Special Olympics-- Go Team Japan!

Weiser was host to Team Japan for the Special Olympics.  We had the wonderful opportunity to have 2 of the team members stay in our home for 4 days.  We were one of the lucky families to get an English speaking coach, which was really a good thing because Azusa would hardly communicate at all.  She did say "tank-ew verie much" a lot however!

Shiho was the figure skating coach (the one in the red)

Azusa Teruya was our athlete.  She played floor hockey. Every time we took pictures she had to do the peace sign.  All of the athletes did! Val Thomason asked her coach what it meant and she looked at Val kinda funny and said "Peace"

This is Shinichi, Takuya and Azusa.  The boys were staying down at the neighbors that live on the corner of our street and they came over to our house to see Azusa.  I think Takuya was putting the move on Azusa.  But she already has a boyfriend on the floor hockey team and was not interested. (she showed us pictures)  But she sure liked the attention!  They were all so much fun to be around.  These 2 boys kept us laughing all through the dinners we ate together.  Shinichi would copy everything we said.  He got pretty good and mimicking English. 

Snipers on the roof of the Idaho Center where the Opening Ceremonies took place.  VP Biden was suppose to show but he bailed.   Hummm I wonder if that is a sign of  things yet to come?

The Olympic Flame!

 That was pretty darn awesome. The flamed moved across 37,000 miles, 5 continents and 8 countries to get to Idaho. It started in Athens, Greece  November 12th and was carried by law enforcement officers from around the world.  It was very moving to see it being carried in by police and then passed on to the Olympians.  

The opening Ceremonies were 4 hours long and every minute of it was wonderful.  The feeling in the Idaho Center was hard to describe.  It was electric as well as humbling.  These people carry such a spirit with them and to have over 5000 gathered together, coupled with the spirit of the Olympics was just amazing.  Needless to say it was hard to keep your composure though most of the program. 

Team Japan is in red and is sitting right under the big screen.  Most of us Weiser people were all sitting together and when team Japan saw us they all started waving their scarfs and yelling "Weiza Weiza" We answers back and waved our scarfs as well, but most of us were crying! 

Steve and I agree that this experience was one of the neatest things we have ever done.  We will never forget the wonderful time we had with not only Shiho and Azusa but will all of team Japan.  The host families will exchange stories for months to come, (One of the boys Gail Boettcher had stay with her kept running through her house naked!  Robert and Nola's boys ate them out of house and home!) but our hearts have been touched forever! 

It's Mom and Daughter time!

This is Mt Si that Paige and I hiked on Friday

The trees looked like they had feathers

At the top of Mt Si

It was a 4 mile hike with switch backs the whole way up. It took us about 2 hours to go up and 1 our to come down. We had a tall skinny man and his fat bull dog pass us on the way up. The man was running up the mountain. His poor fat dog was about 10 feet behind him. Then when we were still climbing up he passed us going down (dog still lagging behind). We got to the top and stayed there awhile, ate and fed birds from our hands, took pictures and relaxed a bit. The top was snowy so we were slipping and sliding down the first part. It was so slick on one part that I just sat on my butt and slid down the hill. I had a wet behind the rest of the day but it was better than having a sore behind if I fell!

On our way down this tall guy passed us again (he was going up again, but he left the bull dog at the bottom this time!) We were about 1 mile from the bottom and once again he passes us! Man it got real humiliating.

Paige had already gone running 5 miles that morning with her friend so she did 13 miles that day.

The next day we got up and Paige, her friend Shannon and I went running again. They ran 5 again and I only went 2. By the end on the day, if we sat to long we could hardly get up. When we went to Lion King that night we were pretty much whining with each step we took. We got the show early and wanted to walk around the theater so we climbed to the very top of the theater. It was beautiful but coming down the stairs was a trick! We each had to cling on to the handrail coming down and we were laughing and wincing with pain with each step!

We had such a good time together!

Lion King was amazing! The costuming and puppetry was incredible. The music was all African (duh) spiritual and chants, it was so powerful! All the cast, but 4, were African and most came straight from South Africa. Rafiki was a woman and she spoke and sang with all the clicks and pops in her language, that was cool. I had no idea that it was going to be so amazing. Even if Broadway shows aren't your thing, with the lighting and staging and all the animals coming down the aisles ( Elephants, hyenas, wilder beasts, birds and dancers) this show is one you should not miss. I think Steve would even stay awake for this show!

Paige and I had a wonderful week-end together. We haven't had a mom/daughter time like that since she got married, so we were overdue for some time together.

Here are the pictures from the Walker Family reunion. 

Enjoy!

Well this is some pictures of G-Pa's big party.  If you would like to see the family pictures that Randi Davies took, go to "randidavies.com" and the pass word is "wal0808"  Hurry and look because they will only be on the web until Sept 5th.  The family bought a disk of the pictures so if you would like copies just let me know!  

Has it been 6 months yet???

Well okay, I guess I will update our blog, but the only thing is that nothing fun or exciting is going on in our life!!! I'm still in McCall doing the map and Steve is in Weiser busy with harvest.  I guess that something is happening in the "onion world"  a bunch a farmers got caught using illegal chemicals again, some of the same ones that got caught last time.  I guess some farmers just aren't to bright!

As for me in the "map world"  Chris Lott and I took off yesterday and went up to the BIG town if Warren to see is the local restaurant/bar/library/gas station/community center wanted to be on the map.  We got there around 10:30 am and there was not a soul in sight.  We went to the Forest Station where an "open" sign was out and it was locked up!  Chris said she felt like she was in a horror movie where all the residences of the town have been abducted by aliens!  It was pretty creepy.  We walked down to the "Winter Inn" and walked in.  There sat "Butch and Margaret" (2 of the 9 town folks....we met 2 more, Lucy and some other guy later in the day... only 5 more people to go and we know the whole town!)  We talked and they smoked.  We ordered one of Margaret's world famous hamburgers (it was pretty good actually) and after we sold them on the map (yeah)  we went up a very steep trail to see the Cemetery.  No joke the hill on some parts were so steep you were on your hands and knees.  I told Chris that this was just a town joke.  They (the 9 residences) would point to the trail on the mountain and tell the tourist that there was an old cemetery just to watch them climb the hill and laugh at them!  I kept saying "There is no way a Cemetery is up here, how do they get the bodies up here in a coffin?"   After 30 minutes of a very steep climb, low and behold there were all these old grave stones.  Some were wood and all the writing was worn off, some were old stone.  There were old wooden fences around the graves.  It was so cool. I wish I had my camera with me.  Then the higher we got, the more recent the dates were.  There was one tombstone that was a bench that the deceased invited you to sit and listen to the birds and to look down on the town that she loved.  She even invited you have a drink with her and there was a bottle blackberry brandy underneath her bench! 

The whole thing was such a trip!  So here is a picture of my latest business that is on the map!

 

My first try at a Video!!!

Well this is my very first Video and maybe my last.  It took about 45 minutes to down load it on to the blog.  If you know of a faster way let me know. Anyway this Video is about Baby Owen and his Gramma's obsession with baby feet!

Time rolls on.....and on and right over the top of you!

So that about catches you up with our last 6 months. Right now we are trying to get all of our landscaping done so we can go to McCall this summer. I will be going to Portland the end of this month to take another dance team on a little trip. We get to spend a night at a museum!!! Cool huh? (hey I'm pretty excited!) Then I'll be home for 3 days then Steve and I will be off on the Family Cruise! (I'm very excited about that one!) Then it will back to good old Weiser and the fiddle week in June then off to McCall for the rest of the summer. So till I post again this fall...........Have a good one!