Day One... the Japan/California Whirlwind Begins...

Wow. Where to begin on our whirlwind week with our Japanese and California families? I guess I'll just give photos and captions, starting with the first day after they arrived, Thursday. We had picked them up from the airport on Wednesday, then drove to Willamina for supper where we met the California contingent, who were driving up that day. Our good friends at the Wildwood Cafe (Cedrus' favorite cafe) fed us well.

I had asked what they wanted to do while in Oregon. Yoko wanted to ride a horse; the kids wanted to milk a goat; and Maki wanted to go to the Tillamook Cheese factory and eat ice cream. We made two out of the three... and a whole lot more...

Thursday was spent on the farm...

Reading one of the books I've made of past Kestrel/Cedrus visits

Yoko, Daishi and one of the twins (help! which one?) with ever faithful Shirley in the garden.

Cedrus, Steve, and stupid me with my camera around my neck pre-dunking in our portion of Agency Creek. Since my camera did not recover from its bath, all photos were taken with Johnny's camera, or Munazza's iPhone.

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The llamas were well fed that week.

The kids fell in love with Shirley and she with them. She has been looking for them ever since they left.

In Johnny's shop, everyone helped prepare a giant fruit salad to go with our turkey dinner.

Kestrel and I preparing grapes for the salad.

Bottle rocket launching

Every day was feed and play with the goats day. Here Hiyori feeds Sweet William and his brother.

Everyone learned to milk a goat.

But it wasn't all fun and games. Munazza's phone caught a photo of nightly homework on the abacus. Daishi, Koharu and Hiyori all go to a private abacus school, as well as public school, because Maki believes it makes more sense to learn math from an abacus when kids are young.

So... Day One saw one goal met: milking a goat. And all the kids found that they could play together just fine without a common language.