Good-byes

Well, Hohomi and Yua are safely back in Japan.We had a tearful goodbye early Saturday morning at MSU. 

On the way to school, I heard sniffles from the backseat. I thought maybe it was a drippy nose from a cold, but the sniffs got more frequent the closer we got to school. 

Yua was unsuccessfully holding back tears as she stepped out of the car. Hohomi started up shortly after, which set me and G off too. Someone walked around with a box of tissues, handing them out to people. 

It was truly a Minnesota good-bye. A few rounds of hugs, standing around, shuffling a little closer to the bus, another round of hugs... Finally someone gave the cue to get on the bus. G and I walked across the street so we could wave at our girls as they drove away. 

The girls had given us thank you notes Friday night and told us not to read them until they left. We wrote them thank you notes too and hid them in their breakfast bags. It was G's idea to write their parents thank you notes for raising such wonderful daughters, so we slipped those in too. 

We left for a family wedding in Wisconsin directly from MSU, and guess what... I forgot to bring the notes from the girls along, so we still haven't gotten to read them! 

Other fun from the weekend: we stopped at a winery on the way and I got to cross something off my bucket list. Grape stomping. This winery had a few vats of grapes out for people to stomp if they wanted (and basins to wash their feet off afterwards). Even though I was in my wedding finery, I hopped right in! It kind of makes me want to plant some grapevines at our house... 😅

A little girl challenged G's brother to do it, and he couldn't resist her invitation. We survived the stomping with no damage to our fancy duds. 

The wedding was unique with a hog roast for the meal and karaoke instead of a dance. All in all, a very nice day. Although G and I are more than ready for a good night of sleep!

Final Friday

No classes this last Friday of the trip. There was a closing ceremony from 12-2, but that was the only obligation for the day. 

Hohomi really wanted to go to Trade Joe's. We got up bright and early to make that happen. Our first stop was Diamond Dust in St. Peter for breakfast. A number of pastries, a breakfast burrito, and a humongous cinnamon roll fresh from the oven were consumed by our group. That stop took longer than expected, which really cut down on shopping time. 

As per usual, they fell asleep in the car. They weren't pleased this picture exists. 😂

They had about 20 minutes in the store. Still, they got a feel for it and were able to make their purchases: Trader Joe's coffee for Hohomi's sister, "original" snacks (basically items with the Trader Joe name) such as sesame seed cracker bites/chocolate covered peanut butter cups/fruit leather, and reusable bags. 

They were looking for a specific style of bag, one made famous on social media, a white bag with the Trader Joe logo and blue or red straps. It's sold out. It's been sold out since May and won't be restocked until September 18th. Normally these bags are under $4. They sell on Amazon for $14. Google says some of the bags have sold for up to $500. Yikes. Needless to say, the girls settled for alternative styles of bags.

The lunch ceremony was nice. It was on campus and catered. Lots of interesting foods! They had a short slideshow of pictures from families followed by the passing out of completion certificates. They had a Minnesota trivia Kahoot for the students. Yua got 8th place. Hohomi was middle of the pack. Host families were recognized too. We got a nice Minnesota shaped cutting/serving board as a thank you present. It was fun to chat with the other hosts and the program coordinators, sharing experiences. 

We concluded the afternoon with a few garage sale stops, a stop at HyVee to buy individually wrapped candy for Yua's coworkers, and a venture into Curiositea for Hohomi to buy tea for her mom. She got a small package of spearmint (G's favorite) and a small package of peppermint (my favorite). 

The rest of the afternoon they packed and I prepped food for a take-along breakfast and airplane snacks: waffles, fruit, homemade crackers, chickpea puffs, and gingersnaps. 

Supper was Subway, their final request. Subway in Japan doesn't have cheese options. Their sandwiches have meat and veggies. And if there is cheese, it's just one kind. Holy cow is Subway expensive! $11 for a six inch! 

The girls wanted to try a footlong churro. The worker said he didn't recommend it. We asked what he did recommend... basically anything else. 😆 He said it's pretty hard and chewy. Still, the girls were adamant so we ordered one. They said they liked it! They did agree that it was very chewy. 

