) and took turns taking rides on it. It was so much fun! Sorry, no pictures of me in a bathing suit. I have the pictures, but there is no way that I would post them! lol

Monday night Surya left to go back to Indonesia:~( Words cannot express how sad we all feel. He was such a great kid, saying goodbye to him was really difficult. Needless to say, there were many tears (mine) and lots of hugs and promises to keep in touch. His leaving definitely took some sunshine from our home. Saying goodbye, especially since we don't know if we will ever see him again is tough.

We have Yulia until this coming Sunday. I am trying not to think about her leaving. In the meantime, there is so much to do...breathe in...breathe out

9 comments:

Joan said...

No photos of you in a bathing suit?!?!? And I was soooo looking forward to them. :~D

jaded said...

geese, frogs, cicadas, now those are selling points for prescription strength sleep aids.

So, did you get to drive the boat, or were you forced to hold onto the inflatable thingy for dear life.

Madge said...

the camping sounds wonderful -- although we never go camping. the lake is beautiful.

sari said...

I hate noises like that!

I'm sorry your student left, I remember you saying you weren't sure how it was going to go having them with you! I'm so glad it turned out so well for everyone, it's something you won't ever forget.

Marshamlow said...

Now aren't you glad your kids talked you into the exchange students! LOL. Glad you are having such a great summer. Except the goodbye part. :(

Renee Nefe said...

I took my camera with us, but I didn't take any pictures with it.

sounds like a great camping trip! Probably cooler on the lake than we were.

Patti said...

What a beautiful setting for camping.

I'm glad that it worked out so well with the exchange students. Sorry about the sad farewells.
Maybe Elle and Sport will be exchange students next summer ;-D

egan said...

I think we will host a foreign exchange student some day. As for the geese, can you send them across the Pacific?

Lynn said...

Joan - Definitely no photos of me in a bathing suit will ever be posted!

Patches - If we ever go back there, and I hope we will...I will definitely bring ear plugs! The boat held 18 people...but I did get to hold onto the inflatable thingy two times. Boy oh boy was it fun!

Madge - The camping is a lot of work, but it is definitely fun and worth it.

Sari - It was so worth it to have these two students with us...we will surely do it again.

Marshamlow - I am very grateful that I let Elle talk me into the students...and that I was successful in talking my DH into it!

Renee - It was warm during the day and in the evening...fortunately, we had the lake to cool off in. Heard that there were thunderstorms in Yosemite...which was right over the mountain range from us.

Patti - I don't think that the program works both ways. That being said...Elle has now expressed an interest in learning French. We are in the process of trying to find a computer program that we can buy so that she can learn it at home at her own pace, since she has decided to take American Sign Language as her foreign language in school.

Egan - I would definitely recommend hosting foreign exchange students. As for the geese, well I thought they might be Canadian geese...but it's July and they're in California...so either they are very lost...or they are California geese...is there even such a thing? Across the Pacific would be nice...but where?