2012- Week 34

1. Monday was my first "at home" day so I decided it might be time to start working on some schooling with Link.  We read a kid's book on gardening and then picked green beans.  Some of the highlights were watching Sesame Street's " Pinball 12" and working on a clock to figure out "O'clock." 

Link is going through a phase where he says he never has fun when you ask him.  So Cheri titled this one "Link and Taryn Not Having Fun."

2. Choreography for the musical all week.  Fun.  I love dancing.  My friend, Cheri, is the choreographer.  Link went to their house on Tuesday to play.

3. Agnes tried out for cheerleading.  I can tell she is getting a little comfortable with us because she practiced her cheers in front of me. 

Look how nice our new roof is!

4. I complained about the sloppiness of our basement and some other little things done in our house, so JP our contractor came to "talk with us."  He basically told us to go to hell in a very nice way.  Oh well, there is a lot of great work he did too.

Agnes will totally realize I read her blog when she sees this photo, but I just love it.

5. Agnes had her first sleep over on Friday.  They went to the host family of Laura, the German Exchange student.  Robin is the same age and a host sister from the area.  Camilla is an exchange student from Denmark.  I think they had a great time. 

Bryce got a iphone for work, so hello well documented life.  S'mores in the rain.

6. We went to a bonfire at Leslie and Adam's house with lots of other friends.  Even though I love that family I am not sure how well our family fits in there, still.  I think Agnes felt the awkwardness.  She is a lot like us and didn't feel like she really fit in with the teens either.  Plus it rained, so we had s'mores under umbrellas.

Sitting on the dock of the bay.

7. On Sunday was a foreign exchange family picnic at Backbone.  It was nice.  We made kumla, which is one of Aggie's favorite dish, a potato dumpling.  I don't think I got it quite right, but she still liked them.

8. We skyped with Agnes' parent on Sunday.  They were very nice.  I think they were sad that she is not homesick at all.  Maybe she will be later.  Although we are trying, we are not providing the structure older parents often do and she might miss that sometime down the road.  We have helped her study some.  Helping a non-native English speaker with vocabulary words is very difficult.   Like I referenced the indomitable snowman for the word indomitable and she said in Norwegian they just call him the terrible snowman.

9. I worked a bit in Prairie this week.  Finishing up my VISTA position and starting my Farm 2 School position.  I had to go get fingerprinted on Tuesday, which meant Monday night was hours of looking through boxes for my ss card.  Bryce was the winner in finding it.

I met Tracy (middle) at the Gay's Mills Fair.  She and her family are from Dubuque.

10. We have a new renter at Whimsy Market.  A Girl's Bling moved in and they look great.  I hope the store proves to go well for them.