We concluded our time together with our bedtime teatime tradition. My brother N happened by right when the water heated, so he stuck around. Our three tea options: blood orange rooibos, chamomile lavender, and throat coat. After a while, the girls pulled out their Japanese snacks for N to try. They loved his facial expressions. He said, "They're not bad, just a different flavor than I'm used to." The girls didn't believe him; they were certain he didn't like the snacks. 

Another late night ... Teatime wrapped up at 11. G and I did a few last minute things and finally went to bed after midnight. Short night of sleep too. We needed to drop them off at 6:45am, so another early morning!

Bonfire

Thursday- the second to last night of the girls' time in Minnesota. They were going to go to karaoke with their friends, but had second thoughts when they realized all the song options would be in English. 

On the way home from school, they said they changed their mind. Their other two best friends were still going to go because they didn't have any better plans. G and I came up with one. 

We had planned to do a bonfire their last night, but bumped it up to Thursday and invited their friends to come over too. We cooked hot dogs over the fire, G grilled burgers, and we made s'mores. G is the master s'more maker, so after everyone had made their own, he took orders for seconds. The girls agreed he is a professional s'mores maker. 😜

The fire lasted well into the evening. Misty got to come down to the fire pit area, and the cats (and kittens) joined us to frolic on the lawn. We passed the phone around to play favorite songs until Mei and Kaho's host parent came to pick them up. 

A full and fun evening!

Roosters and Roasters

The day started with our first ever rooster crow at Havenacre Homestead. He did it twice, both very croaky. How often do people witness that?! 😅 Too bad it happened at 5:15am. Too bad it happened on a day I didn't need to get up at 5:30am. Still, pretty special we got to experience our rooster's first crow. 

Today was my home catch-up day, although I didn't spend much time at home... my day involved a lot of driving around with a few hours in between at home to cram my tasks. Tire rotation, chiropractor appointment, home to pick up the girls, dropping them off at school, home again for a few hours, lunch with my sister, home again, packing food for the Backpack Food Program with people from church, home again, then picking up the girls from school. 

My at-home tasks were laundry, figuring out what to do with the last of our goat milk, and canning tomatoes. I am probably going to attempt a wild fermented cottage cheese with the goat milk. Stay tuned for details in a future post. 

I wanted to make marinara sauce with the tomatoes (a gift from someone at church; my garden still isn't producing much). One article I read suggested putting halved tomatoes in a 350 degree oven for five minutes to get the skins to peel super easily. That method didn't work for me. I suspect my oven thermometer is off and it didn't get hot enough right away. Eventually, I gave up and put all the tomatoes in stock pots to boil. After they boiled, I ran them through a strainer and put them in a roaster to reduce. Of course this took all day with my little bits of time, so the roaster reduction will happen overnight. Maybe I can get to the actual canning step tomorrow after school?

On the way home from picking up the girls, we swung by a garage sale, something on the list of things we wanted to do before they leave Saturday. Garage sales are a new concept for them; they don't exist in Japan. The girls were amazed at all the random things for sale. Yua got another Adidas sweatshirt, this one for $3. She debated a  small rolling suitcase for $2 but decided to pass. Hohomi debated a small ceramic Christmas tree shaped dish for $0.50 and also passed. I found the exact high chair I want to buy for Baby H, gently used, complete with straps, a tray liner, and a seat cushion, all for $15! Score! I also got some magnetic cupboard door locks.

We hopped in the car and then noticed another garage sale across the street a few houses down. They wanted to check that one out too. No new purchases for them, although the scrapbooking supplies captured their attention. I got some Lincoln logs to add to our small collection. 

Our supper was tator tot hotdish (another thing on the to-do list before Saturday). Big hit, possibly Hohomi's favorite meal we've had. Yua said this was her second favorite; porcupine meatballs are her first. After supper we had tea and plum pie/ice cream on the deck with G's parents. Mopsy, Raz, and Misty joined us (we let Misty out of the pasture to come onto the deck). They behaved themselves, for the most part. 😜 The cats tried to climb on the table and Misty attempted to snitch some pie.

Mullets and McDonald's

The big buzz in 5-6th grade today was a 6th grade boy's new perm. He's rocking the mullet hairstyle back in style these days, and the 'super cool kids' get the long part permed. Well, the cool part was up for debate. Not sure how many of his classmates actually thought it looked good. Definitely a minority.

