Counting to 10

Dawson is learning to count to 10. He has got a strong beginning and a strong ending. (We are still working on the numbers in the middle.)

SEATTLE

For Valentines, Justin and I flew to Seattle for the weekend. We left the kids home with Grandma Patty and took off. It was wonderful! We lucked out hitting a weekend with NO RAIN! However, we were FREEZING! (and we didn't rent a car- we walked, took the bus, took the monorail, or got a taxi)


The first thing we did was go to Pike Street Market Place. This was the coolest place with a ton of cool shops. The food was delicious.



I couldn't believe the fresh fruit. It tasted soooo good.




In the afternoon we took the monorail over to the space needle. We were too cheap to spend the $65 to go to the top, so we just checked out all the cool stuff in the gift shop. Justin thought these sunglasses were just too cool. (for some reason they reminded me of Kefford Peterson)

This was Friday night down on the pier. Beautiful.




Saturday morning we took a 3 hr. boat ride on the Victoria Clipper to Victoria, British Columbia. It was a calm beautiful morning.


O Canada!!


Once in Victoria, we walked up to the Craigdarroch Castle. I was in heaven walking through the castle.

Beautiful, but I would hate to clean it.

This is a Steinway grand piano. I sat down and played for a little while. Loved it.

This is what Justin thought of the castle.

Can you find Justin?

We were standing in front of the Parliment Building. The wind was blowing (if you can't tell by my hair) - it was a cold trip, but we loved it.

Taking the Gold

Just to let you all know that our athletes that stayed with us took the GOLD in floor hockey!! We went down and watched them play a game. That is a fun sport to watch!

After warming up, the team mates would circle around Rusian doing a chant then they would all kneel down at the same time and Ruslan would yell out something. I wish I knew what they were saying.

After they game. (Nasrulo)

Rusian after the game. This game was fun to watch because they were playing team USA from Caldwell which is right by us. We had fun cheering for both teams. Kazakhstan won 6-2.

Meet Nasrulo & Rusian

This last week has been crazy! But way worth it. Our Family had the opportunity to host 2 athletes from Kazakhstan. This country is by Russia, so they both spoke Russian. However, out of all the Russian delegation, there was one athlete that could speak a little (and I mean a little) English and we were the lucky family that got to host him!

Our athletes are Rusian (we called him Rus) and Nasrulo (we called him Nas). Rus is 18 yrs. old and was a Unified Player, which means that he had no disabilities. Nas was 16 yrs. old and we are unaware as to what his handicap was. Both athletes are competing in Floor Hockey. Rus had gone to the Nagano Special Olympics 4 years ago and they received the gold medal there.

So what does it mean to host a Special Olympian? This is where the athletes and coaches come in about 5 days prior to the actual games and stay with a family to get a little taste of the culture. So this is what we did....

We took them to the church to play a little b-ball. (This is Justin showing off from the foul line.)

We took them to Lexi and Davis' Elementary to let them visit the school and let the kids ask Rus and Nas questions.

Showing the kids where Kazakhstan is.

We met up with some other families that were hosting Kazakhstan athletes and took them all bowling. They had a great time.

This is Rus wearing a Statue of Liberty hat.

We got Lexi and Davis out of school early so that they could come bowling with us.

This is Brooklyn with her friend Natalie Hope. The Hopes also hosted athletes from Kazakhstan and came bowling.

Nas wanted to try out the piano. Then Lexi performed for him.

On Friday morning we went to BSU with some other host families and were able to watch a 2008 highlight movie and then go out onto the Blue Turf!! The athletes loved this. To them football is our soccer. So this was new and exciting for them.

This is Justin demonstrating how to kick a field goal. Nice Kick!

Nas, Justin, Brooke and Rus on the 50 yard line.

Our friend, Nathan Hope, brought a football and the guys threw some passes to them. (The one holding the ball was actually really good!)

This little sweetie would follow me around and ask to get her picture taken with me. (We took 3 pictures.) I think she was fascinated with my blonde hair. Little does she know that for about $85 she could get the same color!

After their floor hockey practice, we took them to Cabelas.

For our last night with them we gave them a good old fashioned Western BBQ! We showed them how we Americans eat. We had Hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, french fries, tater tots, jello-salads, baked beans, and some delicious ice-cream (that was formed into the shape of an Idaho Potato).

This is Rus trying out the bull-riding.

Channel 2 news came and interviewed Rus (because he was the only one with a little English).

After dinner, we all did some line dancing. It was a lot of fun because everyone got up and danced.

Here we are doing the Macarena.

Nas showing off his dance moves.

Davis even tried out the bull-riding.

We had such a great time hosting these two athletes. If the games ever come to your city, we highly recommend hosting.

This post seriously took me all day!!!!! Is there a faster way to upload pics?