There's a different sub coming in to this classroom tomorrow. (I'm taking the day off teaching tomorrow to catch up on things around the house.) I tried to make notes of handy things to know/where to find things to make her day go smoother. I'm teaching again Thursday, so I'll find out how things go! 

For supper tonight, I took the girls to McDonald's (their request) so they could experience it in America. We called ahead to see what the Happy Meal toy is these days: Hello Kitty, eight toy options available. Ironically, Hello Kitty is Yua's favorite. Even her instagram page is Hello Kitty themed!

On the drive, Yua ranked the options from the kind she wanted most to least. Hohomi said she was happy with anything. They also wanted to dine-in to get the full experience.

Obviously, they ordered Happy Meals. One hamburger meal and one chicken nuggets meal so they could split. They were surprised by the side of apples included. In Japan, they pick rice or corn. The girls weren't a fan of the flavor of the apples. The burger and nuggets though, they loved it; they said the taste is the same as Japan. 

When it came time to reveal their Happy Meal toys, they made a big production of it. Hohomi pulled out... the frog! which happened to be the one she wanted most. Yua pulled out... the frog! #8 on her list. She was bummed. I said we could ask about switching after we ate. They said that's not allowed in Japan, so they weren't too optimistic. I wasn't either, but I thought playing the Japanese visitors card might work. 

Earlier in our visit, a young high school worker had cleaned off the table for us before we sat down and as she cleaned I had shared that Hohomi and Yua were visiting from Japan. She'd thought it was the coolest thing ever, so I thought maybe I could tug at her heartstrings a little bit. 

She said normally they only open one box of toys at a time and they might not even have another variety, but she would check with her manager. While we waited, Yua made plans to buy a second meal if she couldn't trade, hoping meal two would have something different. I had to burst her bubble. 

A few minutes later, the worker came back with two different Hello Kitties in her hands! And... one of them was Yua's top choice! Cute the squees of glee from both of my girls. The worker couldn't stop smiling. Yua teared up a little I think. On our way out, I told the worker that she had made our day. She replied, "No, you guys made my day! I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here!" Such a lovely young lady.

The rest of the evening was pretty low key. I did some baking: granola for the girls to take home at the end of the week and a plum pie I meant to bake for G's birthday. We had bedtime tea and pie and ice cream. Good end to the night.

The Last Monday

The girls have their countdown going. Today was the last Monday. 🥺 

I subbed again today, so G dropped them off. I picked them up and we went thrift store shopping at Goodwill. Yua found two sweatshirts and Hohomi bought a denim overall dress. I found it on the rack and thought it looked like her. Yua thought so too, and together we convinced her to buy it. 

We met G at a Mexican restaurant for supper. The girls said it was much better than Taco Bell. 😂

Subbing story: 

On Friday when I gave them their spelling test, I made up a story linking all the spelling words together. They loved it. The 6th graders wanted me to continue the story for their spelling pretest. It's funny how quickly a story can evolve into craziness in just a few words. 

Basically, Jeremiah the cheetah went to his grandma's house to cheer her up because gravity was bringing her down. He ended up becoming her cleaning lady. The 5th graders wanted the story continued, so Jeremiah's cousin (a kitty) named Callie came for a visit in her Corvette and squished his flowers. They replaced the flowers, and a raccoon dug them out of the trash at night. 

Yep. I don't know where that all came from. Even more interesting, the story came up later in the day during science when we learned about food webs! 😂

Stars and Sunflowers

It's kind of amazing what things excite the girls. We drove them home at night after an event on campus and as we crunched down our gravel driveway, they gave loud exclamations of awe from the back seat. I thought they had seen something moving outside, like deer. Nope. It was the stars. 

"Wow! So many!" 

They asked to get out of the car so they could enjoy looking at them a little longer.

This past week's planned fun activities featured a few more campus events than last: 

MSU block party. We arrived on campus to pick them up (at their request) and discovered they weren't on campus. They'd walked to the block of restaurants down the street because they wanted a snack. We had eaten a light supper because the posters advertised free food at the block party. The free food was a cookie. 😒 The girls weren't quite ready when we arrived, so G and I strolled the square and ended up in Insomnia Cookies to sample their wares. Very tasty! Better than Crumble Cookies in our opinion. 

Thursday we had a nice dinner with some dear friends of ours and then the girls went to an MSU volleyball game. They thought the players' excitement and butt tapping was funny, and they reenacted some of that energy for me after they got home. 😆

Friday night we stopped at a thrift store (something Yua wanted to do since she's heard of thrift shops in America). We visited the garden center and then went to bull riding in Arlington. It was G and the girls' first time ever! 

I've been to many bull riding events, and this one was top notch! Great bulls and a lot of 'em, decent announcer/clown, good weather, good atmosphere. There were maybe 30 rides? And of those, probably 5-6 made it all eight seconds. Two got halfway there before being bucked off. A few bulls didn't want to go back in the alley after their ride, which was equally fun to watch the cowboys and clowns work to get them back in.

Saturday morning we dropped them off at MSU to get on a bus with their class to go to the Mall of America. They were super excited about that trip. When they got home, they said they didn't have enough time there. No surprise there! Their favorite stop was the Minnesota store. They are so proud of their MN T-shirts! Not sure where, but Hohomi found earrings that say "HoHo". She got them because they are like her name. 😜

While the girls were at MOA, G and I also drove up to the Cities. Our trip was to celebrate G's godson's birthday. We made it in time to see a parade! LOTS of candy... Perfect to give little bits of American candy to the girls to try. 

They arrived back in Mankato in time for supper. We did a quick leftover meal and brought them back in time for the second half of the MSU football game. We sent them off with lots of blankets and the bags of candy. 

MSU won the game in a last second field goal! After the game, the college showed Inside Out 2 on the field and the girls stayed for that too. Late night!

Sunday was their last day of church. It was Sunday school kickoff, so I ran around doing that before/after the service. G took them home while the rest of us stayed for bible study. They wanted to work on homework, but were so tired they fell asleep and didn't wake up until after 1:00! 

We got them up to watch the second half of the Vikings game. Vikings won! The girls noticed that every sporting event they've gone to in America, their team has won. "Goddesses of Victory!" they call themselves. 😂

After a second nap, we took them to a sunflower field G found out about from someone who had stopped at the garden center. The girls LOVED it, absolutely stunned by the amount of flowers. 

We took many pictures.

The goofy goat farm is only a few miles up the road, so we stopped there too and fed the goats stale tortilla chips. Yua got trapped by a huge goat. 

To end our last Sunday, we took a pontoon ride and had pizza on the boat (graciously hosted by G's aunt and uncle). The girls didn't eat as much as I expected... They said they were getting seasick! Their appetites perked up back on land. We went inside for root beer floats for dessert. Surprisingly, the girls didn't want floats! "Too sweet!" they said. But they did want plain ice cream and chocolate syrup on top. 😉 

A Teacher and a Funeral

I'm doing another short-term sub job for a 5-6th grade teacher in Belle Plaine for two weeks. Their teacher's wife had a baby in August, so he's on paternity leave for the first two weeks of school. Tuesday was the first day. Mr. H wanted to be there for that, so I taught Wednesday through Friday this week. 

It's a jaunt. I need to leave home at 6:30 to get to school in time to set up before students arrive. The first two days have been good. Nothing too strenuous curriculumwise. I started a read-aloud book with them, Faker by Gordon Korman. We did some team building activities this afternoon: building the tallest tower and drawing without seeing the object. They worked pretty well together! 

Sweetest part of the day: a student brought me a dozen eggs, all the colors possible! 

Bitter part of the day: Ilsa died this morning. She made it through the night, but was pretty unresponsive before I left for school. She died sometime when G dropped the girls off at school. He dug a hole in the north pasture for her. We're calling that area Ilsa's Corner. Our herd will definitely be different without her...

Birthday Surprise

It's G's birthday today. 

The girls wanted to get him something for his birthday, but he really doesn't want any material things. He's more of an experienced kind of guy. So, I came up with the idea that the girls should cook a traditional Japanese dish for supper that night. Perfect! 

They decided to make nikujaga, something their families eat often (and the first thing both of them thought of when I asked for ideas). Here's the ingredient list they sent me: 

G really didn't make this surprise easy on us! He kept messing up our plans. The girls and I had made plans to cut up the veggies the day before his birthday, prepping things after school before he got home from work. But G worked from home that day! 

My alternative plan: sneak the ingredients to my in-laws and drop the girls off there after school. Then G volunteered to pick them up from school that day! 🤦‍♀️ Thankfully an errand called him away and I was able to bring the girls to Mama H's house (their name for G's mom since her name is hard for them to say) to secretly cut the vegetables. G thought they were playing foosball. 

Birthday day dawned. G thought his mom was cooking vegetable lasagna for his birthday supper. 

He went to work. I picked up the girls from school, again planning to drop them at Mama H's so they could finish cooking. We arrived home and prepared to go next door... Guess who was upstairs home from work already? 🤦‍♀️🥴

An unexpected phone call distracted him enough for the girls to sneak next door without him noticing. 

And then... disaster. Our boss goat Ilsa has been lethargic and droopy the past few days. We had treated her with natural remedies, but they didn't work this time. G found her on her side in the goat shed paddling her legs unable to get up. I remember that happening when I had sheep growing up... Only one ever recovered from that. Even with those dire memories, we called a vet. He thought it was polioencephalomalacia, which is a vitamin b deficiency. It's treatable, but many times the animal is too far gone by the time you figure out what the disease is. 

We rushed to TSC to buy a b supplement, both injectable and oral. We treated Ilsa at 7:15pm. Her next dose is at 11:15pm, then 3:15am. Basically every four hours until she's had six doses. We'll see what happens. This deficiency causes brain problems, so her chance of recovery depends on how much damage her brain has undergone. I'm not optimistic. 

We did take a break from goat care to eat supper. It was amazing. Hohomi and Yua did a fantastic job cooking everything. Delicious rice, tasty main meal, and Japanese snacks for dessert. 

After supper we went back to the shed. Ilsa was still alive. We sat with her a while. G changed into barn clothes and made himself comfortable next to her. Gerda came and laid down next to her mom. I tried not to cry... 

We'll see if she makes it through the night. 

Essence of MN

The girls have been having a blast so far this past week in Minnesota. They love the animals, they're loving the food, and they love the scenery. 

They have an app that lets them take pictures with the front and back of the camera at the same time. Here are a few from the past week: 

This first one I didn't understand they could take two pictures at once, so I didn't pose well. 😅

Ice cream at Mom and Pops

Bedtime teatime 

Stir fry supper

Double rainbow and supper at Pub 500

Twins game! (They were most excited about this)

Touring New Ulm (Herman the German, Schells, and Turner Hall)

The big yellow candy barn: found many new candies to try themselves and bring home for family souvenirs (and a photo booth for the four of us)

MN Landscape Arboretum (surprisingly no group pictures there, but many individual). And they caught G and me being "so cute!"

Horse races at Canterbury: we got free tickets and enjoyed guessing who would win the race! Yua quickly found a favorite jockey, Eduardo, because he has the same first name as her favorite soccer player. She picked his horse to win every time. 

Whew! What a week. We are tuckered out. 🥱 I think week two will have fewer activities. Then again, you are talking to to Holzhueters... We're the master jam planners. 😂

Day on the Farm

The girls really enjoyed spending the day at my parents' farm. We stopped at a sweet corn stand along the way selling corn for $5/dozen. We shucked it straight into the cattle bunk! 

Before lunch they played with my oldest niece (almost three years old). And by playing, I mean she bossed them around and told them how to play. They had a great time though. Lots of laughing from the three of them.

They said my family all have beautiful faces and are very nice. My youngest brother made the biggest impression... He came to say goodbye (we were picking elderberries) and did a two finger salute as his farewell to them. They thought it was the coolest thing. "No one in Japan does that. So cool!"

We also picked apples at my brother's place. The tree was loaded down! Still, we came up with a creative way to get the apples towards the top... 

They were surprised at how big the farm is. Yua's favorite part was the pigs. Hohomi's favorite was the peacocks. 

The only downside to the day was the bumblebee on a mission. Before lunch, we took my nieces and the girls to see the turkeys. I stood in the doorway with one niece, trying to keep the dog from getting inside. A bumblebee landed on my foot right at the sock line. I figured I'd leave it alone and it would fly off. Next thing I knew, pain in my foot. Then more pain. I think I got three or four stings by the time G was able to swipe it off me. It got my other niece on its way away. 

I've been stung before, so I wasn't worried about allergic reactions. A few hours later however, my foot swelled up. By the time we got home, I could hardly walk. Thankfully, it went down and is now pretty much back to normal. But that was a rough couple of days.